Cruising Yachts

• El LANDER, 34 ft ketch from Sydney, arrived in Vila on October 21. She has a crew of four, all novices, who are sailing to England via the Suez Canal.

Eilander has visited Lord Howe Island and New Caledonia since leaving Sydney in mid-August.

Her plans after leaving Vila were to visit Santo, the Solomons, New Guinea and Indonesia. • APOGEE, 30 ft yacht from Newport, Virginia, which was reported to have arrived in Bay of Islands, New Zealand, 12 months ago ( PIM, Jan., p. Ill) arrived in Vila in October.

Our last report stated that Apogee was being lonehanded by Mr. A.

Eddy, who had sailed through the Caribbean and Pacific (with stops at the Galapagos, Tahiti, Cook Islands, Tonga and Fiji) since leaving home in mid-1963.

However, a Vila report says that Apogee now has a crew of two, who are on a shell-collecting cruise.

They visited Santo and Lamap, Malekula, before putting into Vila.

From Vila, they will head for New Caledonia, Australia and back to the United States. • STORNOWAY, 33 ft scaled down Colin Archer motor yacht, of New York, was in Noumea in October.

Stornoway was last in the Pacific 15 years ago. In that time she and

singlehander A 1 Petersen completed

a circumnavigation for which they were awarded the Blue Water Medal of the Cruising Club of America.

They then took on mate Marjorie (Mrs. Petersen) and went on to West Indian and Mediterranean cruising, which has provided book material.

On their current cruise, they will visit New Zealand and Australia before heading north for Japan and a passage east to San Francisco.

Stornoway’s last reported port of call before Noumea was Vila (PIM Nov., p. 113). • PRINCESS, 36 ft ketch, arrived in Pago Pago on October 24 for a three-week stay.

The owner and skipper is W. T.

Barnes, of San Leandro, California.

With him are his wife May and two

sons, Christopher four, and Michael five. They started from Lahaina, Hawaii, on March 17 and have visited the Marquesas, Tuamotus, Society, Cook and Tonga Islands. • WORLD CAT, 46 ft catamaran, left Nukualofa on November 1 for Suva. Owner-skipper, Guergen Wagner, with a crew mate, is on a world cruise.

World Cat was built in Los Angeles. • PRIVATEER, 38 ft trimaran, en route from Sydney to the United States had not been heard of since August 21, when she was five days

and 500 miles out of Brisbane, ac cording to a Brisbane report early in November.

However, Mrs. H. Nicol, wife of the owner, was not worried. She said her husband had probably decided to sail direct to San Francisco instead of calling at Tahiti and Honolulu as originally planned.

Privateer was due in San Francisco on November 15.

With Mr. Nicol, who designed and built the trimaran, are Mr. Gus Baldwin, of Manly, Queensland, and Mr. E. Van Bommell, of Victoria.

The voyage from Brisbane to San Francisco, with only Tahiti and

Honolulu as ports of call, was scheduled to take 69 days.

The US Coast Guard in Hawaii was making harbour checks in the Society Islands, American and West ern Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii and on the west coast of the United States to try to determine the whereabouts of Privateer. • STELLA MARIS 11, a 56 ft cutter, arrived in Nukualofa on October 26 from Rarotonga and left for Suva on November 1. On board were owner-skipper Tom Bailey, his wife, son and two daughters, together with one crewman. • NAM SANG, 66 ft American yacht, called at Norfolk Island in late October en route from Auckland to Sydney to take part in the Sydney- Hobart yacht race which begins on December 26. The yacht was carry ing a crew of four Americans and two New Zealanders. The skipper is lohn W. Thompson.

Nam Sang lost a nut off her drive shaft on the way to Norfolk, but although dependent entirely on sail, she covered the distance from Auck land in only three days and three hours.

Norfolk Islanders were impressed by the beauty of Nam Sang as she came into the anchorage at Kingston under full sail. • HIGHLIGHT, 35 ft Lodestar trimaran, last reported in Noumea (PIM, Sept., p. 109), reached Lord Howe Island from Brisbane in October. The crew comprises John and David Glennie, of Blenheim, NZ, and Noeline Harehoe, a Tahitian girl.

Noeline, sometimes accompanied by David Glennie, provided a much appreciated exhibition of singing and hula dancing at a dance on Lord Howe on October 24 which raised $5O for the local Parents and Citizens’

Association. Noeline has recently been working at resorts on the Queensland Gold Coast.

From Lord Howe, Highlight was due to sail for Sydney.

The Glennies expect to be back in New Zealand for Christmas. They have been cruising the Pacific since May, 1965. • LADY LEE, motor ketch, with owner-skipper Fred Murphy and a crew of three, arrived at Avila Beach California, on October 3 after a voyage of 20 days and 13 hours

from Honolulu, motor-sailing two

thirds of the way. After refuelling the yacht “motored” south to Marina del Rey for a short stay before going on to San Diego.

Skipper Murphy’s wife Doris, who

cruised the Pacific in Lady Lee last year, flew to meet him at Marina del Rey. • AUTU, 35 ft trimaran, returned to Auckland at the end of October after a six-month cruise of the Pacific Islands. The trimaran was last in Rarotonga and Nukualofa ( PIM, Nov., p. 113). She had to heave to for 36 hours between Nukualofa and Auckland to ride out a violent storm.

Later she was becalmed for four days.

One of the crew, Cliff Parkinson, 26, married a Tongan girl during the voyage, and another, Danny Morgan, 32, became engaged to the bride’s sister.

Autu was built two years ago by Morgan and Patrick Duggan, her 28year-old skipper.