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i With main yards backed, the Conrad lies-to offSydney Heads , late in 1935, halfway round the world. .. a work ofart, indeed! Below, at a Brooklyn pier in New York Harbor, December 1934.
"a great thirst for the sea." Although primitive in the extreme she was very ably handlecj with a big lateen sail and beautiful underwater body. Her galley was a fire-pot and Alan lived on fresh caught fish cooked on its ashes , with rice, dates, and ghee. Given Alan's stoicism , she was tough by any standards. "I suffered from malaria and dysentery, and the zarook nearly killed me," Alan recalled . Alan next made a voyage in an Arab dhow, known as a "boom", a sizeable vessel , decked and double ended , of some 150 tons ; lateen rigged with two masts. She traded with dates from Basra round the south of Arabia to Somaliland. Thence, with cargo and passengers, an ancient trade, down the East African coast to Mombasa and Zanzibar. Alan again suffered from malaria and dysentery and for a time was blinded, for which there was no explanation. He survived on unleavened bread , tea , coffee, and fish from the sea. His only comfort for eight months was the 6-foot bench he slept upon. He made extensive notes, photographs , and a movie of this unusual and ancient type of vessel. Alan was even negotiating to buy and thus preserve a Kuwait baggala, a very similar vessel to the boom , just as the 1939-45 war burst upon Europe. Alan hastened back to England , completing his splendid account of sailing with the Arabs, entitled Sons ofSinbad. He was granted a commission in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and after a number of routine assignments-instructing in coastal forces and minesweeping in the English Channel-Alan was appointed to Combined Operations and had a distinguished career in landing operations. As a squadron commander he picked up a new type oflanding craft , LCI (L) , and helped ferry them across the North Atlantic to England, a hazardous undertaking since the U-boats could easily have disposed of them with impunity.* These ungainlylooking but extremely functional vessels served valiantly in the Mediterranean and Normandy landings . After these European beachheads were secured, the LCI were ordered to southeast Asia , sailing from Plymouth to Bombay in 35 days. Alan next saw service in the Rangoon landings and helped open Singapore, prior to further operations in Java and Sumatra, Indo-China and Siam. With the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific these Lend-Lease landing craft were returned to the US Navy base in Subic Bay in the Philippines. Over the previous three years these hard-worked little ships had seen much service and had steamed some 50,000 miles, greatly contributing to hard-won Allied victory. During the war Alan had met and married " Wren" Lieutenant Nancie Wills. He was demobilized late in 1946 and settled with his young family in the lovely Cotswold hills just outside Oxford. During the postwar years he travelled extensively and continued writing. Some of his finest work dates from these later years of his life. The War with Cape Horn is possibly the finest study of the whole windship era and is a happy combination of the practical and academic. Alan had little patience for the purely academic approach. He took an active interest in the training of youth making passages in a number of schoolships. One vessel which particularly interested him (about which little was known till she suddenly appeared in New York in 1948) was the Portuguese naval training bark Sag res, formerly the big German Rickmer Rickmers of 1896, in which Alan made an Atlantic passage in the 1950s. His earlier plans for studying surviving local sailing craft in remote parts of the world were never fully realized. He did accompany the Portugese Grand Bankers-31 schooners and one barkentine on the 1950 cod fishing season to the Davis Strait, producing an excellent book and fascinating film. Alan later went to Ceylon seeking an Indian Ocean brig in which to sail , but regrettably, when *He explained that the U-boats stayed away because of the odd looks of the landing-ramp gear, thinking it some form of anti-submarine equipment. He may have been right about this'-Eo.
SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984
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