From 1932 to 1939 Oskar Speck paddled and sailed a small folding canvas kayak (folbot) more than 50,000 kilometres from Ulm on the Danube River in Germany to Saibai Island in the Torres Strait. SONNENSCHIEN, his two-seater kayak, was converted into a one-seater to make space for provisions.
From 1939 to 1943 Speck was interned under the Enemy Aliens Act at the Tatura Internment Camps in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley. A fellow German internee made this model for him out of copper as a reminder of his confiscated kayak. The maker has misspelt the kayak’s name SUNNSCHIEN.
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