IN STOLEN YACHT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 364, 27 October 1932, Page 6

IN STOLEN YACHT

ADVENTURES ON TRIP FROM ENGLAND TO HOLLAND. ARRESTED AT DESTINATION. Two men who sailed from Whitstable to Holland without a compass, who sp'ent fifteen days in a Dutch prison, described their adventures in statements read at Canterbury County Police Court. The men were Johannes De Wit, 44, a South African seaman, and Edgar Lake, 32, a miner and a native of Plymouth. They were charged with being concerned together in stealing the yacht Lapwing, valued at £100, the property of Ernest Arthur Russell, of Seasalter. Whitstahle.

In his statement De Wit told how in company with Lake, he boarded the Lapwing and went to slesp. In the morning the boat was afloat, and he slipped the moorings and set sail. They sighted the Dutch coast two days later, and ran ash'ore. They were given food by a Dutch farmer, and put to sea again, and lost sight of the coast until the following Tuesday morning. "There was a gale blowing and a fearful sea running. A Dutch steamer came to our assistance. Then we crossed the bar, where I let go the anchor. I was exhausted with cold and hunger, and could go no further. They took us to the Mayor, who gave us food and he arrested us for having no passporfs. "We were in prison fifteen days, and when the uovernor came in and said: "The ,prison door is open. You can go where you like.' We walked down the town and were arrested and taken to the police station the next morn-

ing. They took us to Rosendaal by train and hand'ad us over to the police station. They kept us till eight o'clock, and two police on cycles marched us along a big main road for five miles, and then to a small post, and said: 'Look, Belgium! Get out, if you come back we shoot you.' We walked all right and arrived at Antwerp at twelve o'clock the next day. We told the C'onsul-General, who put us up at the Sailors' Home and sent us back to England. The reason why he took the yacht was that he was a seaman, and could not get a ship in England. He thought h'e might get a ship in Holland. Lake, in evidence, said that once they were afloat he was an unwilling partner in the adventure, and the case against him was dismissed. A long list of previoufc convictions against D'e Wit included one of three years. for robbery-under-arms in New South Wales. He was sentenced to six months' hard labour.