Seven Seas
p. 127 · Read in the full issue
They Cruise The
The cruising Fergusons of “Te Matangi” dis play the flag of the Seven Seas Cruising Asso ciation in Rarotonga (from which they departed at end of June). The SSCA is a “disorganisation" —no office bearers, no annual general meetings— whose only material symbols are a house-flag and an unpretentious cyclostyled bulletin of news from members cruising the seas.
It took shape in 1951 at Terminal Island, San Pedro, Los Angeles, USA. To be eligible for membership you have to be a deep-water cruising yachtsman (or woman) and to live aboard your own small ship. And it seems you can’t just join—you have to be nominated by someone who knows that you are the right kind of yachtsman.
Among the amateur sailors there are the usual proportion of scallywags who, having exploited some unspoiled corner of the world, will slip moorings and steal away leaving a local pre judice against cruising yachtsmen in general.
Each SSCA Bulletin has a current list of mem bers and their ships. There are about 75 at present. Membership is never static as there is always someone joining or pulling out because, for one reason or another, they cannot any longer claim to live aboard their yachts.—G.R.