Unique Wedding at Sea

“Yankee” Repatriates

Pitcairners

AN American pleasure-yacht, the “Yankee,” gave some remarkably good service to the islanders in the far eastern Pacific recently.

The “Yankee” is a 92-foot schooner with a small Diesel auxiliary. She was built in Holland for the pilot service in the North Sea and Captain Irving Johnson, of Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A., bought her last summer in England, from the man who had acquired her directly from the Dutch Government when steam ers replaced the schooners in the pilot service. He sailed her back to the United States during the summer and, on No vember 5, 1933, left the home port, Glou cester, Massachusetts, to start on a world cruise. There is a ship’s company (all crew—though the only professional is the cook) of sixteen members.

The ship called first at the Galapagos Islands and then headed for Pitcairn.

“We had a most interesting visit at Pit cairn,” says one of the company in a let ter to the “Pacific Islands Monthly,”

“and the people were very kind and hos pitable.

“When they first saw the ‘Yankee’ they thought she must be a schooner from Manga Reva, bringing back seven of the islanders who had been stranded there with no way of getting home since the wreck of the ‘Pro Patria,’ of Tahiti, on Temoe, in September. When they found we were not the ship they had hoped, they were very disappointed, but when they heard we were going to Manga Reva they begged us to return with their miss ing relatives. We said we were very sorry that our plans didn’t allow us to do that, and we sailed off for Manga Reva, “The first people we saw there were the seven Pitcairn Islanders and they, too, hoped this was a schooner to take them home. We explained again that we couldn’t do that.

“But gradually we began to realize their unfortunate position; and Governor Ton don of Manga Reva, bore out their state ment that it might be two or three years before they would be able to get a schooner to take them home. We had the finest impression of Pitcairn and were glad to show our gratitude and the ex perience appealed to us, so when Captain Johnson put it up to the ship’s company we agreed unanimously on repatriating the Pitcairn Islanders.

“The ‘Yankee’ did not have any extra bunks, but the men agreed to make them selves comfortable where they could and

the one woman, Bernice Young, did get a bunk.

“An eighth person came along, however, Ruau Tahow, a young Manga Revan girl, whom Sterling Warren, from Pitcairn, was going to marry. The governor on Manga Reva had not been able to marry them because Sterling’s birth certificate was missing, but both parents gave their consent and Captain Johnson married them at sea on February 12, the morning of the day we reached Pitcairn.

“It was the most interesting wedding any of us had ever attended. The ship’s doctor, Dr. Rufus Southworth, of Cincin nati, Ohio, gave the bride away. The service was held on deck, in the sunshine, and everyone was dressed up for the occa sion. Skelly Young, of Pitcairn, trans lated for the bride, as she spoke only Manga Revan and Tahitian.

“Then we served wedding cake and lime juice on deck. The cake was a fruit cake from home that had been saved carefully for some special occasion, and we felt this was certainly it, way off in the Pacific, for the wedding of a descendant of the “Bounty” mutineers and a young Manga Revan girl.

“The ‘Yankee’ found a wonderful wel come at Pitcairn and departed with most generous gifts, particularly of the island’s delicious fruit. But our reward was the feeling that we had played a real part, though a small one, in the life of the islands in taking home the people from the ‘Pro Patria’ wreck, and in marrying one of them.”