Historic Voyage commences in November
QCYC Member Bill Ethell will skipper the Golden Rule in a trans-Pacific voyage recreating the first ever anti-nuclear ocean peace protest.
The 34’ ketch Golden Rule was the first ever boat to initiate an ocean protest against nuclear testing in the Pacific. In 1958, a crew of anti-nuclear weapons activists set sail aboard her in an attempt to interpose themselves and the boat between the US Government and its atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Having faced several difficulties en route, the crew were eventually arrested, tried, and jailed in Honolulu. But, far from being defeated, their example helped to ignite a storm of world-wide public outrage against nuclear weapons that resulted in the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, and which has continued down to the present in the many organizations still working to abolish weapons of mass destruction.
Completely rebuilt after almost being wrecked in a storm in Humboldt Bay, California, in November the Golden Rule will once more set sail on a trans-Pacific voyage, partially recreating the original internationally famous protest of the 1950’s.
QCYC member Bill Ethell will be the skipper on the first leg of this historic voyage taking the boat from Los Angeles to Hawaii. Another member of the crew will be NSW carpenter Ian Gaillard who sailed with Bill in the early 1980’s when they were rammed and dis-masted by the French navy off Frances nuclear test site at remote Mururoa Atoll 700 nautical miles South East of Tahiti.
The story of the Golden Rule and details of the current voyage can be viewed at vfpgoldenrule.org.
Last Modified on 12/10/2018 08:07