FIFTY years ago a Barrow shipyard worker took four days off the record for a single-handed Atlantic crossing from the Canary Island.

The record breaker was draughtsman Bernard Rhodes, of Fell Foot, Newby Bridge, with his home-built trimaran Klis.

He covered the 3,000 miles from Las Palmas in the Canaries to Bridgetown, Barbados, in 19 days and 22 hours.

Mr Rhodes gave up his job to make a trip around the world in his 22ft fibre-glass vessel.

An article in the Evening Mail on February 9 in 1967 noted: “His family and friends have waited for three nerve-racking weeks for news of his progress for Bernard’s little boat carried no radio transmitted.”

His mother Stella said: “We are wonderfully thrilled about it.

“I knew he would get there but to have done it in this time is amazing.

“We had no illusions about the danger but we had every confidence in him.”

In a letter to his mother the record-breaker described parts of the voyage and how the start of the trip left him pondering the enormity of his task.

He wrote: “At first I was rather depressed and lonely, bored by the sheer size of the ocean and wondering how things would go.”

The Atlantic crossing was just one leg of his round-the-world voyage.

In November 1966 he had faced force nine gales crossing the Bay of Biscay and had to take down his sail and accept the battering of the wind and waves for 24 hours.

He had left Roa Island on October1.

The trip came to an end in April 1970 when Mr Rhodes had passed the half-way stage but decided to return for home as an assistant steward on a passenger liner.

His parents were due to retire and he intended helping them to build a bungalow at Field Broughton.

The trimaran was left in New Zealand.