Cruising Yachts

• SANDEFJORD, 51-year-old ex-Norwegian lifeboat, which is well known to yachtsmen throughout the world because of a complete somer sault she once survived in the South Atlantic, is off on a two-year round the world cruise.

Sandefjord, a 47 ft ketch, left Durban on February 22 and will sail via Cape Town, St. Helena and Ascension Island to Barbados, arriv ing in the beginning of May.

After about a month cruising in the West Indies, she will go on to Miami, Jamaica, the Panama Canal and various islands in the Pacific, including Tahiti. From there she will sail to New Zealand, Australia, the Great Barrier Reef, Christmas Island, Cocos, Mauritius and back to Durban.

The crew comprises a blonde, 25-year-old schoolteacher, Mary Clayton, of New Zealand; Tim Magennis, of Ireland, Wally Stright, an American, and brothers Pat and Barry Cullen, who own the craft, and who are South Africans.

The Cullen brothers are planning to shoot 16,000 ft of colour film to pay for the trip. • AWAHNEE, 52 ft cutter, is expected to be ready to sail to Australia from Auckland in April to continue a world tour which Dr.

Robert Griffith, his wife Nancy, and 10-year-old son Reid began last year in the yacht America.

Awahnee is being built near Westhaven, Auckland. She is a re plica of a cutter of the same name which was wrecked at Vahanga Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago in January last year ( PIM , April, 1964, p. 111).

America is a yacht which the

Griffiths bought in Honolulu after the loss of the first Awahnee and which they sailed to Auckland last July.

The Griffiths have been living aboard the America during the construction of the new Awahnee.

They will sell the America when the new vessel is completed.

A somewhat sensational feature of the new Awahnee is that the hull has been constructed of concrete (between 7/8 and one inch thick).

Dr, Griffith says: “There have been a number of boats built by this method which have proven a great success in New Zealand, and, in addition to getting over the difficulty of obtaining enough suitable timber, this is definitely cheaper.

“This new development in yacht construction has brought us as many as 40 or 50 visitors a day, and has slowed us up quite a bit.”

The new Awahnee will have a 30 hp auxiliary engine and will be

[?]r. Griffith and wife Nancy who will [?]e leaving New Zealand for Australia [?]oon in their new 52 ft cutter "Awahnee'.' Photo: F. N. Robson.

itted with most of the gear salvaged Tom her ill-fated namesake.

Over five years, the Griffiths had ;ailed more than 80,000 miles in he first Awahnee, including two visits to New Zealand and one drcumnavigation. • ASTOR, 72 ft Australian chooner, sailed from Tasmania for he United States in mid-March, via Zealand, Tahiti and Hawaii.

Mr. Peter Warner sold her to an American doctor soon after taking ine honours in January’s Sydney- Jobart yacht race.

Astor’s owner-to-be is multi-mil ionaire Dr. William Adolph, of dalibu, California, who will join he yacht at Tahiti.

The skipper, Mr. Berne Cuthbert on, expects the voyage to take about 0 days. • AEGEAN, 38 ft Bermuda-rigged etch, with Dale and Betty Nordlund nd their daughters, Shelley, 5, and ule, 10, left Rabaul for Japan in larch after a stay of three months.

After Japan, the Nordlunds will ;turn home to Vancouver. They ave been cruising the Pacific for 1 years so far.

• TUARANGI, 40 ft double ender ketch, which began a round the-world cruise in New Zealand in January, 1963, will probably be back in New Zealand at the end of this year.

The ketch reached Durban in December, 1963, via Australia, Indonesia and Mauritius, and the crew liked it so much that they only recently (January 14) con tinued their voyage towards the West Indies, Panama, and Eastern Pacific.

The crew is Jack Crooks, Jack Hargreaves and Peter Baxter, of New Zealand, and Hank Pauloo, an American, who joined the ketch in Durban.

• ONE STEP, an 85-ton Chinese junk, was scheduled to sail from Sydney on March 20 with eight young Sydney men seeking adventure in the South Seas.

The skipper, Noel Stroud, says One Step will visit Noumea, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Tahiti.

The crew is made up of photo graphers, divers, engineers and an artist, who will film underwater adventure documentaries, etc.

One Step has sails and twin diesel engines, and sails at 13 knots. She was brought to Brisbane from Hong Kong last year by Mr. Dudley Shuter, a Queensland grazier, who paid £lO,OOO for her. (Over)

• HEATHER, 28 ft cutter, which 34-year-old Larry Nilsen sailed single handed from New Zealand to Durban, South Africa, a year ago ( PIM, March, 1964, p. 107) is heading back to New Zealand with Larry and a 21-year-old Durban girl, Verona Wallace.

Larry, who bought the cutter in New Zealand, hopes to sell her there.

Heather left Durban on February 12 to sail via the West Indies and the Panama Canal. • MATANGORO, 24 ft trimaran, which Mr. J. Neilsen, of Auckland, has built for himself on his back lawn, will sail for Rarotonga about the end of April.

Mr. Neilsen, an electrican and engineer on TEAL’s ground staff, lived in the Cook Islands some years ago, where he worked as an electrician with the Administration.

In 1952, he worked on the clothing factory in Rarotonga for the Watson Manufacturing Co. • OKEANOS, 39 ft staysail schooner with Joe and Benita Pachernegg, will probably be in Tahiti by the time this issue of PIM is in circulation.

In a note dated January 27 from Academy Bay, Galapagos Islands, Joe told us he would be leaving that group in a few days for Pitcairn, Mangareva and Tahiti, en route to Sydney. He and his wife hope to be in Sydney in August.

The Pacherneggs, who have fre quently figured in PlM’s yachting columns in the last few years, re cently spent a year in the Caribbean after a long cruise in the Pacific. (PIM, Jan. p. 105).

“After we departed the Isthmus of Panama,” Joe’s note said, “we headed for Cocos Island [the re nowned treasure island] to check on our treasure. Another reason was that Benita wanted to do her washing in plenty of fresh water.

“Another fortnight’s tedious sail and work to windward brought us to the Galapagos and among old friends again as it was on Santa Cruz, one of these islands, that in 1956 I lost my first boat, the ketch Sunrise, on the rocks.

“In Academy Bay, we met several boats, all of them bound for Poly nesian waters. There was a single handed Dutchman on a boat called the Takabora, who was in too much of a hurry for us to find out his name.

“The American ketch Wanderjahr, out of Miami, with owner John Slaven and a New Zealander on board, left a few days after the Flying Dutchman for Tahiti.”