Dick Brown On

World Tour

Success Story

Of A

Cook Islander

LAST February a Cook Islander and his wife sailed from Auck land on a voyage that will wobably take them round the vorld—to Sydney, Jakarta, Singa >ore, Colombo, Port Said, Genoa, flonte Carlo, Rome, Venice, Switzer and, Germany, France, England or the Coronation —then back to he South Seas via Panama in their wn ship.

The Cook Islanders are Mr. and Irs. Dick Brown, of Rarotonga, and heir present voyage represents a emarkable success story.

Dick, is the son of a Scot who eserted his ship to marry a maid f Mangaia Island, and was one f a large family. He is now 60. ff powerful build, he was a great nd popular sportsman in the Cook slands in his youth. From his ither’s trade store on Mangaia he ravitated to the capital, and went ) work with A. B. Donald & Co., f Rarotonga. His subsequent suc 3ss may be attributed to his drink ig a good deal less orange-beer lan the average Cook Islander. He >on had his own little trade store, ■om which he made a modest liv ig.

Although denied the opportunity f a good education himself, Dick iw to it that one of his brothers -Alex, later to die as a Sergeant i the RNZAF in a raid over Ger tany—was educated in New Zea ,nd.

Dick’s rise in the business world ime with the arrival of the Ameri in Forces to the South Pacific in r orld War 11. A small advertise ent in PIM led to an enormous irio trade with American PX ores in all parts of the Pacific, ick, from his Rarotonga head larters, arranged the markets and te shipping—and the women on ie outer isles did the work. The •ofits were good for all concerned and especially for Dick.

IHEN, with the Americans dis . persed and the rich harvest ended, Dick had another vision in which he was encouraged by e people of the Northern Group, hy not get in on the rich MOP ade?

But that meant a ship of his own. ; this time, the 90-ft. schooner ihitienne, built for a rum-runner 10 died before he could use her, id later acquired by the former axwell & Co., of Tahiti, lay derelict Auckland’s Rotten Row r .

She was everything a ship ouldn’t be. She was rotten, they id, and would founder as soon as e hit the open sea. She had a ncrete keel. “One touch on a reef d it will crumble to pieces—and

over she’ll go,” the experts opined.

“Those chain-plates’ll pull clean out of her sides as soon as she smells a breeze”, the waterfront ex perts decided.

But through it all—p ayi n g through the nose to the smart busi ness men of Auckland who knew a good chance and lack of tough business experience when they saw it—Dick got his ship away. She did not get there the first time— nor even the second —but she did on the third attempt, with as green a crew in their respective positions as ever put to sea.

And when she arrived at Raro tonga—after a moderately fast passage, the ship and Dick were feted as never a ship had been be fore. William S. Bond has told the story of her christening in these pages, and in Where the Trade Winds Blow.

Then, in the few years of her short life, she was in plenty of trouble. Through lack of experi enced engineers she was ever stop ping at sea; or, if there was no breeze, or too contrary a one, she would be out of fresh water or food. How she survived for as long as she did is a mystery. Islands style, she never had a permanent crew. On arriving off an island, the work-passage crew would fade ashore, to be replaced, more or less, by another party of volunteers, often dead drunk, for the next leg of the voyage.

But Dick was an Islander, and most of the people liked him and wanted to see him succeed—so the cargoes of shell from Manihiki and Penrhyn came his way, and the price was good. A volunteer crew might not lead to discipline or the wise operation of a ship—but it certainly led to low costs. So the cargoes flowed south six and seven hundred miles to Rarotonga— thence on to New York by other means.

HAPPILY, the Tahitienne eventu ally met her fate in harboui within yards of where she had been feted so royally by every village on the island a year or two before. She parted her moorings in the precarious Avarua passage.

Some say that the cloud of dry rot dust that shot up when she hit the reef could be seen away down on Dick’s home island of Mangaia. There is no doubt she was due to go, and it couldn’t have happened in a safer place.

There were some who thought that this was the end of the enter prise—but they did not know Dick.

Very soon, he brought another vessel, just as ancient, and without

sails, from New Zealand. Karoro’s life, too, was short and interesting.

Her remains sit to day on Aitutaki reef —but she paid for herself, and more.

Next came the Fairmile Mahu rangi—still in operation, though the cause of plenty of nautical ex citement in the Group. No one knows how Dick’s ships really make money—but the New Zealand In come Tax Department knows that they do.

Dick made no secret of the fact,, when he passed through Auckland recently—on the way to Europe to look for another and a bigger and a better ship, that he was milked of five figures when he came within the orbit of taxation.

If ever a man deserved success he is Dick Brown. Whenever things are at their worst—with his ship of-the-moment spouting water at every seam, or her motor in its last agony—Dick is laughing as loudly as his crew. Where a Euro pean would have given up years ago, Dick takes trouble in his stride.

His appearance in the Cook Islands shipping business un doubtedly has done a great deal towards the stimulation of tfce mother-of-pearl trade in the Northern Group. With more ships and keener competition, the Mani hiki people are working as never before, and the shell they produce is bringing a rich harvest to the Cook Islands—and to New Zea land’s dollar earnings.

The people of the Cooks hope that Dick Brown will enjoy his pre sent, well earned jaunt into the outer world, find another ship that might do as much for the fruit in dustry as his others have done for the shell trade, and bring her safely back to Rarotonga. Few doubt that, before he gets her there, she will create plenty of news en route.