The Long Voyage Home

His boyhood on a little island sheep station off the coast of New Zealand gave Adrian Hayter a lingering dislike for the sights and sounds and smells of ranching, and a long-lingering love for the sea. All through his later career as a British army officer in India and Malaya, he nourished a youthful dream that someday he would sail home in his own boat. When he re tired in England seven years ago, Major Hayter, then 34, put all his savings into a sturdy nine-ton yawl, Sheila 11, took a course in deep-sea navigation and got ready for the long voyage home.

Three Reefs. In August of 1950, Major Hayter weighed anchor at Lymington and beat his way by easy stages eastward across the Mediterranean, past Suez and down to Aden. He was in no hurry, and he was happy to pick up some spare change by ferrying Moslems across the Red Sea. In India he spent six months working ashore and saving money. Then he sailed on, past Singapore and Surabaya.

He was flat broke when he got to Australia, and the longest leg, 1,200 miles across the Tasman Sea, was still ahead. Once more Major Hayter went to work. He put in two varied years laboring as a longshoreman, crawfishing, even drew pay as a hired hand on an outback farm before his bank balance was equal to re-equipping Sheila111. In mid-March he stood south again until he hit the Roaring Forties, off the southwest tip of the continent. There he simply "put in three reefs and set course east."

Measure of Need. At its best, the Tasman Sea is no pleasant cruising ground for yachtsmen. Crossing in autumn, Hayter ran into foul weather, saw only two days of sunshine in eleven weeks. In rough going, when he would normally have ridden out the blow hove to, he slogged ahead. He was running short of rations, had nothing but wet clothes and knew he was pitting his strength against time. He never spotted another ship. When he finally made a landfall on New Zealand's west coast near Karamea, he hoisted distress signals but no one saw them. A fortnight ago he finally found himself off Westport harbor; in desperation he prepared to tackle its rough entrance bar as soon as he had light to see.

On a cold winter's morning he made his run. Sheila 11 slogged willingly into vast combers. "It was simply terrifying," Hayter says. "She must have gone through surf at tremendous speed, and I don't know how far. I knew if I could not hold her straight I could not get her through. It was a measure of my need to get in that I tried it at all."

Safe in Westport's lagoon, Major Hayter now plans to settle down at last and record his adventures in a book. As he talked of his voyage, the onetime staff officer allowed himself to boast only of his efficient staff work. A long five years and nine months out of England, he had miscalculated only once: when he ran out of food on the last two days of the last lap across the Tasman Sea.

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