Harvard-Bound Ketch Reported Safe After Rough Tropical Storm

Thomas R. Davis, on his way to the School of Public Health by sailboat from New Zealand, yesterday was reported safe by Coast Guardsmen after his 48 foot ketch "Miru" bucked a blistering tropical storm.

Attempts by the CRIMSON last night to reach him via radio were unsuccessful, but the Coast Guard said his ship had reached Cape Charles, Va., safely.

Davis, whose hobby is Polynesian anthropology, decided to sail from his home in New Zealand to Pern and test a thesis: That the route the raft "Kon-tiki" took from Peru to the Polynesian Islands was actually a two-way thoroughfare.

Davis reached the Peru coastline after 68 days out of Wellington, New Zealand, and at registration-time, be sailed through the Panama Canal and began the last leg of his 10,000 mile journey to Boston.

Wednesday, a radio operator at Daytona Beach, Fla., reported to the Coast Guard that the "Miru" had hit a heavy term off Cape Hattoras, Va. This was the last word heard until yesterday, when the Coast Guard discovered the ketch off Cape Charles.

The Boston office of the Coast Guard said it presumed Davis would arrive in Boston sometime within the next two weeks.