Cruising Yachts

• DRIFTWOOD, 27 ft cutter, arrived in Brisbane on January 8 with owners, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert R. Happoldt, of Los Angeles, after a three years’ voyage across the Pacific. They built the cutter them selves, and used some driftwood, picked up on beaches round Los Angeles, in the keel. The other materials in the cutter are plywood and fibreglass.

The cutter sailed without a motor.

Their longest stretch at sea was 34 days, and the last “leg” was from New Zealand, where they stayed two years.

Mr, Happoldt, 35, is a carpenter boat builder, and his wife is a schoolteacher. • MELIKA, trimaran, will leave Suva in April, after the hurricane season, for the North Queensland coast, via New Caledonia. She is owned by Australian Noel Birchall, who bought her at Suva from a New Zealander, Michael Cole. Cole had sailed the trimaran from New Zealand to Fiji via the Cook Islands, Niue and Tonga, under the name, Waka Torn. ( PIM, Jan., p. 105).

Birchall will have with him as crew John Doolan, 24, also an Australian, and Carl Carlson, 32, a Swede.

Passages to Australia will be avail able for two more, provided they pay their way.

After spending the tourist season on the Queensland coast, Birchall and his crew plan to work their way to Melbourne, where they expect to spend Christmas, 1965. They will then head for the Mediter ranean. • PAGAN, 37 ft yacht, from Brisbane, recently sailed to Lord Howe Island in the fast time of 55 hours.

Her crew comprised the owner, Nick Lockyer, Jack Colly, navigator, and Bill Warlow, Bert Henderson and Peter Brady.

The Pagan was designed by Alan Payne, who also designed Gretel, Australia’s first challenger for the America’s Cup. • TREKKA, 20 ft yawl, reached New Zealand on November 30 from Fanning Island.

On board were Clifford and

Marian Cain, They sailed the yawl to NZ from Monterey, California, via Honolulu and Fanning.

O TZU HANG, 45 ft ketch, with Miles and Beryl Smeeton on board, is at present in Hokkaido, Japan, and will be there till April.

The Smeetons are trying to have her cleaned before setting out again, destination as yet unstated.

Tzu Hang and her owners have appeared in these columns frequently in the last 10 years, the last time in August, 1961, when they were reported off Ibiza in the Spanish Balearics.

The Smeetons are trying to have to the South Pacific and hope some time or other to once again make a cruise. • SIROCCO, 22-metre ketch once owned by Errol Flynn, was en route from Bora Bora to Honolulu in January, with skipper Anthony Carter, M. Smith, mate, and five pay ing crew Bill Davis, Mr. and Mrs. Roger Seastedt, Miss Laurel Bentley and Miss Judy Malone.

Sirocco is owned by a Las Vegas architect. Jack Belcher, who chartered her to Captain Carter for a South Seas cruise, Los Angeles- Tahiti waters and return.

Before Christmas Mr. Belcher flew to Tahiti for some cruising too, but in some heavy seas on a cruise to the Leewards Sirocco cracked her mast, and Captain Carter plans to have permanent repairs made in Honolulu. Sirocco happened to be at Bora Bora en route to Honolulu when the Matson liner Monterey sat on the reef there (see earlier). John Smedley, of Sydney, who signed on in Tahiti as cook, left the vessel at Bora Bora.

"Trekka" and the Cains, in Honolulu.

Photo: Warren Roll.