Cruising

Yachts

Marina Plans For A

Fiji Island

One of Fiji’s top boat charterers, Stardust Cruises Limited, has ambitious plans for setting up a yacht harbour marina on Malolo Lai Lai Island, off the west coast of Viti Levu.

Company director Mr. Dick Smith, part-owner of Castaway Island resort, expects the marina to become the “charter boat centre of the Pacific”, with a choice of at least 50 vessels available by year’s end.

“We intend to put yachtsmen in touch with other yachtsmen all over the Pacific,” he said.

“Yachtsmen after crews and crews after yachts either privately or com mercially will be able to find each other through us.

“We’ll provide information about Pacific yachting conditions and give yachtsmen excellent facilities. We’ll arrange charters for ocean-going yachtsman on the same basis as operations in the Caribbean.

“An intending visitor can map out an interesting cruise in the Fiji Islands, with our charts and informa tion service, before he even leaves his home port.”

Stardust has already registered skiffs (for charter at $6-a-day), ocean-going catamarans, trimarans and the 90 ft tops’l schooner Sea spray, plus small self-drive runabouts, water-ski craft and game-fishing vessels. Flagship is the 112-foot Fair mile Stardust, which can be chartered at $250-a-day, complete with crew and a top Islands chef. • TAMAHINE (Polynesian for “sweetheart”), 58 ft ketch, will leave Sydney in late April for an extensive cruise of the Pacific Islands en route for Nassau, West Indies. Plans are to call at Noumea, Fiji, Tonga, Raro tonga, Tahiti and the Marquesas.

Crew will include owner of the ketch Len Gulson, his wife Diane, John Vestey and Alastair MacDonald.

Len, a physicist, was aboard the tourist charter boat Stardust from Sydney to Fiji in 1959. He’s travelled widely in the Pacific.

O ZWERVER 11, 48 ft ketch with Dutch South Africans Jaap and Marie Alenson and their daughter Amanda, was to leave Sydney in

mid-April for Durban, via Queens land’s Barrier Reef, Thursday Island, Darwin, Cocos Island, and Mauritius.

Hopes are to reach Durban in Sep tember. Jaap told PIM he hoped to sign on two crew before leaving Sydney.

• Sylvia, Escapee And Mun

DEAMO, were all reported in Whangerei, NZ, up to late February.

On Mundeamo were Phil and Virginia Dutcher, on Sylvia were the Welles of Los Angeles and on Escapee were Ralph and Vivienne Sykes of Canada.

The Sykes are great friends of the Liggetts of the yacht Bacchus men tioned in these columns this issue. • MAPU, 36 ft Norwegian gaff rigged cutter with Ed and Bernice Stallard and their 11-year-old son, Chris, was to leave Vila, New Hebrides, in late March for Tonga, via New Caledonia and Fiji. After Tonga, the Stallards plan to move on to Tahiti, Hawaii, the US, Mexico and the Caribbean.

Mapu left Auckland last March and reached Vila late last year via Lord Howe Island, Brisbane and Noumea. From a long line of sea farers, Ed, born at Collingwood, NZ, is a former factory engineer.

• BACCHUS, 34 ft cutter with A 1 and Beth Liggett, was to leave Durban, South Africa, in March for Port Elizabeth and Capetown before sailing for St. Helena, West Indies, and Rio, Brazil, Bacchus left Yule Island, New Guinea last August after a stay in Port Moresby ( PIM, Sept., 1968, p. 103).

She made calls at several Torres Strait Islands, Thursday Island, Dili (Timor), Bali (Indonesia) Christmas Island and Mauritius.

In a recent note, Beth told of a Durban party: “All the crews from the visiting overseas yachts were invited by Dr. Hamish Campbell to spend the day at his lovely beach house, “I’m sure he didn’t realise what he was in for. Al got roped into lending his talents and oversaw the cooking of an 80-pound pig in the ground, Polynesian - style, while I collaborated by organising the rest of the people into bringing ac companying grub. The whole affair turned out fabulous.”

She said 54 cruising people from 19 yachts in port went to the party.

The cruising yachts were American (Bacchus, Korsar, Invictus, Taarora, La Belle Sole, Karen Margrethe), NZ (Korora, Taurangi, Black Rose),

Australian (Pacific Crusader, Ohra, Valhalla), Canadian (Astrocyte, Driver, Lei Lei Lassen) and others (Santa Maria, Procax, Spurwing, Mjojo). (Over)

• RESTLESS, 40 ft New Zealand sloop will leave Sydney in June on a four-year cruise of the world.

Stops will include Noumea, Fiji, Tonga, the Cooks, French Polynesia and Hawaii, On board will be four young New Zealanders who paid SNZ7,OOO for the 48-year-old sloop in NZ. They are Tim Beattie, 22, clerk, Bruce Bond, 23, jeweller, Trevor Walsh, 22, clerk, and Roger Lawton, 21, wool classer. • VACILADOR, 38 ft tri owned by Anne and Bob Steg, of San Francisco, was completely gutted by fire in Sydney on February 1 after the tri’s kerosene refrigerator caught fire.

Bob, 30, told PIM that his SUS3O,OOO tri, which was not insured, was unsalvagable. He intended to stay in Sydney until April and then return by air or sea to the US with Anne and build a smaller tri.

Vacilador (a Spanish name for a “traveller who has a set destination but does not care if he gets there”) left the US last May and made stops at Hawaii, Penrhyn (Cooks), both Samoas, Fiji, Tonga, NZ and Lord Howe Island {PIM, Mar., p. 109).

Bob told PIM Vacilador had re ceived co-operation from yachting and harbour people throughout the Pacific, except when he tried to berth at Sydney’s Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. “In 21 years of sailing yachts I have never struck the kind of rudeness I found at this club”, he claimed, • OPTY, 31 ft yawl with solo yachtsman Leonid Teliga (a Polish writer) was expected to reach Gdynia, Poland, about June, after a 30-month voyage which included a circumnavigation and several stops in the Pacific Islands.

Mr. Teliga in Suva last July {PIM, Sept., 1968, p. 103), made news when he stated that Australia had refused him a visa. He described himself as a “sort of Chichester for Poland”. ® SOLO, 57 ft steel yawl, and a famous Australian racing yacht, reached Sydney recently from Raro tonga with owner-builder-captain Vic Meyer, and Mrs. Aliston Holster, on board.

Mr. Meyer’s cruise started from Sydney and ports of call included Suva, Apia, Hawaii (Maui Island), San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Acapulco, Costa Rica, the Galapagos Islands, Marquesas, Tahiti, Bora Bora and Rarotonga.

Solo is equipped with electric

winches for raising the sails, a hydraulic anchor winch, two-speed halyard winches and an automatic pilot.

Her 100 hp engine, with 400 gallons of fuel, gives her a cruising range of 2,600 miles on engine alone, and when sailing a “free wheeling” propeller shaft charges the batteries and provides all the electricity needed.

Her last mention in PlM —Aug., 1968, p. 107. • ERAVA, the Sibthorpe’s cutter, was recently in Honolulu “getting a facelift” before setting out on a cruise of the Hawaiian Islands.

Fred and Mike plan to leave Hawaii in October for Florida where they hope to meet up with Willie and Shirley Barnes on Free Flight.

The two yachts then will cruise the Galapagos Islands and French Poly nesia together. • ANDANTE, Don Wood’s 34 ft fibreglass sloop with Don and his wife, was recently in Honolulu with

the Woods sorting out further cruising plans. Andante has made two extensive cruises—a 27-month swing around the South Pacific start ing in May, 1964, and a six-month trip around Micronesia last year. • CALIF I A, 43 ft American sloop, left Kusaie, Caroline Islands, in late February for Ponape, Truk, Saipan and Guam, returning then to California. Califia reached Kusaie out of Tahiti, with calls en route at Canton Island, Majuro and Jaluit.

On board were skipper Tom Morgan and crew Bab Dahl, John Hibbs, Lin Batten and Tim Hansel.

PlM’s man on Kusaie, Frank Grossman, said the yachtsmen spent a few days hiking and swimming in the mountain gorges of the island.

“They had a pleasant stay,” he said.

Califia arrived at Kusaie the day after another cruising yacht. Wanderer, left.

Frank’s comment: “Truly Kusaie is becoming a poor man’s Portofino”.

Califia, last mentioned in these

columns in February (p. Ill), made a memorable stay on isolated Pit cairn Island last year when two of the yachtsmen on board—John and Tom—who are qualified doctors, gave the local nurse, Mrs. Ferris, assistance in treating Pitcairners. • lOTA, 30 ft yacht, with Simon Simpson of Sydney and Jenifer Ashford, was to leave Samarai, Papua, in May for a cruise to Wewak on NG’s north coast, via the Louisiades and Trobriand Islands.

The yacht, with Mr. Simpson, has made many cruising jaunts over the past six years, including extensive trips throughout French Polynesia.

Last year she made stops in the Solomons and New Britain.

An executive with a Sydney chemical firm, Mr. Simpson said lota was a converted barge, formerly used on London’s Thames. She’s small, Mr. Simpson agrees, and aptly named after the “smallest viable particle”.