Mallships Of The Pacific

Items From Bsip

HAPTAIN N. W. Macdonald come v/ ashore from the BSIP’s flag ship Kurimarau on arrival in iiva in mid-Ma T '. He will be on iave in New Zealand and Australia catil September. His place was Iken by Captain E. G. Lindstrom, no recently returned from Sweden jid a period in NZ. lOn Captain Macdonald’s return, aptain Lindstrom will probably go the Nareau for some months, >en to Kia Kia to relieve Skipper Schultz, who will proceed to Z to sit for his Mate’s ticket. la Kia was en route to Honiara ;)m the Gilberts for engine repairs, mid-May.

Advice from Solomons indicates iat all BSIP and Gilbert and lice Is. vessels will in future refit, Honiara, instead of at Suva. A nail slip is to be provided, capable

of handling most of such vessels.

Facilities there are in charge of Mr. Moescoepps. Mr, E. D. Horton, WPHC’s shipping superintendent, shifted headquarters from Suva to Honiara in May—last Government department to go to the new head quarters.

By the same sailing from Suva went six 23-foot wooden lighters built by Millers Ltd. to serve the Honiara roadstead port. Others will follow later. These well-built (and reasonably-priced) double ender flat-bottomed lighters were built in record time, due to the loss of the Tulagi wharf, demolished by Eskbank in March, causing all cargo handling to be done by lighterage.

Luxury Yacht Elpetal

Probably by far the largest and most luxuriously appointed private yacht to cruise the South Pacific

since World War 11, Mr. Norman B, Woolworth’s twin screw 1,080-ton, 13-knot motor yacht Elpetal, made a quick run through Polynesia in April-May.

Elpetal was commanded by Cap tain Edward Fluhr, a former US Navy commander, who saw service in the Fiji area and elsewhere dur ing the late war. He had a crew of

Elpetal, Mr. Norman B. Woolworth’s 1079ton motor yacht at present cruising the eastern Pacific.

37, including three deck officers, four engineers. The vessel left Miami on April 15 for Panama. Calls were made in the Marquesas, Papeete, Rarotonga, Nukualofa.

Suva, Apia, thence to Honolulu, Los Angeles and home to the Atlantic.

Mr. Wool worth —owner of the chain stores—and his wife were accompanied by Miss Pamela Wool worth and six other guests. They included Mr. and Mrs. John J.

Garland. Mr. Garland is the United States member of the International Olympic Committee, and a well known sporting figure.

Elpetal not only is equipped with every possible aid to navigation, but is efficiently maintained —paintwork, varnish and metalwork are abso lutely faultless. The standard of comfort and accommodation accords with the highest standards. The engine-room, equally faultless, seemed almost too spotless to enter.

The vessel, naturally, caused con siderable interest during her brief calls (one or two days) at Islands ports.

The yacht was built in Germany in 1930; used by the US Navy as a weather-ship in the North Pacific during the late war; and was after wards almost entirely reconstructed.

Home port is Wilmington, Delaware.

Melanesian Sold

Mr. Hugh Frewen (April, p. 35) sold his trading vessel Melanesian to Kadavu Island owners before departing recently for London and

the Coronation. The price was re ported as £6,000 Fijian.

Tui Cacau For Leper Trip

Morris Hedstrom’s 130-ton wooden motorship Tui Cacau was scheduled to make a special charter voyage from Suva in June, bringing leper patients in to the Makogai central leper hospital. Ports scheduled

were Apia, Niue, Rarotonga, Mako*l gai, Rarotonga, Rakahanga, Niue] Makogai—in that order. Hifofuca recently cleared the Tonga patients] when en route to Auckland via Suva for refit.

Another Tramp Coming

When Morris Hedstrom’s Altail was withdrawn for survey in Suva

»;e May, Captain J. McKenzie mot relinquished the command )d was understood to be heading " Cyprus to command the small O-ton motor vessel San Michele, cely purchased there by a syndic named South Pacific Shipping .. and headed by Mr. Lew Graham, Auckland. Others in the syndic s were said to be Mr. Cec. Harri :a (a former shareholder in the vxander with Mr. Groham) and t. J. Turner, of Suva (who re ntly purchased the small scow :ot from Mr. Graham).

San Michele, due to clear Cyprus early June, will be registered in Suva and will operate possibly to the Far East and Australia. She is understood to be a wooden craft, somewhat similar to Tasman Steam ship Co’s Ada, mentioned last month.

New Radio Facility At Suva

The Harbour Master at Suva re ports that his office and the launch Ceniceva are now equipped with radio transmitters and receivers.

When it is known that a small craft is expected from overseas, watch can be maintained on the vessel’s specified frequency, and replies made on 6200 k/cs. voice. Use of this facility may speed a vessel’s entry and clearance by the port

[?]ptain N. W. Macdonald, on leave, ded command of Kurimarau over to tain E. G. Lindstrom, and below, [?]imarau sailing from Suva for mons. r. E. D. Horton, WPHC’s shipping [?], shifted headquarters from Suva to tiara per Kurimarau—last WPHC De ment to transfer: and, right. Captain [?]r of the luxury motor-yacht Elpetal. [?]e Tasman Steamship Co’s, new Ada, arrival at Auckland.

authorities. Request for a schedule with the Harbour Master may be 1 lodged via Suva Radio on 6300 k/cs.

What Was The Avie More?

Oscar Nordman, of Tahiti, sends along a photo of a painting—said to be about 90 years old —of tha British three-masted square-riggei Avie Hore clearing Sydney Heads!

Unfortunately, the photo has in-l sufficient contrast for publication!

The painting belonged for manj years to the Adams family, of Tahiti, and the vessel was presumably known in the Islands long ago. Any information about this vessel would be of interest.

Captain J. Webster Trans-J

Ferred

Captain J. Webster, lately Marina Superintendent for WPHC, with headquarters at Honiara, left tha Solomons in May on transfer to Gambia, W. Africa, where he takes up a new appointment as Harbour! master and Chief Pilot. His sucj cessor had not been announced at the end of May.

Captain Webster is very well known throughout the archipelai goes of the Central Pacific, where he has had charge of various Govl ernment-owned small ships durini the last 15 years.

The El Retiro

Prospects of salvaging the El Retiro, 150 tons, seem poor. She ran aground when salvaging war material from the sea off Million Dollar Point, in the New Hebrides.

Another Battering

The 400-tons motorship Maria del Mar, rescued from foundering and towed into Noumea in April, set off for Sydney, and an overhaul, on May 13, with Estrella del Mar and Polynesien to keep watch over her; With her usual luck, she got a terrific battering from westerly gales, but Captain Emile Savoie finally got her into Sydney harbour on May 22, and she was in dock in Balmain at the end of May.

Dick Brown Buys Rannak

Mr. D. C. Brown, of Rarotonga who journeyed to Europe some months ago in search of a refrige* ated vessel for use in the CooK Islands, and between Rarotonga and New Zealand, announced on his re turn to NZ by air late in May that he has purchased the vessel Rannahi from Richardson & Co., of Napiers NZ. First information that ttiifij ship was for sale was received by Mr. Brown from a London brokers Rannah is a standard type of 30( tons, similar to A. B. Donald & Cor Charlotte Donald and to a number of similar vessels operating in Ne* Guinea waters. Built in Tasmanfij in 1944, Rannah is 117 feet overall! 24 feet in beam, and draws 11 feet She is 304 g.t., 141 nett, twin screw*

iith a cruiser stern. She has been -ansporting frozen meat on the last Coast of the North Island, rrobably, she will be registered in mva.

Mr. Brown plans to run tomatoes M om the Cook Islands to NZ dur ng the season, and fruit from the liter islands to the planned cool x>re in Rarotonga. Rannah, with 1500 cub. feet of hold space, should arry about 14,000 cases of tomatoes, t 4,300 cases of oranges.

Cutter Yalewa Lost

BP (SS) Co’s 10-ton cutter i alewa capsized and was abandoned !t sea during the night of May 25, iiree miles south-west of Wakaya ♦land, Fiji. The 8-man crew .nded by dinghy on the Ovalau Dast.

Survey In Samoan Waters

HMNZS Lachlan, which did sur “y work in Fiji waters last winter, ft Auckland May 25 to sound and !-chart the approaches to Apia V. Samoa) and the waters be /een Upolu and Savaii. This task urgent. Apart from some limited ork by the US Navy in 1942, pre nt charts are based on a German irvey before World War I.

Vynvale Strikes Trouble

In April PIM, Wynvale, a 50-tons nn-screw craft, was reported lading for New Guinea.

Wynvale arrived at Maryborough, >rth-bound from Sydney, early in

April, under command of one of the volunteer crew members. The owner, John Allpass, had left the vessel, through violent seasickness, at Coffs Harbour. She had one engine out and the other in poor shape—and others of her four-man crew were seasick or exhausted.

Being without funds, the crew told their tale to the police. The

latter thought a description of John Allpass was vaguely familiar A photo from the police archives marked “Howard Ney Smith” seemed to tally exactly. Mr. Smith hap pened to be wanted there in con nection with several little matters The boat was immediately im pounded.

One of the crew thus innocently

involved was American Bob Magel, who helped sail the Sydney yacht Corsair to Auckland a few months ago and then flew back to Sydney for some more adventure. Cleared of any complicity in the Wynvale complications, Magel is now associ ated with a pearling venture further north.

Aitutaki Moorings Gone

While the NZGS Maui Pomare was lying at the buoy off the Arutunga Passage at Aitutaki, Cook Is., in May, the chain parted, and the buoy drifted out to sea.

The Americans established two buoyed moorings there during the Pacific war. One sank about 5 years ago. The other had been used ever since.

The buoy was recovered, but it probably will be impossible to pick up the moorings, which have not been serviced since the Americans

departed.

Dove For N. Hebrides

Manned by the same crew of three Auckland yachtsmen who de livered the Break Of Day last Oc tober, the Presbyterian Overseas Mission’s new 30-foot launch Dove was scheduled to leave Auckland for Noumea and Vila May 5 on de livery to the New Hebrides.

The vessel, which replaces one of the same name lost in the 1952 hurricane, was dedicated in Auck land on May 3.

The delivery crew—Messrs. Mark Anthony, H. Pope, and S. Smith.

Vega May Be Sold

Reports were current in Papeete in May that Mr. Cornelius Crane’s big steel yacht Vega, lying dis masted in Papeete since her ill fated inaugural voyage on a pro posed passenger run between

Papeete and Honolulu two years ago, may soon be sold.

Mr. William A. Pomeroy, owner of the schooner-yacht Ramona at present in French Oceania waters from San Francisco, was said to be negotiating the purchase of Vega on behalf of Pacific Micronesian Lines, with which he is associated.

It will be recalled that Pacific

Micronesian Lines, the semi-gov [;rnment-owned organisation which provides sea transport within the American Trust Territory, pur chased the 140-ton, 2-masted steel r.uxiliary vessel Milleeta and the 30jon steel ketch Frela from Aus tralian owners a coupie of years [.go. The latter vessel was to be converted into a hospital craft for use in the Trust Territory.

Before Vega can be commissioned Ihe will have to be remasted and te-rigged, but she could proceed :.nder engine power to Honolulu for Ihis purpose.

Mr. Crane is now in New York.

News of Cruising Yachts

Movements of yachts already mentioned in these notes are re iorted from Papeete as follows: • Gemini , American, left May 8 or local cruise to Moorea, Huahine, iora Bora and return, before head ig north again for Honolulu. • Ramona, American 122-ton, two nasted schooner from San Fran isco, arrived May 1. Will head lence for Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Rapa. • Sobrina, American 15-ton ketch, ot previously listed, arrived May Owned by Colonel Frank Royce, SA (Retd.). Cleared Honolulu pril 1, coming direct. Only other erson aboard is Mrs. Royce. Plans 6-months’ cruise in French •ceania waters. • Novia, arrived May 6, having eared Panama February 12 for •alapagos, Marquesas, Takaroa. • Moonraker, English, owned by r. Peter E. A. Pye and wife, rrived from Taiohae May 14— 3Stination Vancouver. • Our Tahiti correspondent in stigated a “coconut radio” rumour lat retired French naval officer hnsieur F. Faye, was preparing a icht at Fareute, Papeete, for a orld cruise. He found owner Faye isily painting the cutter La orrigan, formerly owned by M. an den Broek d’O’Brennan, of ahiti, and sold by him to Dr. ademar, from whom she was squired by the present owner. M. aye was non-committal as to his tentions. The yacht is already all-known as a world-cruiser, • Sundance and Leda, out from ickland, both arrived at Nukualofa . mid-May. • Bounty cleared Auckland May for Tahiti. • Another Auckland boat, Sky ie, was reported preparing for a

te-May getaway.

• Flamingo, mentioned here re ntly, and now in Tauranga, NZ, ans to clear for Great Barrier ;ef waters late June, and not for )lynesia this season. • Defunct for many a year, its le-time meeting place now a pular Papeete restaurant, the ihiti Yacht Club was revived on )ril 27 at a meeting held in the

Polynesien Club. There M. Martial lorss was elected President, and Governor Petitbon Honorary Pre sident. So far without a home of its own, its first task will be the

organisation of the reception of yachts taking part in the Honolulu- Papeete race this July-August, Our correspondent sends along an interesting and truly nautical old

;mu, printed on a piece of heavy .il-canvas, of a Tahiti Yacht Club fleers’ dinner, dated October 10, 528. Attached to it is a miniature •3 burgee with broad white hori ntal band and the letters TYC iposed thereon—the Club’s burgee. [Judged by the number and iriety of cruising yachts that call Tahiti the yacht club there uld well be the most interesting uising club in the world. The Iginal club was formed by Ameri a Eastham Guild, whose wife rote Rainbow In Tahiti. » Our reference last month to rger Bryhn’s first yacht, Ho Ho, s been corrected by a corre ondent. Although Ho Ho was ecked on Norfolk Island, she was waged and resumed her east und voyage. Very few yachtsmen empt the east-bound circum vigation with its contrary winds high-latitude sailings. * Steve and Brita Holmdahl, in ;ir 8-ton yawl Viking, arrived at va on May 27, a month out from peete, in continuation of their rid cruise from Gothenburg. ► According to Seven Seas Cruis- Club, the Seattle yacht Mariner ns soon to cruise to New Zealand 3 Australia via the Islands. riner is a 34-foot yawl owned by i Robinson and George Karl. * Captain John L. Ozanne, who ppered William A. Pomeroy’s

118-foot schooner Remona to Tahiti via Honolulu from San Francisco lately, returned by air to the States at the end of May. The yacht is now cruising the Leeward Group under command of Captain Louis Carlson, Papeete’s chief pilot on holidav noimay.

Captain Ozanne, who skippered the big Vega on her 1934 Pacific cruise, has been with Pacific Far East Lines of San Francisco for tne past seven years, before joining * amon “ December. He now hopes to obtain command of one of the yachts on the Trans Pacific

Race scheduled for July A new master may join Ramona for her voyage on to Fiji and north to San Francisco. . m ... rhvblm f He PWorth s trawler-yacht, may be heading for San Francisco mstead 0 f New Zealand if present negotia tions eventuate. At present at Bora Bora, with Mr. and Mrs. Hepworth and Frank McNulty (formerly of Wanderer II) aboard, the yacht mav be chartered by Tahiti interests to transport a Tahitian crew to the States to deliver a trading vessel to Tahiti.

• Les 4 Vents , a 28’ 6” cutter, arrived in Papeete from France May 17, in course of a world cruise.

Unlike most, owner Marcel Bardiaux chose to make the voyage round the Horn instead of via Panama.

For friends along the way, M.

Bardiaux has issued an expensive and beautifully produced booklet containing 31 illustrations and two maps. One map shows the route of a voyage which he made from Marseilles through the canals and rivers of France, Germany and Australia through to the Black Sea, Odessa, Istanbul and Athens in a small canoe: and the other shows the proposed route of the present voyage. There are plans and photos of the yacht which M. Bardiaux himself built. He is sailing lone handed and should be seen in the Western Pacific later en route to Torres Strait.

M. Bardiaux voyage, by way of the Horn single-handed, must be acknowledged as a notable one, especially if the circumnavigation westbound via Cape of Good Hope is completed successfully. • Claude Worth, noted technical yachting writer of London, also arrived in Papeete May 25 with his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Taylor aboard the 15-ton cutter Beyond, having left England last August.

They planned to continue the voyage in June—destination, Lon don. • White Squall, 28 days out of Auckland, arrived in Papeete in good shape in May. After about a month at that port the New Zealand yacht will head west towards Fiji, thence home. • Ghost, of the same home port, cleared Papeete May 19 for the Marquesas and possibly Honolulu in continuation of the Winter islands cruise.

Some of the host of yachts recently in Papeete. Left to right: Colonel Royse’s Sobrina, Jack Wheeler’s Gemini, Ken Brown’s Ghost, and Holmdahl’s Viking.