Cruising

Yachts

• JELLICLE 11, 25 ft sloop, no motor, in Nukualofa in September.

Skipper-owner Mike Bailes sailed single-handed from New Zealand to Nomuka, Ha’apai, where he spent two months before going on to Nukualofa. He has a tremendous admiration for the small boat sailors of Tonga; he says nowhere else in the world has he seen anything like their skill. A retired Lt.-Commander, Engineers, he has sailed many parts of the world since 1959. As a design engineer in the Royal Navy he took to sailing and navigation. He was in submarines for five years, finishing as secretary of Britain’s High Speed Submarine Committee, which did preliminary work on nuclear under water craft. • SEA SMOKE, 38 ft fibreglass sloop, sandwich construction with 55 hp Jap. diesel motor, skipper owner Percy Thurlow with crew Mike Collins and Tutai Matara, arrived in Suva in October, headed for Auck land. Left Canada in June, 1968, for San Diego and the Pan American coast, with stops at Gulf of California, Cabos, St. Lucas, Tahiti, Rarotonga and Nukualofa. They said in Tonga they had had nothing but difficulties with red tape in SW Pacific and feel this could spoil the area for yachtsmen. All their money was stolen in Tonga and they said they found the police unco-operative. • CYCLADES, 48 ft ketch with 14 ft beam and auxiliary Fordson diesel 100 hp motor, is also in Nukualofa. A New Zealand vessel which finished sixth in Auckland- Noumea race, it has been bought by Ron Levanson, of California. Aboard are his wife Juanita and her sister Treava Cox, with navigator Gerald Hunter, who was last in Tonga on NAOMI. Arrived early September via Whangarei, Raoul, Suva, and will proceed Rarotonga, Tahiti, Hawaii and Los Angeles. • VIVA, 33 ft, Piver design Stilleto trimaran, with skipper-owner Rick White and crew lan Sinclair, L. Hopkins and Tom Goodwin, arrived Suva October 5 from Sydney, Auckland and Nukualofa. Viva won the Brisbane-Gladstone yacht race twice in 1967, 1968 and was second in the Hobart race in 1966. Will

stay in Fiji a few weeks, then will head for Samoa and Tahiti. • ARITA, 47 ft ketch, arrived at Vila, mid-August, from Opua, Bay of Islands, NZ, carrying owner skipper Jean-Pierre Jourdan and his wife, Janine. Late in August, with their children, Catherine, 20, and Philippe, 12, they sailed for Noumea.

Their plans were to stay at Noumea for two months and then sail to NZ for the hurricane season. • KARMA, 30 ft German yacht, arrived at Rarotonga September 2 from the Marquesas and Papeete with skipper-owner Walter Last, Erika Last, and their infant, Monica, on board. Karma left for Whangarei, NZ, on September 15. • FEARLESS, a US yacht that arrived at Rarotonga from Tahiti August 23 with skipper-owner Allan Brown, Rudolph Maien, David Syme, Tom Smith and Karen Matgen on board, left for Nukualofa September 3. • HARRIER, 30 ft English cutter, left Rarotonga for NZ September 3 with Colin and Marjorie Edwards on board. • TRYSTE 2, 40 ft Canadian trimaran with skipper-owner Ernest Haigh, his wife Valerie, and their four daughters on board, left Raro tonga for NZ September 4. • STARDRIFT, an English yacht, arrived at Rarotonga from Tahiti September 12 with Nicholas T.

Clifton and Fairlie Margaret Clifton on board. • BONA DEA, NZ yacht, arrived at Rarotonga from Tahiti September 12 with Andrew D. Price on board. • TANGENT, US ketch, arrived at Rarotonga from Tahiti September 7 with captain-owner, Samuel F.

Holland, and Clay Fleher on board. • ELHARI, NZ yacht, left Raro tonga August 22 bound for Honolulu via Suwarrow with skipper-owner, Graham T. Hallen, and three crew on board. They found hermit Tom Neale in very good health on Suwarrow, then called in at Penrhyn September 19 to carry out minor repairs. • LAGUNE, 30 ft Bermuda

cutter, arrived Nukualofa at the end of September with owner-skipper Ross Chimes, and Norman Gilbert.

An Australian merchant seaman, Ross sailed to England in 1961 in the yacht Nanoya. After working in England he bought Lagune and left in October, 1969, for the journey home via Canada, West Indies, Panama, Galapagos, Marquesas, Tahiti, Rarotonga and Tonga. He had engine trouble all the way. He left Tonga on October 10 for Bris bane, via Suva, but in the early hours of October 13 Lagune struck Fiji’s Moala Reef, and Ross and Norman had to abandon her. They salvaged what they could and rowed three miles to shore in the dinghy.

The government ship KAPAIWAI took them to Suva. • In late October, it was reported from Fiji that an American couple, Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Martin, of Berkeley, California, were preparing for the salvage of their trimaran, the SEEKER, which went aground on Nasilai reef on the night of October 17. • STARDRIFT, a cutter with owner-skipper Nick Clifton and wife Fairlie arrived at Nukualofa on October 6 from Rarotonga. He left England in November, 1960. Star drift departed Tonga October 13 for Suva and Auckland. Nick said Plum- Belly of Bequia was in Tahiti in September. • California artist, Julian Ritter, 62, and two crew were found “more dead than alive” aboard Ritter’s 45 ft yacht, GALILEE , by the USS Niagara Falls in September.

The three were found 442 miles northeast of Hawaii and over 200 miles off course. Galilee had a hole in her side and was shipping big quantities of water.

Galilee, mentioned occasionally in PlM’s yachting columns on her calls to the Islands over the last two years, had left Papeete on June 17 for Honolulu.

Ritter told rescuers he and his crew—Loren Kokx, 23, and Winifred Herringhoff—stayed alive after run ning out of food on July 27 by eating nutmeg, cloves, other spices and algae.

Mr. Ritter sold his home at Santa Barbara, 94 miles north of Los Angeles, California, three years ago when his wife died. He then began a worldwide tour in Galilee. Islands calls have included Fiji, the Samoas and other parts, besides Papeete, of French Polynesia. Ritter’s paintings are popular in the US, where they fetch high prices.