In Brief

• FOR LEPERS: When the Indian Reefer sailed from Lyttelton for Suva in mid-November, she carried 187 cases of gifts for lepers on the segregated Fiji island of Makogai and at the Korovou Rehabilitation Depot near Suva. • TRADER LOST: The French Polynesian trading schooner Suzan became a total wreck when she ran aground on a reef at Tetiaroa Atoll, 26 miles north of Tahiti, in late November. The schooner got into distress between Makatea and Papeete. She was built in 1906.

asrha

• BARLOVENTO, 65 ft luxury schooner, was reported from Tonga early in December to be missing.

Meanwhile, she was safe and sound in Pago Pago, waiting for the weather to clear. She later went on to Suva.

The yacht, which is owned and skippered by Mr. Hardy Wright, of St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, left Rarotonga on November 21 for Fiji, but bad weather forced her to put into Pago Pago, where she arrived on November 28. Rarotonga was immediately notified that she was safe.

A few days later, it was reported from Nukualofa that the yacht was missing and anyone sighting her was asked to inform the Superintendent of the Tonga Marine Department.

It was also reported that the vessel had not been contacted since Novem ber 26, when she was 280 miles east of Uiha in the Ha’apai Group.

Barlovento, which has been knock ing round the Eastern Pacific for the last year or so, has visited the Galapagos Islands, Easter Island, Pitcairn, Mangareva and most of the islands in the Society and Austral Groups since coming through the Panama Canal on an eight-year cruise round the world.

She called at Raivavae, Tupuai and Rurutu in the Australs before reaching Rarotonga in mid-November. On board on arrival at Rarotonga were Mr. Wright, his wife, their son-in law and daughter Mr. and Mrs. J.

Zimmerman, Mr. D. Balfour, Mr. M.

Hurworth, Mr. J. Thompson, two Chinese who joined the schooner in Tahiti, and Mr. Peter Nelson, of Rarotonga, who has been working aboard for the past eight months. • CYTHERA. 50 ft Sydney yacht, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Peter Fenton, which made headlines all over Australia in 1963 when she was stolen from Lord Howe Island, will probably be in the news again soon.

Mrs. Fenton tells us in a note that the NSW Supreme Court case con cerning the Cythera and the Colorado del Mar has been set down for February 22, 1965.

The owners of the Colorado del Mar issued a writ for £lO,OOO against the Fentons for damage and loss of time in arresting the Cythera at Norfolk Island on April 17, 1963, after she was stolen at Lord Howe.

• IDLER, 24 ft Tahiti-type ketch from San Diego, California, was due to leave Papeete on November 23 for New Zealand via Huahine, Raiatea, and the Cook Islands.

Idler, skippered by Sherman Price, reached Papeete from Honolulu several months ago. • VALROSA, sIeek, black French ketch, with skipper Marc Darnois, a crew of 15 and one passenger, returned to Papeete on December 10 a voyage across the Pacific with a party of tourists. The ketch, which is 106 ft long, made an exceptionally quick—one month— voyage from the Solomons to Papeete

against contrary winds, with stops at Wallis Island, Pago Pago and Raiatea. _ra •

mer^ can

£ aC ? W ' W fn by 3 h Iwe e " the , Galapagos , p an . d Marquesas several months ago P/M.

Sept., p. 107), came off the slip in Pa P ee,e t ■" mid-November after re- P?' rs t 0 , , her k whale-damaged hull, The yacht has been in Papeete slnce early August • TAUTARA, 30 ft French yacht, went on the slip in Papeete in November to be repainted, Tautara arrived in Papeete from

France on August 9 with Rene Groznykh and Jean-Marie Noel. • VAR TEKU, 30 ft yacht, sailed solo by Mr. C. W. Bromley, formerly of the RAF, was in Papeete in mid- November en route from England to New Zealand. Mr. Bromley left England on September 13, 1963, with one companion, who left the yacht in the Antilles. • SIROCCO, elegant 22-metre ketch which was once owned by the film actor Errol Flynn, arrived in Papeete from Los Angeles on November 12 under Captain Anthony Carter. She reached the Marquesas in 22 days.

Sirocco, which was built in 1928-29, now belongs to a Las Vegas architect, who was to fly to Papeete with his wife and children to do a spot of cruising in the Leeward Islands of the Society Group. • WAKA TORU, New Zealand trimaran skippered and owned by Michael Cole, and with a crew of two Rarotongan boys, reached Vavau, Tonga, in late November after a voyage from Niue.

The trimaran arrived in Niue from the Cook Islands on November 19, after calling at Aitutaki and Palmerston Island.

According to Mr. J. Edward Brown, Niue’s radio officer, the trimaran was lucky to get through to Vavau, as a hurricane developed a day after she left Niue. Cole’s intention then was to make for Fiji, via Nukualofa.

“Cole had a chart of Nukualofa aarbour, but no chart of the general area of Tonga nor of the reef sur rounding Nukualofa,” Mr. Brown Jays in a note to PIM.

“At 7 o’clock on the morning he vas sailing, he came to me and asked if I had a map of Nukualofa [ could give him. He was apparently lelighted with the small 5 in. by I in. map that I tore from the back )f a British Colonial Office biennial eport on Tonga, declaring it was ust what he wanted.

“He zig-zagged away from Niue, iractically out of control—under the nfluence of a fresh wind. The 'acht’s rudder had been damaged on he way to the Cooks and it was lifficult to control her with her re tired rudder which, it was said, iad been made out of a table top!

“The yacht had no radio trans mtter and only a transistor receiver, vhich wasn’t working very well.

“The owner had no aerial for it, •ut he told me that if he hung on o the aerial terminal it went better.

so he asked me for some wire which he could string around the cabin so he could then get weather reports.

“That was fortunate for him be cause one day out he must have received reports of a hurricane in Tongan waters. And when he arrived at Vavau, somewhat off course, I should imagine he felt himself a very lucky fellow.” • OKEANOS, 39 ft staysail schooner, with well-known yachtsman Joe Pachernegg and his wife Benita, is back in the Pacific again—heading west to Australia.

Okeanos sailed out of PlM’s field of interest about a year ago when she passed through the Panama Canal into the Caribbean.

Mr. P. J, Lyne, assistant purser of the MV Braeside, tells us in a note that the Pacherneggs left Balboa for Australia in late September. Their itinerary includes: Cocos Island, the Galapagos, Pitcairn, Mangareva and Papeete, where they expect to arrive about the end of February. From there they will go to the Cook Islands, Fiji, possibly Madang, New Guinea (where their voyage began about three years ago), and thence to Sydney.

From Madang, Okeanos sailed to Japan, California, the Marquesas, Tahiti, Rapa, Juan Fernandez, up the coast of Chile and Peru from Valparaiso, out to the Galapagos Islands, then to Cocos Island, Balboa and the Caribbean.

Mr. Lyne tells us that in the Caribbean Joe and Benita took a job with Windjammer Cruises Inc.,

of Miami, cruising the Bahamas on the luxury schooner Mandalay.

Meanwhile, Okeanos was left on the slips for sale.

Joe was due to take command of the famous brigantine Yankee after her latest voyage round the world, but as she went aground at Raro tonga and as Okeanos remained un sold, the Pacherneggs took to the Pacific again.

Mr. Lyne adds that the schooner Europe, which we last reported in Vila ( PIM, Nov., p. Ill), is due to leave Port Moresby for Indonesian waters this month. Jerry Scott, from California, joined Europe in Port Moresby. • WAI MI HI, 34 ft Auckland built steel ketch arrived in Honolulu recently on a delivery voyage to her owner, Norman Hacking, of Vancouver. Skipper of the ketch is Phillip Wells, of New Zealand. Crew members were Paul Goodwin, a Kiwi, and Mike Karayan and Denny Grover, both of California, After calling at Apia in June {PIM, Aug., p. 105), Wai Mihi went on to Pago Pago and Suwarrow, Rakahanga and Manihiki in the Cook Group. The voyage from Rakahanga to Honolulu took 33 days. • SUNBOW, “Bud” Guthrie’s 65 ft steel motor-yacht, tied up in Honolulu’s Ala Wai yacht harbour on October 20 after a 10,000-mile trip from Singapore where she was built. • ST. BRIAC, 48 ft French ketch reached Brisbane in mid-November from New Caledonia with Captain

The Auckland-built yacht "Wai Mihl" had a cargo of 28 glass fishing floats when she tied up in Hawaii recently after a cruise through the South Pacific. The floats were picked up at Suwarrow Atoll in the Cook Group, which has been uninhabited since the New Zealand hermit Tom Neale left there 12 months ago. Tom also used to pick up quite a few fishing floats at Suwarrow. They apparently drift there after breaking away from Japanese fishing fleets operating in the Pacific. — Photo: Warren R. Roll.

Didier Depret and his wife. The voyage is an extended honeymoon trip which began after the couple’s marriage four years ago, and is expected to end back in France in 1966.

The trip is being made largely to show that any competent yachtsman can sail round the world.

On his return to France. Mr.

Depret expects to build yachts.

The Depret’s voyage so far has taken in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, the Canaries, West Indies, Panama, the Galapagos, and several Pacific Islands groups, at a cost of £16,000.

From Brisbane, the Deprets will sail to Sydney, and from there they intend to ship St. Briac by freighter to Hong Kong. About April they will be ready to sail home via India and Suez. They hope to meet one or two people to make the cruise with them at a cost of £1 a day. • NEOPHYTE, 45 ft American ketch with Lee Quinn and his all girl crew, arrived in Brisbane in early December from the New Hebrides.

The crew are Barbara Sodt, of Chicago, who has been on Neophyte for 12 months, and two Melbourne girls, Pat Seedsman and Glenda Siede, who both signed on in New Zealand six months ago, but who left in Brisbane.

Neophyte, with Quinn, Miss Sodt, and three new girl crew members, sailed for Sydney on December 18 with the intention of taking part in the Sydney-Hobart yacht race which begins annually on December 26.

The girls put in £1 a day for their food, plus a bond so that they can return home at any time.

Quinn’s main order to the girls— who all wear long hair—is that they must not comb their hair below decks in case it should clog the bilge pumps. • SAMARANG, San Francisco schooner owned by George and Pat Renfro, reached Honolulu from Tahiti on November 23. Aboard with the owners were crew members, Bud Gutzmer and Roy Musgrove. • LA CENICIENTA, 41 ft fibre glass “bounty”, skippered by Dr. B.

T. Richardson, of San Francisco, arrived in Honolulu in late Novem ber, 21 days out of Papeete. Aboard were crew members, Peter Stewart and Nona Okun, both from the US.

The doctor reported a fair trip with south and south-east winds most of the way.