Cruising Yachts

• NEXUS, 30 ft fibreglass sloop, was to leave Long Beach, California, on August 13 for a cruise through the South Pacific to Sydney.

In a note to PIM, the sloop’s owner. Chuck Harris, said he hoped to make Nukahiva the first landfall about September 10. From Nukahiva, Nexus would visit the Society Islands, the Cooks, Tonga, Fiji and New Caledonia before Sydney.

The crew are Dick Burns and John Wyness, navigator. • KATHENA, 25 ft centre-board yacht with German singlehander Wilfred Ertmann, reached Port Moresby in early August after a 45day trip from Tahiti.

Mr. Ertmann, 26, bought Kathena in Spain last year and has been cruising since.

On a 55-day trip from Panama to Tahiti earlier this year {PIM, Aug., p. 112), he had to eat beans for most of the trip because the oil supply for his stove was lost over board soon after leaving Panama. • TREKKA 11, a Hedley-Nicol designed trimaran from Brisbane, was in Port Moresby in early August for minor repairs. Trekka 11, with a crew of three, is on a world cruise.

• La Belle Sole, 64 Ft

American luxury ketch, reached Lae in early August for a week’s stay before sailing on to Madang.

Aboard were Mr, Roger Franson, a Los Angeles engineer, his wife, Anne, their children, Keith, 10, and Karen, nine, and a crew of three— Teppy Angermeyer, of the Galapagos Islands, Forest Wilcox, an American college student, and Alan Hare, an Englishman.

La Belle Sole left Sydney on May 25 for the Barrier Reef {PIM, June, p. 115). She is on a round-the-world trip which began in Los Angeles in February, 1966.

After Madang, the Fransons hope to make stops at Bali, Djakarta, Singapore, Ethiopia, and various European ports, and then sail back to the United States. • YOUTH, 35 ft South Australian steel-hulled sloop, arrived in Apia in late July with skipper Allan Quigley and a crew of four.

The sloop was expected to remain

in Apia for about a week before con tinuing a cruise of the South Pacific which Mr. Quigley began in March last year. • CLIPPER I, 25 ft trimaran with an Australian, Tom Corkill, left Mauritius in late May for Durban after a 62-day trip from Singapore to Mauritius. Corkill reached Dur ban on June 17 after a voyage of 20 days.

Corkill left Brisbane in early 1966, cruised the Barrier Reef, and made stops at Thursday Island, Darwin, Timor and Indonesia before reaching Singapore on January 10 ( PIM, Feb., p. 115).

• NARHVAL, 35 ft gaff-rigged American cutter, with skipper David Erlenkotter, of Honolulu, Michael Bates, of Honolulu, and Peter Serine and Eric Williamson, both of Queens land, arrived at Thursday Island on July 20 after a four-day trip from Port Moresby.

Narvhal, which is on a world cruise that began in Honolulu about two years ago, left Gladstone, Queens land, on May 5 and cruised up the Great Barrier Reef before leaving Cooktown for Honiara, BSIP.

Stops included Gizo, Shortland Islands, Vella Lavella, Bougainville, Rabaul, Duke of York Islands, East

Cape (Papua) and Samarai before the cutter reached Port Moresby on July 14.

From Thursday Island, Narvhal will head for South Africa, with calls at Dili (Portuguese Timor), Bali, Christmas Island, Cocos - Keeling, Rodriguez, Mauritius and Reunion Island.

Mr. Erlenkotter expects to be in Durban about mid-November. • KORSAR, 38 ft sloop, with Keith Kibler, Felicia Frey and Gayle Chambers, was in Brisbane, Queens land, in early August.

Our last report on Korsar was from Suva ( PIM, July, p. 110).

Korsar has sailed about 40,000 miles since leaving England seven /ears ago. Her itinerary has included :he Caribbean, Central America, Cali fornia, Hawaii, French Polynesia and soth Samoas. • TOLUKATEA, 40 ft home made trimaran, was to leave Nuku alofa on August 16 for New Zealand vith Mr. Wayne Batten, his wife, *ae, his 11-year-old son Christopher, ind three friends, Julie Stevens, Phil Levy and Steve Wilson.

Mr, Batten has been Tonga’s jopular Director of Education for the >ast six years.

The trimaran was named by King f'aufa’ahau. The name means “three mlled canoe for carrying chiefs”.

She was built by Mr. Batten after hree years of hard and patient work.

It is his most ambitious project, hough not his first attempt at build ng seafaring craft, as he also built l 9 ft dinghy and a 16 ft launch luring his stay.

He had no particular reason for indertaking such a venture, although ic feels that in a small community me must have stimulating and reative hobbies.

When a near neighbour built a 0 ft trimaran and sailed it to Aus ralia via Noumea, Mr. Batten de ided to build one, also. Now, laving completed the task, he is letermined to sail her back to New Zealand.

The Tolukatea is 40 ft by 22 ft and weighs about four tons. The timber used is equatorial West African mahogany, mostly half-inch, and completely covered with fibre glass.

Mr. Batten has had no previous experience in long-distance sailing.

In fact, he has only sailed out of sight of land once. But he feels reasonably confident about his navigation and in the Tolukatea.

He expects to reach Auckland in mid-September.

• Fiddler’S Green, 35 Ft

New Zealand trimaran, was to leave

Apia about August 10 for Fiji, and then go on to New Caledonia, Bris bane, Japan and Hawaii.

Her skipper is an American ski instructor, Mr. R. J. Maddock. He has a crew of three—Murray McGregor, of Great Britain, Barry Hora, of Australia, and Elizabeth Saxton, of New Zealand.

Fiddler’s Green left Auckland on June 12 and visited Nukualofa, Vavau, and Pago Pago before reach ing Apia. • NEOPHYTE TOO, 48 ft cutter, with American yachtsman Lee Quinn

and a new all-girl crew of six, left San Francisco in early July for Honolulu.

Quinn, who is well-known in the Pacific for his preference for all-girl crews, bought his cutter in 1965 after his previous ketch, Neophyte, was cut in two by a freighter off Sydney Heads in June, 1965 ( PIM, July, 1965, p. 107).

He reached San Francisco on July 2 after a 38,000-mile voyage round the world during which 59 different women sailed with him. Only one girl from his previous crews re mained with him—Patricia Seedsman, 24, a secretary from Melbourne.

• Carronade, 32 Ft Aus

tralian cutter, which rounded Cape Horn in early April ( PIM, May, p. 113), reached Rio de Janeiro re cently after a stay in Buenos Aires.

Her three Australian sailors, Andrew Wall, Robert Nance and Desmond Kearns, left Sausalito, Cali fornia, last January and only stopped at Papeete before the Horn.

• Stella Maris 11, 56 Ft

American cutter, reached Sydney from Auckland, NZ, on July 26 with owner-skipper Mr. Thomas Bailey, 40, of Oregon, USA, and a crew of three.

Mr. Bailey was met in Sydney by his wife, who, with their three chil dren, flew to Sydney from NZ early this year.

PlM’s last report of Stella Maris II was from Nukualofa when she left for Suva late last year (PIM, Dec., 1966, p. 119).

Mr. Bailey, who is a printer, in tends to stay in Australia for about 12 months with his wife, Joyce, and children Judy, 18, Lyn, 17, and Scotty, 15. Mrs. Bailey is writing a book about family life on cruising yachts, which she hopes to get pub lished in the United States.

Stella Mavis’s crew for the trans- Tasman crossing were Ray Weldon, 25, formerly of Youth, Gordon Hooper, 29, a California journalist, and Raul Beaumont, 30, of South Africa, who has been on cruising yachts for eight years.

Mr. Weldon told PIM the most “natural” island he had visited in Youth was Mopelia in French Poly nesia. Only three men and their wives lived there because most of the islanders had gone to Tahiti for jobs.

“The six people were really away from civilisation and they were the most hospitable I met and I have visited most main islands of French Polynesia, Tonga and the Cook Is lands,” Mr. Weldon said.