God dag, earth

Hei, god dag,

History Foundling #2. 



05.12.2025



On my third day in the Auroville archives, as I was leafing through the World Union journals, I came across an interesting yet almost forgotten exchange between an anti-nuclear sailing voyage and an Indian ashram. In 1977, Judy Ferris writes about how the Fri Peace Odyssey came into contact with the Aurobindo Ashram!



The Fri Peace Odyssey was a flotilla that sailed for three years tens of thousands of kilometers to spread the message of peace and protest the French Government’s nuclear weapons test site at Moruroa Atoll. The mother ship in the flotilla was a ship called “Fri”. This ship had an adventurous life before being part of the flotilla. You can read all about it here: web.archive.org/web/20070… Originally it was a Baltic trader that had sailed until 1968 with coal, cement, and ceramic drainpipes, until it went with beer and whiskey to be part of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, which rejected it, and it instead supplied Native Americans who occupied Alcatraz to focus on their land rights with water and supplies.



In 1973, David Moodie and Emma Young agreed that Fri would be the mother ship of the flotilla to protest French nuclear weapon testing, especially in Moruora. Judy Ferris writes that it had a crew of thirteen young people from the U.S., New Zealand, India, Japan, Germany, Canada, and Switzerland, and that they got notice of the flotilla in the Aurobindo Ashram, as it had boarded in Madras (present-day Chennai). The World Union International Centers and its headquarters in Pondicherry had reached out with an invitation to come to Pondicherry, but the winds did not allow this anymore. Instead the ship sent two of its crew members by bus to Pondy. At breakfast in the dining room of the Aurobindo Ashram she talked with two of the crew members who had recently joined the voyage in Indonesia. They shared positive experiences they had had with the Indian Navy, who repainted their boat, and Russians in the Soviet Union, who were surprised Westerners wanted peace and provided them with provisions and major repairs.



Then on the next morning Fri actually sailed into Pondicherry! They had tried with their harbour engine, but suddenly a northern wind carried them to Pondicherry. The crew members joined in on a “Cercle de Pondicherry” hosted by the World Union organisation. The Aurobindo Ashram provided them with books by Sri Aurobindo, meals at the Dining Room, and their tired bodies with homeopathic treatment by its doctors. A tree for peace was planted at Utilité (and later in the botanical gardens). Some crew members worked a few days in Auroville, and some Aurovilians went on board when the ship sailed off again to Sri Lanka.

Judy finishes her account with the following sentence: “It is the sea that is one unbroken mass touching most all the countries of the earth, and Fri, sailing from point to point on that sea, weaves one more invisible thread to draw men closer together.



I’ll still edit this post if I can find a picture of the peace tree at Utilité or the botanical gardens and/or more information in the Auroville archives on this exchange!

Hei, god dag,

History Foundling #2. 



05.12.2025



On my third day in the Auroville archives, as I was leafing through the World Union journals, I came across an interesting yet almost forgotten exchange between an anti-nuclear sailing voyage and an Indian ashram. In 1977, Judy Ferris writes about how the Fri Peace Odyssey came into contact with the Aurobindo Ashram!



The Fri Peace Odyssey was a flotilla that sailed for three years tens of thousands of kilometers to spread the message of peace and protest the French Government’s nuclear weapons test site at Moruroa Atoll. The mother ship in the flotilla was a ship called “Fri”. This ship had an adventurous life before being part of the flotilla. You can read all about it here: web.archive.org/web/20070… Originally it was a Baltic trader that had sailed until 1968 with coal, cement, and ceramic drainpipes, until it went with beer and whiskey to be part of the San Francisco Maritime Museum, which rejected it, and it instead supplied Native Americans who occupied Alcatraz to focus on their land rights with water and supplies.



In 1973, David Moodie and Emma Young agreed that Fri would be the mother ship of the flotilla to protest French nuclear weapon testing, especially in Moruora. Judy Ferris writes that it had a crew of thirteen young people from the U.S., New Zealand, India, Japan, Germany, Canada, and Switzerland, and that they got notice of the flotilla in the Aurobindo Ashram, as it had boarded in Madras (present-day Chennai). The World Union International Centers and its headquarters in Pondicherry had reached out with an invitation to come to Pondicherry, but the winds did not allow this anymore. Instead the ship sent two of its crew members by bus to Pondy. At breakfast in the dining room of the Aurobindo Ashram she talked with two of the crew members who had recently joined the voyage in Indonesia. They shared positive experiences they had had with the Indian Navy, who repainted their boat, and Russians in the Soviet Union, who were surprised Westerners wanted peace and provided them with provisions and major repairs.



Then on the next morning Fri actually sailed into Pondicherry! They had tried with their harbour engine, but suddenly a northern wind carried them to Pondicherry. The crew members joined in on a “Cercle de Pondicherry” hosted by the World Union organisation. The Aurobindo Ashram provided them with books by Sri Aurobindo, meals at the Dining Room, and their tired bodies with homeopathic treatment by its doctors. A tree for peace was planted at Utilité (and later in the botanical gardens). Some crew members worked a few days in Auroville, and some Aurovilians went on board when the ship sailed off again to Sri Lanka.

Judy finishes her account with the following sentence: “It is the sea that is one unbroken mass touching most all the countries of the earth, and Fri, sailing from point to point on that sea, weaves one more invisible thread to draw men closer together."



I’ll still edit this post if I can find a picture of the peace tree at Utilité or the botanical gardens and/or more information in the Auroville archives on this exchange!