ADVENTURE OF 1958 RECALLED: There are many true stories of human endeavour and conquered challenges which never come to light to the wider public in later years and others that do purely by chance.

Thanks to a letter from a Tenerife News reader (P.F.N. Baron of El Médano) we are able to recount a wonderful adventure of 1958 which left its mark on ballooning history and created a link forever with our island.

Cuttings from a recent Daily Mail told us about a transatlantic voyage in a hydrogen balloon attempted from Tenerife by Rosemary and Colin Mudie of Lymington and Arnold “Bushy” Eiloart and his son Tim, both now deceased. A question in the paper asked “Does anyone remember this?” and a few weeks later, Rosemary and Colin replied, saying “Yes we do because it was us!”

 

The Tenerife News had great pleasure in speaking directly to Mr. and Mrs. Mudie about their adventure all those years ago, how they took off in December 1958 from El Médano beach, ditched in the Atlantic four days later and then spent the next 20 days sailing in a tiny boat to Barbados. Their journey remains a first in hydrogen ballooning and Tenerife left a lasting impression on Rosemary and Colin. More than half a century later, here is just a taste of their fantasic journey.

 

 

Talking to Rosemary and Colin Mudie in a telephone call from Tenerife to Lymington, the first thing that strikes you is how down-to-earth they are, if you pardon the pun, about their record attempt all those years ago.

When their balloon had to ditch in the Atlantic, dropping from the sky by the second, Colin seriously sprained his ankle. It was 20 days before he could receive medical treatment but had it been painful and a total inconvenience?  I asked “Well, not really, it was all strapped up,” he replied. “It was one of those things. I just had to sit there and take it.”

 

He also makes me laugh when he tells me they didn’t take traditional sand bags to throw out of the balloon as ballast.  They packed food instead. What, he says, was the point of having sand bags left in the gondola if they were not needed? Better to have food you could eat! Well, you can see the point.

Rosemary is equally pragmatic. This, she told me, was no off-the-cuff jaunt in a balloon. All four were very accomplished seafarers and adopted a very practical approach “to see if it could be done” ie. crossing the Atlantic, east to west, in a balloon.

In truth, their journey is still hailed as one of the most courageous and “ahead of its time” endeavours and has been described as a true inspiration to all.

 

The attempt took two years to plan following a conversation at a dinner party and every detail was worked out to a tee. Rosemary was the official photographer but couldn’t get pictures as they ditched. Everyone was too busy playing their part in the drill, she says. Yet more evidence of the practical approach which was adopted.

 

Ballooning in those days was not at all common in the UK (it was before the times of helium) and creating one to undertake a transatlantic voyage of 3,000 miles was a huge challenge in itself. Bushy already had a pilot’s licence but faced quite a task to get a balloon licence (he had to go to Holland to train). Colin, who became a distinguished naval architect and yacht designer, had to come up with a design which could cope with all the elements. It also had to incorporate a gondola which could become a boat if the balloon had to ditch into the sea. It needed to be strong and sturdy and able to withstand an impact created by a rapid drop.

 

After much hard work and tests, “The Small World” was born. Rosemary recalls that when they first made a quarter size model, they launched the boat off Putney Bridge to see if it would work (which it did!). That design was later to save their lives.

Tenerife and El Médano beach was chosen as the best launch site which did, of course, create quite a stir in the locality. 

Rosemary and Colin had sailed past the island before several times en route to the West Indies but it was Bushy who selected Tenerife as the best location.

 

Rosemary and Colin sailed from Southampton to Santa Cruz with all the equipment, including the heavy hydrogen tanks and four lorry loads of kit, on board a banana boat from Fyffes. Colin remembers Tenerife as being “very pleasant and rather grand” and still has a very prized possession, an inscribed bugle presented to them by the local scouts. Colin says he had remarked that they had nothing to sound the alarm with, hence the gift.

Colin remembers everyone on Tenerife as being so helpful and Rosemary says they were even given tomatoes to add to their provisions. Car owners would put their headlights on to illuminate the scene and would gather around the balloon in a big circle rather than crowd them. They were in Tenerife for about a week before take-off eventually happened at midnight on December 12th, 1958 when conditions were judged to be just right.

 

Ironically, it was a completely wrong weather forecast which led to the balloon ditching in the Atlantic after flying 1,200 miles 

and 94.5 hours. Meteorologists said there was absolutely no chance of a cumulonimbus storm occurring where it did and although they were not struck by lightning, they were caught up in turbulence and were going up too high. With fears that they would not have enough hydrogen to get back down, the decision was taken to ditch into the sea.

“Bushy got us down impeccably,” Rosemary recalls.

 

As they came down, they had to unhook the balloon or face getting dragged across the sea and it was then that the gondola became a boat, powered only by sails. Up in the air, Bushy had been in command but on the ocean, Colin became the captain.

They spent 20 days at sea, with enough food but rationing water, and arrived in Barbados on January 5th, 1959 where they were hailed as heroes. A journalist and friend who met them there said they looked as though they had just been released from a concentration camp. You can see from comments on the internet that there are still people in Bridgetown, Barbados who remember their arrival (and does anyone remember it here in Tenerife?)

 

In his own recollections of the journey, Tim Eiloart later told his son, Ian (who repeats the story on his blog) that they had cracked open a can of condensed milk to celebrate his birthday whilst sailing to Barbados.

It wasn’t until 20 years later that the Americans made the first successful transatlantic balloon voyage from Maine in the USA to France in 137 hours.

 

However, in their attempt, Colin and Rosemary, Bushy and Tim notched up several gas balloon records, including four days over the Atlantic, which remains unbroken for a hydrogen balloon.

 

Colin and Rosemary went on to have many other adventures, though on the ocean rather than in the sky. Although they have sailed to the Canary Islands, they have not been back to Tenerife but their son, Max, a well-known photographer, has a picture of El Médano beach showing the exact spot where they took off. 

 

Their story has been told in a book and is also immortalised in the pages of the National Geographic archives, as well as in their memories. When I ask how long they have been married, both say “Oh, a long time, years and years, we can’t remember!” but they recall every detail of their extraordinary journey. Tenerife turns up some amazing stories and this is one of them.

Colin also designed the tall ship Lord Nelson which takes mixed ability sailors and, by coincidence, is in the Canary Islands now and has wintered here since 1991.