NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: A navigation story
From: Philip Ouvry
Date: 2004 Jan 27, 01:56 +0100
From: Philip Ouvry
Date: 2004 Jan 27, 01:56 +0100
..and another story. In March 1976, during the course of a yacht delivery, I was in Las Palmas in Gran Canaria. Standing one afternoon on the quayside I observed a Fisher 31 enter the harbour flying a Canadian ensign. I hailed the lone occupant welcoming him to Las Palmas. The yacht came alongside the quay, with no fenders or lines, and the lone occupant jumped ashore, came up to me, put his arms around me and burst into tears.... Reggie Evans was a lumberman in British Columbia. Having accumulated some cash he set off for the London Boat Show and bought the Fisher 31. The first time he had ever been to sea in a yacht was the test sail in Southampton Water. The second time was to set sail for Vancouver via the Panama Canal. His intended initial landfall was Cape Hatteras. After some three weeks against headwinds he did not know where he was and appeared to be making little progress so he turned southwards for Morocco. About this time a sudden gust of wind blew most of his charts overboard. A further three weeks passed before he saw land ahead. Closing the land he saw a fishing boat and followed it into harbour.......Las Palmas. For a week Reggie followed me everywhere insisting that I taught him the rudiments of celestial navigation. I concentrated on noon sights and latitude by Polaris. I set sail for Barbados and Reggie followed for the same destination a short while later. Two days after our arrival in Carlisle Bay Reggie arrived, this time leaping into the sea and swimming across to us with his yacht unattended in the middle of the bay. .... Some six months later I received a card from Reggie. He transited the Panama Canal successfully but about 1000 miles west of Clipperton Island he ran into a hurricane. His yacht was swamped and sank; but at the vital moment a Japanese fishing boat appeared and rescued him. He was saving money to go to Hong Kong to buy a junk in order to sail to Vancouver from there! Happy navigating! Philip Ouvry