From Rum-Runner To

Mission Ship

EARLY last. August the 52 ft schooner yacht Colleen dropped anchor in Papeete Harbour, after a

voyage from the Pacific Coast via Honolulu.

She was skippered by Pastor W.

G. Ferris, well-known Seventh Day Adventist Islands missionary, and had come to join the South Sea

ranks of the mission’s 20-odd vesse which operate south of the Line.

The Colleen, now running i French Oceania waters, has an ii teresting history.

Originally she was laid down fc a Scandinavian of Toledo, Oregoi who planned sailing around th world. However, his wife died bt fore the yacht was completed and h sold her to a rum-runner, wh operated the vessel out of San Lui Obispo as mother-ship to a fleet c smaller craft. Eventually, the vess( was blown from her moorings in

The Yacht Colleen.

:orm and seized by the US Coast uard.

After she was owned by some Los jigeles boat-builders, who converted er into a live-bait fishing vessel, le was purchased by Dr. Lyndon E. aylor, Los Angeles physician and irgeon, in 1935. Dr. Taylor com letely remodelled her as a yacht. He died her Colleen, and used her on le California Coast until 1948, when e decided to give her to the South jas mission.

Colleen was completely recondi oned and altered to carry cargo and issengers; and on June 10, 1951, le sailed from Los Angeles for ahiti, under Pastor Ferris. The aylors said goodbye to the ship in onolulu and their places aboard ere taken by Charles Edwards, of onga, and Johnny Volau, of Fiji, » assist on the final leg to Tahiti.