Cruising Yachts

• WEST WIND V, 47 ft auxil iary ketch, with New Zealanders Sandy and Muriel Lowe and their two sons, Jim, 12, and John, 10, Brisbane. The Lowes planned to Brisbane. The Lowe’s planned to see the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race before sailing to Tas mania and then on to Perth.

The West Wind V left NZ in April and sailed to Brisbane via Norfolk Island. She then took a five-month cruise from Brisbane to Caims and bacjk visiting almost every resort and island on the way. • AIREYMOUSE, 33 ft yawl, with Allan and Jean Batham, was expected to leave Suva in December for Auckland. The Bathams, who have a home in the West Indies, left Tahiti in July (where they had been since April awaiting delivery of a new engine) and made their way to Suva via the Windward Isles, Penrhyn, Suwarrow and Pago Pago.

Aireymouse was last mentioned in PIM in June, 1968, p. 109.

• Thekla -Christine, 60 Ft

all-steel ocean racing cutter, arrived at Rarotonga from Tahiti and Bora Bora in November. She was pre viously in Rarotonga in June and July. On board were owner-captain E. G. Eggers, Wolfgang Eggers, and two Americans. The yacht is equip ped with a depth sounder, an auto matic pilot, hydraulic steering gear, a deep freeze, a refrigerator, a showerbath and central gas heating.

Thekla-Christine, which has taken part in three Sydney-Hobart ocean races, left Rarotonga in December for Sydney with calls scheduled for Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and the New Hebrides. • ROBYNE LEE, Australian owned sloop, reached Rarotonga in November with owner-captain Edward W. Smith and Terrence J.

Corridan on board. She left for New Zealand in December. • HAVAIKI, 20 ft fibreglass yawl, with owner-captain Dr. Rockne

Johnson, his Hawaiian wife, Ruby Kawena, their four children and Dr.

Johnson’s niece, left Rarotonga for NZ in October. Dr. Johnson, family and crew, who left Honolulu in July and had sailed to the Cooks via Maui Island, Fanning and Penrhyn, planned to spend three months in NZ. Dr.

Johnson is on leave from his post as a geophysicist with the University of Hawaii.

"Sylvia", with Bob and Sylvia Welles of Los Angeles and their three sons, in Russell Harbour, NZ, recently.

• MALAGUENA I, 26 ft sloop with singlehander Dave Thomas of Wellington, NZ, left Rarotonga, Cook Islands, for NZ in October via Niue, Tonga and Samoa. Before arriving in Rarotonga, the sloop had called at Aitutaki. • HO AN A, Australian sloop, with Captain Joseph Adams and his wife, Anne, left Rarotonga for Sydney in October. The Adams had arrived in Rarotonga earlier in the month from Tahiti and Moorea. • KELASA, with Harry Gilbert and his attractive fiancee Adrienne Matzenik, was in Rabaul, New Britain, in December en route for Singapore. The cutter had previously been in Suva and Honiara (BSIP).

Adrienne tells us in a letter that the visibility between Honiara and Rabaul was shocking, “due to, of all things, smoke haze from Aussie bush fires!” Also in Rabaul in December were the 50 ft steel yawl, Nomad, with the Williams family, and the 25 ft sloop, Kittiwake, with singlehander Ed Boden.

Outsize Catamaran

Almost Finished

Mr. Roy Jackson’s giant catamaran —he believes it may be the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere—is ex pected to be ready for its first long cruise by May, 1969.

The former cattle-man has been building the super-size craft—7s ft long and 28 ft wide—at Kadavu, Fiji, for the past nine months.

“My Fijian builders appear to be very much at home with double hulled boats—and they have great expectations regarding its potential

speed,” Mr. Jackson said during a recent visit to Suva.

“When she’s finished, we’ll make a few long cruises to see how she goes and then return to Fiji waters.

“I’m very pleased with the work men on Kadavu—l hope my cata maran will be the forerunner of a village boat-building industry for them.”

Mr. Jackson said building would be completed by May next year, providing his supplies of hardwood from Vanua Levu high country were maintained.

The catamaran will have a fibre

glass finish, and Scottish terylene sails are being imported.

Accommodation will provide for a crew of four, with bunks for a total of 20 people—although Mr.

Jackson said he didn’t expect to be carrying large numbers of passengers.

Headroom would be 7 ft, he said, and the galley would be quite as large as the kitchen of any medium sized house.

Mr. Jackson’s catamaran may be the largest in the Southern Hemi sphere but Mr. Ray Paton, of Rotorua, NZ, will launch in March or April a 75 ft steel-hulled trimaran, Laron, which, he says, is the world’s largest.

"Nightingale", the Bennetts' 36 ft ketch, in Russell Harbour, NZ, recently.