HEROES: Pitkin on Ice

Winter was tightening its screws on the Hudson Valley when the ship Experimenter hastily cleared from Newburgh, N. Y., before the Hudson should become ice-locked. Aboard, with a crew of two, was her owner, Professor Walter B. Pitkin, author (Life Begins at 40), lecturer, a man of many ideas, some of them large.

Largest to date was the Experimenter, a craft in which house carpenters as well as boat builders had collaborated. Her four keels were laid on the principle of a catamaran. On her two lofty basketwork masts, which looked like Eiffel Towers, the resourceful professor planned to rig square sails which would unfurl, furl at the touch of a button. The freeze-up in the valley had made him rush his plans, and under bare baskets the Experimenter buzzed off among the gathering ice-cakes, pushed by her twin Diesel engines. It was New Year’s Eve.

The Caribbean was her ultimate destination. A few hours out of Newburgh, ice was beginning to elbow his yacht alarmingly, suddenly cut a gash in her planking. In rushed the water. There was nothing to do but abandon ship and take to the rowboat. Mournfully the professor watched his dream of ten years, his $100,000 yacht on which he had no insurance, flop top-heavily on its side. Next thing he and his two shipmates noticed was that the builders had neglected to put seats and oarlocks in the rowboat. They drifted helplessly away with the current. The rowboat leaked. The three men bailed, shouted for help, signaled with a flashlight. They drifted close under the walls of Sing Sing prison, but no one saw them.

Fields of ice now surrounded them; the boat was filling rapidly. Out they all jumped onto the ice. The rowboat bobbed away.

They sat on the ice cake, drifting downstream. Luckily, someone had thought to bring a few sandwiches.

About 3 a.m. a tug sighted them, and they were rescued.

Next day in Manhattan, when he learned that the Experimenter would never take him to the Caribbean, Professor Pitkin caught a plane to Florida. From there irrepressible Professor Pitkin wired friends in Manhattan:

“FLORIDA HAS CHANCE OF A LIFETIME AND KNOWS IT. AMERICA FACES SOUTH FOR NEXT FIFTY YEARS AND THE CARIBBEAN MUST BECOME AMERICAN LAKE. FLORIDA SITS ON THE FRONT STEPS OF TOMORROW’S BIG BUSINESS. THAT IS WHY I AM HERE. . . .”