Memories Of

'Idle Hour'

Dwight Long Now Interested in Filming Polynesia

AN interesting letter (distinguished by the well-remembered indecipherable caligraphy!) is to hand from Dwight Long, the young American who, between 1935 and 1938, sailed his 32 ft ketch ‘‘ldle Hour” around the world. He sailed from Seattle across to Auckland, calling at innumerable South Pacific ports; thence to Sydney, Papua, East Indies, Colombo, Suez Canal, Gibraltar, London and Eng lish ports, Spain, and thence across the Atlantic to New York. He was arrested in Spain by Franco’s minions, who then were sitting on top of the world.

On September 21, 1938, Mr. Long was in a New York studio, broadcasting a description of how he had escaped the clutches of a hurricane in the Pacific, when his ‘‘ldle Hour” was torn from her moorings in Long Island Sound by the worst gale known there since 1815, and was wrecked. She had carried him safely over 35,000 miles.

In the next two years, he salvaged and repaired the ‘‘ldle Hour” and sailed her to Hawaii, where he filmed a reproduction of the early part of his 1935-38 voyage, as he had not had a movie camera at the beginning. The film, and a book that he wrote, brought substantial royalties.

After Pearl Harbour, he spent four years in the United States Navy, mostly as a photographer; and after the war he joined up with a film company called Argosy Pictures Corporation. ‘‘Argosy have plans for a production to be shot in the South Pacific in Techni colour” says Mr. Long, writing on Nov ember 26. ‘‘lnadequate air transportation represents a major problem, as Techni colour Monopac film has to be processed immediately after being exposed, or the humidity of the tropics will ruin the film.

“James Norman Hall (of Tahiti) was in the office the other day for a story con ference. He does not look six months older than when I saw him ten years ago in Tahiti.” It was through Hall that Long engaged Timi Tefaaora, his “faithful Tahitian,” who was his shipmate until he died in Colombo.