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THE BOSTON GLOBE-SATURDAY, AUGUST— .GREAT WESTERN REACHES THE ENGLISHSHORE.Howard Blackburn SailedHis Four-Ton Cutter from GloucesterJune 18—She is 30 Feet Long Over All.THE GREAT WESTERN AND HER INTREPID SKIPPER.BRISTOL, Eng, Aug 18-The four-tonAmerican cutter Great Western, from Gloucester, Mass, June 18, entered the Bristol channel yesterday, and her solitary occupant, Howard Blackburn of Gloucester, reported all well. He landed at Portes head.AN INTREPID FISHERMAN.Blackburn’s Feat Is Wonderful in Viewof His Disabilities.Howard Blackburn, the Intrepid fisherman, sailed out of Gloucester harbor on the afternoon of June 18 in the presence of 10,000 persons. Ills boat Is 4.77 tons, 30 feet over all, 20 feet on the water line, 8 feet 6 inches beam and 4 feet 4 inches deep. He had no companion, not even acat or a dog.A fact that makes Mr Blackburn's feat the more wonderful is that he has neither fingers or toes. They were so badly frozen while he and a dorymate,Thomas Welch, -were astray from theirvessel on Georges bank in January, 1883, that only stub« remain.Both men were adrift five days andnights in bitterly cold weather, andsuffered intensely. Welch died from theexposure. Blackburn's hands froze tothe oars of the dory, but he kept on rowing and succeeded in reaching the N ew faund 1 a n d coas t.Blackburn is of an adventurous disposition. He was the first to organize a Klondike expedition to sail around the Horn to the Yukon, which voyage ho successfully accomplished as far as Beattie in the schooner Hattie I. Phillips, returning, however, without visiting thegold fields, because of a difference of opinion among the members of the crew.The objective point of the Great Western is Gloucester, Eng. Mr Blackburn carries a letter of introduction to the mayor of that city. He will visit several other places and finally proceed across the channel to France and attend the Paris exposition. He expects to be absent about two years.Blackburn expected to make the trip in 45 days. Ho did it in 61. He wasspoken a number of times by vessels onthe voyage. _Capt Andrews Returns.Capt W. A. Andrew's, the intrepid lone navigator, who left Atlantic Cityon June 18 in a little craft named The Doree, barely 12 feet in length, in an attempt to cross the Atlantic, arrived here yesterday on the steamship Cepha-lonia.The attempt nearly cost the hardy skipper his life, as had he not been rescued by the British steamer Holbein, which found him in an exhausted condition, on July 12, some 700 miles off the Irish coast, he “would undoubtedly have perished.When Capt Sherlock of the Holbein sighted the little boat wdth her sole occupant, the captain was delirious and completely exhausted. His water supply had been ruined through the seas washing over the frail craft, and for days before the rescue was effected he was thirsting for fresh water.(’apt Andrews was taken on board the Holbein and his boat set adrift. He was landed at Liverpool, where he embarked on the Cephafonia.
Newspaper Details
Boston Daily Globe
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Sat, Aug 19, 1899
Page 18
Full Page
Clipped by
Boston P.
NA, USA 23 Jun 2023
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