Get A way

One That Didn’t Get A way

Dropping bottles overboard with messages corked up inside them, is a favourite sport of seafarers. But not many messages ever seem to get any where. However, we have had reports of two this month. One is mentioned in the shipping section, this issue; the other is reported by our Noumea correspondent.

He says that a young New ra'pdonian, M. Yvon Begauda, was fishing at Bai N’Go, about 25 miles from Noumea, on November 25, when he found a bottle with a note inside.

The note was somewhat the worse for wear —water had leaked into the bottle —but was decipherable. It said: “This bottle was thrown from the yacht ‘Kochab’ en route to Brisbane from Auckland. Long. 166. Lat. 30.

Crew David Beard, Phil Davies. Owner John Evans. Dated 6/5/58.”

The bottle apparently went over side when the yacht was somewhere west of Norfolk Island. It possibly had been on that New Caledonia beach some time—it was high up on sand. It was, of course, just a thousand-to-one chance that it would ever be found.

The 54-ft. UK yawl “Kochab ’ is owned by Dr. John Franklen-Evans and is well known along the usual Pacific cruising route and to PIM readers.

We have not heard of the yacht since July, when it finished second in the Sydney-Noumea race.

Anyhow, wherever “Kochab is, mis is telling her that her message got there. If the crew want the note back as a souvenir, we have it here in Sydney.