BEN CARLIN & HALF SAFE
Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and India to Calcutta.
Here Ben contracted Dengue Fever and
Elinore had stomach flu. They were broke
again. Andre Deutsch, publisher of Ben’s first
book Half Safe – Across the Atlantic by Jeep
in 1955, suggested a trip to Australia for a
book tour and sent Ben expense money. They
sailed aboard the M S Carpentaria via Madras
and Colombo and arrived in Fremantle on
October 9, 1955. While in Perth Ben, Elinore
and Half Safe visited his old school. They
then drove to Kalgoorlie and put Half Safe on
the train to Pt Pirie in South Australia. From
there it was on to Melbourne and Sydney.
The Australian tour was a disaster; signed
copies of the book never reached the store
and reviews were poor.
On 13 December 1955, Half Safe was put
on to MS Chakdina leaving for Calcutta and
arrived in January 1956. Elinore had finally
had enough of Ben and Half Safe and sailed
for London and then on to New York.
A young Australian yachtsman named Barry
Hanley accompanied Ben from Rangoon,
Burma and through to Vietnam. Ben suffered
some of the worst roads in Burma. From
Rangoon they travelled through Thailand,
and across the South China Sea to Hong
Kong and onto Japan. It was here that
Barry left and returned to Australia. Ben
tried to raise money for the next leg of the
trip. In April 1957 the Standard Vacuum
Oil Company agreed to fuel Half Safe for
the North Pacific crossing for an 18 day
promotional tour of Japan. Here he was
joined by Boyd De Mente, an American
magazine editor who had been living in
Japan for several years. They left Japan for
the Aleutians on June 12, 1957.
Five days out there were problems with the
fue [