Yachtsmen

Round the World Yachtsmen Call in on Suva

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva, May 5

MR. FRANCIS AGNEW, a young Cali fornian who had been working at the United States Navy installa tions at the Canal Zone during the war, and owner-skipper of the 27 ft. yacht “Alone” left Suva for Auckland on the afternoon of May 2.

More than a year ago, the “Alone” set out from Panama on the sea-track so well worn in the years between the two world wars Galapagos, Marquesas, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Pago Pago, Apia, Suva and westward to Torres Strait for the Indian Ocean crossing.

This time, however, there is a variation and the “Alone” will make her liesurely way to New Zealand from Suva, later crossing the Tasman to Sydney before heading north to Torres.

The “Alone” spent the hurricane season at Suva and, with her owner, became an honorary member of the Yacht Club. On the eve of the “Alone’s” departure, the club gave a farewell party, at which the guests included the men aboard the Danish yacht “Nordkapparen”, now at Suva in the course of a Copenhagen-to- Copenhagen world cruise.

When the “Alone” sailed for Auckland late in the afternoon of May 2, the Suva yacht “Siren” dipped her ensign in fare well and the yachts ‘Levuka” and “Boomerang” accompanied the departing visitor well outside the reef.

A Fiji youth, Trevor Bish, son of Mr. and Mrs. L. A. Bish, of Lami, near Suva, sailed in the “Alone” in place of Mr.

Joe Wulf, the Samoan sailor who came with Mr. Agnew from Apia, and became so entangled in passport technicalities in Suva that he returned to Samoa.

The yacht “Nordkapparen” flies the burgee of the Royal Danish Yacht Club.

She is a beautiful 52-footer and has been ten months on the voyage from Copen hagen. Aboard are Captain Carl Neilson and Messrs. Knud Larsen Paul Larsen and Jack Rolley.