surprising Yachts

ASITALONOMA, 33 ft Tongan t which made news earlier this when skipper David Fifita of srva Reef fame sailed her to NZ April and March PIMs ) has taken on a one-year charter by US Peace Corps for transporta of PC people among the main j Tongan groups.

ANDANTE, Don Woods’ olulu sloop was back home in ember after a six-month cruise he US Trust Territory—last leg a 2,000-mile hop from Majuro, shall Islands. Micronesia remains least visited area of the Pacific.

APOGEE, singlehander Alan /’s tiny American yacht, reached lada, capital of Britain’s Wind- I Islands, West Indies, in mid to complete a five and a half circumnavigation. Alan made y friends during his treks through Pacific Islands in 1966-67.

ARIADNE, “S no w” Gate e’s big motor-ketch was still ored in Suva’s Bay of Islands in August with “Snow” and his attractive wife Julie admitting o plans to move on for at least uple of weeks.

Dear Dear Louise, Sailed

wo Americans, William Hard and s Avery left Suva for San icisco on September 12 after ral days’ cruise in the Lau islands.

DISCOVERY, with the Hogan ily of four, returned to Honolulu September 1 after a two-year >e which included interesting s at Easter Island, Pitcairn and ral calls in the Tuamotus and quesas.

DRIVER, Canadian luxury p with the Graham family of six in Brisbane in early September r making a short stop in New ;donia after leaving Suva in ust. Plans are to head for Darwin then Durban, after a cruise of ensland’s Great Barrier Reef. • ERAVA, the Sibthorpe’s cutter, in Honolulu in August after a lay passage from Papeete. With 5 in French Polynesia behind, t year’s goal is the West Indies. ► KELASA, with Harry Gilbert his attractive fiancee Adrienne

tzenik, was in Suva in early Sep iber with plans to “shortly” start nd hopping en route to Singapore. ; proposed stop was Rabaul.

I KELEA, was to be in Panama mid-September en route to Van ver, Canada, from the Windward nds. Aboard were Canadians irles and Leiv Kennedy and their Curtis who crossed from South ica to reach Rio de Janiero earlier year and spent some time making »s on the South American coast >re reaching Grenada in July. \ KOCHAB, sailed by the Aley ily of three, reached Suva on tember 13 from Vavau, Tonga, Rarotonga. Mr. and Mrs. Aley’s nt daughter, Dawn, was born in iti. > LA KAROVO, with Dr. and . Watson, was at Santo, New Tides, in early August after a from Efate. Next planned stop the Watson’s cruise around the Id will be Port Moresby. 1 MARIS, Jack Earl’s yacht, hed Suva on September 13 i Vavau, Tonga, and Honolulu, tination is Sydney.

NARHVAL, David Erlenkotter’s ;rican cutter which “bumped”

Alan Eddy’s Apogee in various s in the South Pacific and Indian ms and now the Caribbean, was Grenada, Windward Islands in with cruising plans before re ing to Hawaii later this year.

PRINCESS, en route to San icisco, put into Rarotonga in □st with Bill Barnes and Steve mfield. Next calls will be Tahiti Hawaii. Cruising since 1966, the i has made many stops in Poly i and eastern Melanesia.

OLYMPIA, 50 ft steel-hulled t, made a recent call in at ang, New Guinea.

RAMBLER, Richard and Ann s’ ketch, was on her way out of □lulu in August for Ponape and , Micronesia. Eventual calls de Australia and NZ.

REBEL , with Marvin and Ann n, was to leave Port Macquarie, South Wales, in early September Lord Howe Island where the ns hope to spend a few days re pushing onto other island

• ROIAATA, small NZ cutter, left Suva on September 12 for Noumea and Sydney. Crewmen Neil Gillard, Alan Bell and Bryan O’Donnell had fingers crossed the passage would not be half as bad as their 14-day “horror” trip from NZ to Nukualofa recently. • SEAFARI, Roy and Betty Milford’s refitted trimaran, was in Rarotonga in September with sails unfurled for an extended cruise to Aitutaki, Suwarrow, Tonga and Auckland. • SEK-SEK, 25 ft Lae-built sloop, was at Finschhafen in August with

plans to sail to Long Island, Madang and the Ninigo Islands, New Guinea, Aboard were two young Germans, Gerhard Nagel and Jorg Riedemann. • SHAROLYN, Troy Cook’s schooner was back in Hawaii in August after an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Marquesas. Plans are undecided. • SWANHILDE, Mr. Ber n i e Skinner’s ferro-cement sloop, planned to leave Honolulu in October for the US after a month’s stopover in Hawaii. Rarotonga and Tahiti both saw Swanhilde earlier this year ( PIM , Aug., p. 104).

SYLVIA, with the Welles family ve, was in Rarotonga in August a passage from Bora Bora and • popular French Polynesia stops, calls: Tonga, Fiji and NZ.

TALLY HO, solo yachtsman Loudon’s 58-year-old cutter, in Rarotonga in late August of Moorea, French Polynesia, plans to push onto NZ for ing and an overhaul.

TAMAM-SHUD, small NZ >, was to leave Nukualofa in ist for Haapai, Vavau, both >as, Fiji and Wallis Island with :r-skipper Stan Holder and one member.

TERE, Louis Valier’s luxury i, was in Honolulu mid-Sep er after an extensive seven h cruise of French Polynesia.

TOLU KATE A, NZ trimaran, Auckland on August 5 with a of four for a leisurely cruise to ime a . Several monthes ago, :a‘s former Education Director, W. Batten, sailed Tolukatea from lalofa to NZ, and sold her.

• TRADEWIND, medium-sized trimaran with the Bauch brothers and a crew of three, was at Raro tonga in August after many stops in French Polynesia. Stops will include Aitutaki, Palmerston, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia and Australia. • TRITON, sailed by three bachelors, Don Marmo, lan Eeles and Tony Spooner, called at Honolulu on September from the Marquesas, en route to San Francisco. • VALENTINE 11, venerable yachtswoman Peggy Slater’s sloop was in Honolulu in August after the sloop was towed into harbour after several mishaps. • VELA, Mr. Ed Pollocks’ well fitted ketch, was back in Honolulu in mid-September after a couple of months cruising the Society Islands; last stop was Takaroa before Mr.

Pollock, Marilyn, and their three children headed north. • WANDERJAHR, skippered by Dieter Kading, sailed out of Honolulu on August 31 bound for Long Beach, California. The ketch reached Hawaii four weeks previously from Papeete.

• LADY LESA, 54 ft motor launch, lost at sea on a trip from Kawau, NZ, to Noumea in June, carried one of NZ’s oldest boat-build ing identities, Mr. Roy Lidgard. No stranger to the Pacific Islands, Mr.

Lidgard was known to many cruising yachtsmen for his hospitality and ever-ready advice.

Beds for yachtsmen were always open to visitors at his Kawau home, as Mr. Lidgard had cruised on and off himself for 30-odd years.

Since 1945 he built Defiant, which he owned and sailed to Suva and back, Ariel, which his son Jim (also lost on Lady Lesa ) helped build, and Fidelis, now owned by Jim Davern, which is still winning ocean yachting races. Many a cruising yachting book mentions Mr. Lidgard; cruising yachtsmen will miss him.

As well as his son, Jim, 46, one of Mr. Lidgard’s grandsons Geoff, 23, and one crewmember Louis Fraser, 22, were lost on the Lady Lesa ( PIM, Aug., p. 26). • MALAGUENA, 26 ft sloop, with singlehander David Thomas, 24, of Wellington, NZ, reached Raro tonga on August 24 from Wellington.

After Rarotonga, Mr. Thomas hopes to visit Aitutaki, Niue, Apia, Tonga

Suva before returning to Welling . demonstrator with the psychology artment of NZ university, Mr. mas has had extensive experience i racing yachts. His father, Mr.

W. Thomas, who now lives in ney, was the former owner of 73 ft motor yacht, Coongoola, ently on mineral survey work for United Nations in the Solomons. » WAKA TORU, 64 ft home le trimaran with eight people, ading three children, was missing, jved lost, on a trip from Sydney Noumea, via possibly Lord Howe id, in mid-August, espite an extensive air-sea search a general alert to shipping and authorities, there was no trace he trimaran after it left Sydney August 18. board were Mr, and Mrs. William e, their children Richard, seven, imund, 12 and Joanne, 16, and hree-girl crew from Sydney— ;es Sally Scales, 28, Diane Jeill, 21, and Valerie Quirk, 32. t. Shute, an English migrant dng in Sydney as an economist, t three years and $12,000 build the trimaran. He advertised re leaving Sydney for four “non king” girls to come along as r and was swamped with nearly applicants, of which he picked ! (P/M, Aug., p. 104).

'dney police believe wild storms Lord Howe may have wrecked trimaran.

ISBJORN, 39 ft gaff ketch with David Lewis and family, arrived iva on September 8 at the end of :-month voyage from England. r. Lewis, a New Zealander, flew v days later to Australia to take a two-year fellowship in the irtment of Pacific History at the ralian National University. He accompanied by his wife and hters, Suzie, 6, and Vicky, 5, his 19-year-old son Barry re ied in Suva to take care of the i. ; the university, and in associated work, Dr. Lewis will investigate ds navigating techniques in the jxt of Pacific history, le Lewis family has been sailing vorld for the past four years, ley began with a voyage in the naran Rehu Moana, which took . from England and the United s, down to the Straits of sllan, and across the Pacific to Zealand, was on the Pacific part of that ge that Dr. Lewis made a name himself by using (as far as is possible) only the navigation

methods of the ancient Polynesians —studying the stars, wind and current directions, and watching the habits of seabirds.

After writing a book, entitled Daughters of the Wind, on the voyage as far as New Zealand, the Lewis family sailed their catamaran back to England. There they bought Isbjorn (which is Norwegian for “polar bear”) to sail back to the Pacific.

Their route on this voyage was via the Azores, Caribbean, Panama Canal, Galapagos, Marquesas, Penrhyn Island and Apia. The high lights of it included a stay among the San Bias Indians, who live on

islands off the Atlantic coast of Panama, and diving for pearl shells in Penrhyn lagoon.

Dr. Lewis expects to spend about six weeks in Canberra before return ing to Suva to fetch his ketch and begin field work before the hurricane season starts. He will probably visit the Solomons, Gilberts, Marshalls and Carolines, where he will be eager to contact any Islanders who still sail by star navigation.

Meanwhile, Mrs, Lewis and daughters will be ensconced in a flat in the Canberra suburb of Garran —glad to have their feet on terra firma for the first long spell in four years.