BOLD ADVENTURERS. Ten Thousand Miles at Sea in an Open Boat.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 215, 13 August 1887, Page 5

BOLD ADVENTURERS. Ten Thousand Miles at Sea in an Open Boat.

*£&&^Homeward Bound lay &t rest in Dover haibour ( after her ten mouths' tossings in i\ro» .oceans, a weather-worn . cockle-shell, se*««tftined and barnacle-covered. It was Sunday, and the little boat yf»s hung with etißQeoers of bunting, their bright colours contrasting oddly with the ,woe-begone appearance of the hull. The day was brilliantly tine, and there w,as a constant stream of visitors to see the Homeward Boundaafier her adventitious voyage. The captain \w;as at home, and he 'hailed to me to come n s,bpard, which I did with some difficulty, > fpr the Homeward Bound is not an ordinary craft, but cunvas-eovQKed and crank &p a bjt of cork. The orow.,consists of Captain Itfdlson, his brother, ,auf\.a blacksmith, one Olsen., who, a couple kOf .years ago, were wot king together at. a ilVttle settlement in the Orange Free State. .The captain, who had ktten at sea for maaij* a previously, had a shore, blacksmith **'Ufyi\ a few hortet, and a bit .of land; and his t brother and Olsen weuein his emploj natut. They had often diseiusaed the question wither it was possible for, an open boa.t to weather the towerkig' winter waves nod Aho Cape of Good Hope,' - and trade not taaing o\ er prosperous, they j determined to try their luck. They had ' their boat to build,, \whioh was not an easy , matter, 250 miles ijnland, without prope i xuateiials and tools <ko work Avith, and some j «of the difficulties the jnen overcame remind tone of Robinsons' Cta^oe's attempt to make iH boat out of a tree. JJpr instance, the bent <yrood necessary for tUf of the 3uill had to be sawed oojLof squared timber, AP operation which necessarily delayed the "Buork. This is only one .instance. Howeupr, after a time the litsv- boat was ready to ibe put on the ox- waggon, it 3 length ha\sng, indeed, been regailated by the length of the conveyaiiac, and from Uitzk&hock she was carried over the Drakspsberg, nearly G,OOO fe?c above the eea Je\el, down to the sea at jj&urban. By the tiato she was titttd out k;Xi had cost between L2OO and L3U>. Before giving a few details of one of the most adventurous voyages that v?&v<i ever undertaken, by men, I may describe the arrangements of the Homeward Bound, She is twenty feet long, has a beam of four feet six inches, and sU'&ws four and a-half feet of water. She is four and thre^ -quarter tons burden, and her rigging consists of a mainmast, with gaff ana boom, carrying mainsail and gaff topsail, with two jibs, or one foresail and one jib. After the trip from Port Natal to Table Bay, a topmast was added, and the captain made other sails — a square sail for running, a square topsail for hne weather, and in fine winds stnnsails were put on both sides. Lumps of granite and sand bags were used for ballast, and 7 20-gallon casks of fresh water weie stowed away below the main deck, each barrel being filled with salt water as the fresh water was finished. It must be understood that the boat is an open boat, in the sense that it is little more than a shell, covered over with a thin canvas deck, well oile-1, and divided into two airtight compartments — a small one aft for stowing the provisions, spare sails, and other material, separated by a v. ell, five feet wide by two feet six inches deep, by two feet six inches long, from the larger portion forward. This was used ns a cabin and general store room, and a very extraordinary little hole it is to be the home of three big men for ten months. It is entered from the well, which I have described, through a small sliding door, through vihieh I crawled with great difficulty. This is what I saw : To begin with, the height Is about two feet four inches, fo that jfc \i} impossible iv ? ifc U P' ant * tnere is only room for two of the crew vvi J ie down > the third man being at the helm. Some blankets, rotten with salt and water, covered the floor, and coats, oilskins, trousers, boots, and shirts were piled up on either side. The cabin is lighted up by a little window about one foot long and six inches wide. The compass is inside, the man at the helm being able to see the needle from above. A little aneroid barometer is nailed urj close to the lamp. The other dunnage was a curious mixture of odds and ends Bnch as sextant, a little mahogany sea-chest, strings of candles, bread-bags, rusty scissors, knives, forks, and spoons stuck into the beams overhead, billies and pannikins, fishing-lines, log-glass, fog-horn, charts, and many articles too numerous to mention. Imagine this stuffy little hole in the tropics, with the sun overhead, and not a breath of wind ; or in a hurricane with great seas beating down on the canvas overhead and driving the frail craft almost out of sight by their weight. In the hot weather the deck was kept cool by buckets of water, but in bad weather the door was generally kept open, and so well did she ride the gales that only about half a dozen times was it found necessary to shut the doorway. If the well filled, as it sometimes did, the man at the helm gave it a jerk and let as much water out as possible, and then all hands turned to and baled. The men have suffered much from want of exercise, for the well was their only exercise ground ; and I have given the dimensions of that already. The galley stood here, a little parafine stove in which everything was cooked. They had ample supplies of tea, coffee, a few bottles of rum for medicinal purposes, sugar, biscuit, flour, and an infinite variety of tinned meats, vegetables, and potatoes, running Bhort sometimes, but getting fresh supplies at one of the four ports at which they touched. It was intensely interesting to hear Capt. Nelson's account of the trip. He is a Norwegian who speaks very good English, is a passed merchant captain who has been weathering storms for twenty years in every part of the globe, who has fought in the Zulu war, and holds a certificate from Baker, of Baker's Horse, for hia services during the Basutowar.Withsuchafinefellowforskipper it is not surprising the Homeward Bound reached British waters after her desperate voyage. The captain had taken out his papers from a moist portmanteau on board, but we adjourned to his lodgings and examined its contents at leasure,for the crowd was a little curious, and the cabin was not exactly the place for an interview. Every bit of paper was endowed with a romantic halo. There were all manner of mysterious packets done up in scraps of old newspapers, certificates, mail papers, notebooks, and photographs. But the log book was the most interesting item in the collection, for Captain Nelson has had a careful training, and his log book has been kept in the most minute manner. In this voyage the crew was divided into two watches, the captain taking the first four hours, the other two taking the next four, and so on. , They suffered much from want of sleep, the longest spell being three days and three nights. It is remarkable that they shipped a rat on board somewhere, and only got rid of him after a long chase, driving him clean overboard. In the tropics a huge f-hark followed them for a week, which was a little uncomfortable, but it sheered off eventually. Captain Nelson was put to some queer shifts during his voyage. He had no chronometer, and it was often difficult to take the sun, owing to the lowness of the boat in the water, so that many of his courses were steered by

dead reckoning alone, but the constant handling of the boat had reduced the uncertainties of the log to a minimum. St. Helena, which is but a spot on the ocean, was hit ; bo, too, was St. Michael, in the Western Islands, and Dover after a while. After leaving the Azores the log-line was lost, and then the eye alone measured the distances run, but still he hit the Isle of Wight. The little boat was in a sad plight more than once, the whole deck being submerged over and over again.—'* Jfall Mall Gazette."