A VENTURESOME TRIP.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 218, 13 March 1912, Page 8

A VENTURESOME TRIP.

IN A T-HIRTEEN-TOX YACHT.

By Telegraph--Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. Professor Scott's thirteen-ton (Thames measurement) yacht Yvonne arrived at Lyttelton on Sunday from Port Chalmers, which port she left on March 3. Heavy weather was experience after leaving Oamaru on the 6th. By 4 a.m. next day the patent log and plotting showed the vessel must be close to Jack's Point light (near Timaru), and j during a momentary break in the fog the light was seen a quarter of a mile distant. The yacht anchored, with her topsails still up, in a calm sea in the vicinity of the reefs, and remained enshrouded in the fog till 9 a.m., when a light breeze took her into Timaru, where she arrived at 11 o'clock. It took the yacht 25 hours to complete the run from Oamaru to Timaru, which on previous occasions she did in eight. The vessel left Timaru at 11.30 on the 9th, and experienced a very violent south-easterly gale, which sprung up at 2 a.m. on Sunday last, and which was accompanied by thunder, lightning and hail. She was headed 'Off shore, but the wind suddenly veered to the southward, before which the yacht ran well. On several occasions during the run up the coast she logged t nine knots per hour. Although the decks were constantly awash during; the trip, | no heavy water came on board, and heavy seas found their way into the cockpit only on three occasions, whilst] everything below was perfectly dry.! When passing through the worst of the sea, shortly .before reaching Banks Peninsula, oil was used with great effect, the crew stating that what had been angry and dangerous-looking seas- were quickly reduced to a character that gave them no anxiety. This heavy weather run concluded a cruise which was remarkable in that a topsail was carried' for nearly the whole of the voyage from Sumner to Dunedin and back as far as Timaru, and illustrates that a small yacht, well found and well handled 1 , is practically, safe, and is even comfortable under all ordinary weather conditions.