PEOPLE

The Boat hpk
capacity was 700. bter the four of them went to lunch at a dilapi.
dated seafood restaurant about fifteen minutes' drive from the
wharf. Tay introduced one of the Vietnamese to Ross as 'the man
who is giving permission to people to leave Vietnam',
The following day, b September, guided by the same pilot and
now flying the Vietnamese flmg, the Southern Cwss steamed slowly
for about two hours to a point Ross assumed must have bccn close
to the entrance of the Seigon River, aa they could see mangrove
swamps from their anchorage. A fishing trawler, with uniformed
and a& soldiers on board, remained close by overnight,
At abut eight in the morning their cargo appeared, Ross said:
We paw three fishing aawler~ [each about twelve meties long] approaching
from a bend in the river. They were packed with mcn, women and children, ,:
The @awle*l were followed by a stcfl harge, also packed with people. I as ,:
nvo armed solditn on cach craf~. On reaching the South Cmss here WIB ,I
a mad scramble to get on board. No one was hurt, but tht whole operation
took abut an hour. Then the mwlers and the barge left with the soldiers. ,'
Ross saw two men he took to be Vietnamese civilians carny four sad
from one of the trawlm to the cspmin'ii wheclhouw on the Southem
Cross, Later, when the ship was r~fely at sea, Tay told Ross the sacb
contained gold. In his cabin he displayed some of the haul to Ross,
who described it as 'bundled gold leaf - a helluva lot'. Tay said the
agreed price for the passage was two taels of gold (about $600) for
an adult and one tael(S300) for a child. Tay also said the passenpaid
the Vietnamese government between six and eight taels cach
to leave the country. Afrer loading, the Soufhm Cross, still flying
the Vietnam flag, turned around and nosed bmck towards the open
sea with the pilot guiding and his launch following. They saw w-
era1 ptrol boats but were not challenged. After two hours the pilot
left them and the freighter sailed south towards Indonesia.
Several days later, at a point nor far from Singapore just west d
Bintan Island, the Southern Cmss prepared for a secret, late-night
rendezvous. A yacht was waiting for rhem: the signal was a flashing
light. The gold was transfend to the yacht in two brief cases carried
by Tay and Ross. Ahlquist was on the yacht to mm
them. The thm
men were all on the trim white craft when it rerurned to its usud
anchorage at the PonggoI Poinr hare1 on the eastern arm of the
I
Johore Straits. 'No one tried to stop us, We were just another yacht ,
coming back from a pleasure cruise,' Ross said with a smile.
bter, at the Seng Bee Shipping office, the crew of the Southern
Cross was paid off, Ross said the ordinary seamen received $1370
-$1820, He, the Indonesian captain and the Singapure radio operator
were each given $4650 by Ahlquist and a bonus of ten raels of gold
(S3000) by Tay Kheng Hong. Seng Bee Shipping's share was 700
mels ($2 10 000).
On 15 Oaober 1978, a down-at-heel tramp steamer called the Hai
fioy ('sea breeze' in Chinese) left its home pon, Singapore, with
an Indonesian skipper, a crew of fiftecn Indonesians, and nvo Singaporean
passengers. The ship was an old tub of 1600 tonnes, built
in 1948 to carry gcncral wrgo. She was 75 metres long and 12 metres
wide and her single, eight-cylinder diceel engine pushed her along
at a speed :*t: about nine knots - when ir was working properly.
The Hdi Hung was supposed to be on her last voyage. She had
heen sdd, ir was thought, to a Hong Kong buyer for scrap.The
hrukcr in the purchase deal had approached the Panammnian consulutc-general
in Singapore to have the ship put on the Panamanian
rcgisttr for one month from 9 Octohr so that she would be registcred
for the duration of the voyage to Hong Kong,
On 31 October, the Hai How appeared out of the blue in
Tarempa harbour in Indonesia's Anambas Islands. On 1 November
Lhe captain radid the UNHCR in Kuala Lumpur tu say that he had
more than 2500 rcfugees from southern Vietnam on board and
wanted UNHCR assistance. But the ship was ordered to leave Indoncsian
waters, and she sailed from Tarempa on 6 November. The
Singaporc navy made sure she did nor try to enter Singapore. Emrly
on 9 November, claiming to be crippled with engine trouble, she
slipped into the outer harbour of Port Klang, Malaysia's main commercial
shipping centre. Thcre she stayed, des'pitc the best Efforts
of Malaysian authorities to get rid of her.
After talking to the captain and five of the passengers, the Malaysian
police issucd a rtaremmt, The captain had claimed, it said,
that the freighter, having developed enginc trouble on the w~y to
Iiong Kong, had been boarded by refugees while anchured in the