Tiny Ketch
p. 36 · Read in the full issue
Around the World in a Tiny Ketch Dwight Long Arrives at Sydney in “Idle Hour”
COMPLETING the first stage of a world cruise, the ketch Idle Hour, in which a 23-year-old American university student, Dwight Long, of Seattle, has travelled 13,000 miles, arrived in Sydney on March 19.
In this sturdy 32-ft. craft, Long and a companion set out from Seattle 18 months ago. After calling at the Hawaiian Islands, Long’s shipmate had to return to U.S.A., from Samoa, and at Bora Bora Island, Timi, a young Tahitian native, joined the vessel. Via a number of the smaller islands in French Oceania they reached Pago Pago (American Samoa), and then sailed out across the Pacific for New Zea land.
Running into a hurricane two days after leaving Pago Pago, the vessel snapped the mainmast 20ft. from the deck. Auckland was made after 25 days’ sailing under jury rig.
The ketch was refitted at Auckland for the journey to Sydney, and a new mast was erected. Two New Zealanders, Ivan Palmer, a journalist, aged 25, and Len Campbell, aged 21, joined the crew; the latter left the Idle Hour at Sydney, but Palmer will continue the cruise indefinitely.
On the second section of the voyage the tiny craft will leave Sydney in mid-April for the Barrier Reef, Thursday Island, Papua, and the Dutch East Indies, before setting out for England, via Suez. The final stage of the world cruise will be across the Atlantic to New York, and back to Seattle by way of Panama.