Cruising
pp. 93-94 · Read in the full issue
Yachts
• Cheery good wishes to their friends in the Pacific Islands came in a card from Mr. and Mrs. Irving Johnson, who sailed their pleasure yacht YANKEE around the Islands for many years. They spent 1971 in a much smaller and more modern Yankee sailing around the Mediter ranean and western coasts of Europe and up some of the bigger rivers.
They have been doing this ever since the PIM met them more than 25 years ago—and they never grow old —they are still sailing. • lONA, a 40 ft ketch from New Zealand, has been in Kieta for about five months. On board are owner/ builder Cliff Bird, his wife Fran and daughter Donna aged five. They left New Zealand in April, 1970, and cruised to Tonga, Fiji, the New Hebrides and the Solomons before coming to Bougainville. The family originally intended to sail on but will now return home in about three months “to build a bigger boat”. • Two cruising yachts which paid brief visits to Kieta were RENDEZ VOUS which left for the BSIP on May 3 and the American yacht SUN DOWNER owned by Rudd Mont gomery. • LOALOA, a 29 ft double-ended cutter, has returned to Kieta after a year-long cruise. Sailed by Ross and Judy Henderson, Loaloa cruised to the Solomons, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia and Queensland.
She returned to Kieta via Cairns and Samarai at the end of April, Ross says: “It’s hard to recommend the Queensland coast in the cyclone season”. He was forced to sail around or was driven back to harbour by no less than 12 cyclones. • VENTURE, 40 ft Piver design Victress trimaran from San Diego, California, after having a fair sail From Vila, with Frank and Nora Simpson and their four children, Frank, Jim, Kathleen and Richard, irrived in Port Moresby on May 5. a short stay, they sailed on to
Thursday Island and then they hope to visit Indonesia and so on across the Indian Ocean to Africa.
• Win Dan A Wyang, Boden
design steel cutter from Sydney, was reported in Noumea on May 4.
Mike and Teddie Shaw and their two crew said they took three days to sail from Sydney to Mooloolaba and five days from there to Noumea.
Windana Wyang left Noumea for Suva but headwinds and seas decided them to turn tail for Gladstone.
Latest plan is to come to Port Moresby, then go, with the wind this time, across to Durban. • MAGGIE MAY 11, 30 ft fibre glass Southampton yacht of Sea Dog design, arrived in Port Moresby at the beginning of May. On board were Simon Holmes a’Court from Rhodesia and Ron Wink from South Africa. They had a fast sail from Honiara, stayed a short time in Port Moresby then left for Thursday Island and Darwin. They hope to go to Indonesia and on to Africa. • SEEKER, a 40 ft Piver design Victress trimaran ketch from San Francisco, was hampered by strong winds and poor visibility for the last few days of the 13-day trip from Honiara to Port Moresby at the end of May. After a short stay, Ralph and Bertha Martin intend sailing to Thursday Island, hope to go to Indo nesia then on to Singapore. • KUHELA, 26 ft fibreglass sloop with a young American couple, Philip and Mary Stephenson on board, arrived at Rarotonga from New Zealand on May 25. The Stephensons are returning to Hono lulu after spending six months in New Zealand. Mr. Stephenson was
in the US Navy for five years and his wife is a high school mathematics, teacher, Kuhela is a Hawaiian name meaning “to move along on the crest of the sea”. • TROLLOP, an American tri maran, left Rarotonga for American Samoa via Palmerston and Suwarrow Islands on May 26. The yacht reached Palmerston on May 28 and this was the first yacht call at the atoll this year. On board Trollop were skipper Thomas Sidenfaden, James Veeder, Edward Hauben* Janice Ward, Bronwyn Webb and Margaret Dempster. All are Ameri cans except for the last two named who are New Zealanders who em barked at Rarotonga. Trollop began her cruise in February, 1970, from California and calls were made at Mexico, Panama, Cocos Islands, the Galapagos and Marquesas Islands and Tahiti.
• Austral Vertue, 25 Ft
Laurent Giles Vertue class sloop, sailed single handed by owner Mick McKeon from New Zealand to Fiji last year and later around the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, went to sea un manned on April 6 and hasn’t been seen since. At Vaitupu, where Mick had spent four days ashore, the yacht dragged anchor off the fringe reef and drifted away. People of the local village saw it go, but thinking Mick was aboard, raised no alarm.
Mick reports that she could have drifted in a NW to N direction for a few days and then away to the west. The hull is white painted carvel planked with red anti-fouling.
There is a white steering vane, white plywood dinghy on the foredeck and a green canvas awning over the boom. Anyone sighting or recovering the vessel can contact Mr. McKeon
"Aquarius" (PIM, March) and "Sau-Sea" (PIM, May) at the marina at Kwajalein.
at 6 Fellows Street, Hughesdale, Vic. 3166, Australia. • LA LICORNE, 48 ft ketch, arrived at Rarotonga from Tahiti on May 1 with owner Mr. Jean-Claude Mathio and friends Louis Mirebeau and Raymond Velicite on board. Mr.
Mathio is a chartered surveyor, and Messrs. Mirebeau and Velicite are schoolteacher and electronics en gineer respectively. Mr. Mathio left Holland on his present voyage four years ago and called at ports in Spain, Portugal and the West Indies.
He chartered La Licorne for a year in the West Indies, then sailed to Panama, the Cocos, Galapagos and Marquesas Islands and Tahiti. Last year he led an expedition which re covered remains of the famous World War I German sea raider, Seeadler, wrecked at Mopelia Atoll in 1917.
He presented the Cook Islands Library and Museum with a cable link from the wreck. From Raro tonga, plans are to continue his world cruise with stops at Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, the Carolines and Bali. 9 SHAULA, 40 ft American yawl, returned to Rarotonga from Fiji on May 12, having left the Cook Islands last November for Fiji, Vavau, Tonga and Pago Pago. Shaula arrived at Rarotonga with owner Gordon Craw ford, his wife Dorothy, and their three young daughters on board.
Plans are to sail to Hawaii via Tahiti. • VICKI LYNN, 36 ft Canadian trimaran with husband and wife Ernie and Lee Crampton on board arrived at Rarotonga from the Society Islands on May 18. Vicki Lynn visited Rarotonga last September- October, but when Mr. Crampton attempted to sail to New Zealand the steering cable broke when the yacht was 250 miles west of Rarotonga en route to Fiji. The yacht was sailed back to Rarotonga under jury rig and left a few days later for the Society Islands. On the return voyage Vicki Lynn encountered a storm and took seven days to cover the last 93 miles. Plans were to stay in Rarotonga a month before sailing to Tonga and New Zealand. 9 BUENA VIDA, 36 ft fibreglass sloop with lone-hander John van
Dusen from the USA on board, arrived at Rarotonga on May 20.
Mr. van Dusen is circumnavigating the world and after a fortnight’s stay at Rarotonga planned to sail to Fiji. • ENG-FIN, 20 ft sloop with Eddie and Lisa Searle on board, arrived at Rarotonga from Tahiti cn May 21. Mr. Searle is English and his wife Finnish and their voyage began five years ago from Finland.
Pacific ports of call included the Galapagos and Marquesas Islands, the Tuamotus and Tahiti, having left Panama two years ago. They intend to sail to Australia to settle there.
They have a pet chicken on board that provides them with fresh eggs. • RIK, a black-hulled 38 ft steel sloop, arrived at Rarotonga cn May 22 after a seven-days’ voyage from Bora Bora. On board were Dutch couple Claes and Welmoed Honig from Amsterdam. They left Holland in January, 1970, and called at the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands, the West Indies, Panama, the Gala pagos, Marquesas and Society Islands.
Mr. Honig is an engineer and his wife a librarian. Plans were to stay about a month in Rarotonga then sail to Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand.
• Bona Venture De Lys, A
25i ft sloop arrived at Rarotonga on May 24 from Tahiti with lone hander John Struchinsky on board.
John hails from Manitoba and is a retired RNZAF mechanic. He left the UK in Bonaventure de Lys in 1968 and called in at Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, Barbados and the Windward Islands of the West Indies. Then came Panama, the Galapagos, Marquesas and Tahiti. He plans to visit Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. 9 CHICO, 30 ft Auckland-based sloop, left Auckland on May 22 for a nine-month cruise to the Cook Islands, Tahiti and Hawaii. On board were her owner, Lyn Carmichael, one of the best-known of Auckland s offshore racing skippers, and crew Richard Wilson and Dave Wylie. 9 KITTIWAKE, 25 ft sloop which single-hander Ed Boden sailed into Majuro about two years ago, has finally left her anchorage in the Majuro lagoon. Ed has set sail for Kusaie for a meeting with a fellow yachtsman he met in Rabaul some where around December, 1968. From Kusaie he hopes to sail to Ponape and then back to Papua New Guinea which was one of the “special” places Ed found since he left the United Kingdom in 1962 for a round-the world trip.