Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

'Sometimes I thought we'd never get there,' said Virginia Downsborough. 'Every few miles he would
insist on stopping because there was dust in the air conditioner. He would get into such a rage that
on occasions I thought he was going to tear the car apart.'
In April 1967, the Avon River steamed into the harbour at Las Palmas after a voyage from Hull
which the skipper, Captain John Jones, later described as the 'strangest trip of my life'. Apart from
the chief engineer, Jones was the only professional seaman on board. 'My crew were sixteen men
and four women Scientologists who wouldn't know a trawler from a tramcar,' he told a reporter from
the Daily Mirror on his return to England.
Captain Jones should perhaps have foreseen the difficulties when he signed on for the voyage and
was informed that he would be expected to run the ship according to the rules of The Org Book, a
sailing manual written by the founder of the Church of Scientology and therefore considered by
Scientologists to be infallible gospel. 'I was instructed not to use any electrical equipment, apart
from lights, radio and direction finder. We had radar and other advanced equipment which I was not
allowed to use. I was told it was all in The Org Book, which was to be obeyed without question.'
Following the advice in this esteemed manual, the Avon River bumped the dock in Hull as she was
getting under way and had barely left the Humber estuary before the Scientologist navigator, using
the navigational system advocated by Hubbard, confessed that he was lost. 'I stuck to my watch
and sextant,' said Captain Jones, 'so at least I knew where we were.'
As the old trawler laboured into the wind-flecked waters of the English Channel, a disagreement
arose between the senior Scientologist on board and the Captain about who was in command. By
the time the Avon River put into Falmouth to re-fuel, both the Captain and the chief engineer were
threatening to pack their bags and leave the ship. Frantic telephone calls to East Grinstead
eventually led to the protesting Scientologist being ordered to return to Saint Hill and the smoothing
of Captain Jones's ruffled feathers. The rest of the trip passed off without incident, although the two
seamen remained utterly mystified by their crew and in particular by the hours they spent fiddling
with their E-meters.[6]
At Las Palmas, the Avon River was hauled up on the slips recently vacated by the Enchanter and
prepared for a major re-fit. A working party of bright-eyed sea project members had already arrived
in the Canaries, among them Amos Jessup, a philosophy major from Connecticut. The son of a
senior editor on Life magazine, Jessup had gone to Saint Hill in 1966, while he was studying in
Oxford, to try and get his young brother out of Scientology and instead had become converted
himself. 'I was soon convinced', he said, 'that instead of being some dangerous cult it was an
important advance in philosophy.
'I was clear by the spring of '67 and when I heard that LRH was looking for personnel for a
communications vessel I immediately volunteered and was sent to Las Palmas. We were all given
a "shore story" so that no one would know that we were Scientologists; we were told to say that we
were working for the Hubbard Explorational Company on archaeological research.
'On the day we arrived, the Avon River was being hauled up on the slips. She looked like what she
was - an old, worn-out, oil-soaked, rust-flaked steam trawler. Our job was to give her a complete
overhaul. We sand-blasted her from stem to stern, painted her, put bunks in what had been the
rope locker, converted the liver oil boiling room into additional accommodation, put decks in the
cargo holds to make space for offices. LRH designed a number of improvements - a larger rudder
and a system of lifts to hoist small boats aboard.'[7]