Cruising
p. 99 · Read in the full issue
Yachts
• VIM, 42 ft light displacement cutter from Los Angeles, with Larry Rusth on board, arrived back in Port Moresby from Cairns late in April. • RUAKURI, 32 ft cutter from Auckland, sailed from Port Moresby for Vila late in April. She was in Port Moresby for eight months. Frank Bowels and his crew, Warwick Smart, plan to sail back eventually to New Zealand. • KARIE L, 31 ft ketch, which arrived in Port Moresby from Syd ney, left late in April for Indonesia, via Torres Strait, carrying Len May and Lindsey Rogers. • PANDORA, 36 ft Nicol-design Cavalier, of Port Moresby left for a cruise to the Solomons in mid- April, carrying John De Lang, his ,? wife and young daughter. • THALASSA, a West German sloop, was scheduled to leave Suva early in May for the New Hebrides, New Guinea and across the Indian Ocean. She left the Mediterranean about two years ago, and was in Suva for about six months. ® Three overseas yachts were in Suva early in May with no indication when they would sail. They were TABOO, a Fremantle, Western Aus tralia, catamaran, ELIZABETH a 60-years-old steel hulled ketch, and GEMINI, a small sloop. All have been there several months.
U, Of Thorne, A
blue-hulled 50 ft yawl, dropped anchor at Rarotonga for three days in April.
On board were skipper John Hilton, son John, Brian and Lesley Hinkel Claudia Boswell and Don Gillet. The yawl left Auckland on March 23 and three days out was hit by a storm that lasted 36 hours. There was no damage but the women crew members did not enjoy the voyage.
Bluebird of Thorne left for Bora Bora and the USA and was expected to arrive in the USA by May 19.
The yacht called at Rarotonga in 1971 when the previous owner, Lord Robin Riverdale, was on board.
• LORELEI 111, 47 ft trimaran, arrived at Rarotonga in April from Tahiti. On board were owner-skipper Andreas Propst, wife Jean, and their three children, Anthony (14), Andreas (13) and Andrew (11). Mr Propst is a car mechanic from Augsburg, Bavaria, and Mrs Propst, a Scot, is a nurse. Their trimaran was built in Cornwall and they have been sailing for six years on their circumnaviga tion After leaving Scotland they spent four years visiting the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and South American ports. Pacific ports of call were the Cocos and Galapagos Islands, the Marquesas and Tahiti. They educate their children on board as correspon dence course lessons take too long to reach them. After about a month in Rarotonga they plan to call at Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. • AMATO AN A, 38 ft ketch, ar rived at Rarotonga on April 17 from Papeete with owner-skipper Tom Alwin and his wife, Lynn, on board.
Both are Australians but have lived in Canada for the last five years.
Their voyage started from Vancouver in July last year and they spent three months in Hawaii and then four months in Tahiti. Mr Alwin, a ship wright, built the ketch himself. His wife is a computer operator.
Amatuana is an Australian aboriginal word for porpoise. After a fortnight in Rarotonga plans were to visit Suwarrow Atoll, where dwells Tom Neale, sole inhabitant, and Post master; then on to American and Western Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Noumea, before returning home to Sydney after an absence of seven years.
• Wind Waggon 11, 65 Ft
ferro-cement cutter, 50 tons gross, went on the reef when attemnting to enter Avatiu Harbour, Rarotonga, at nieht on April 28. On board were owner-captain R. L. (Dick) Trethe way, Bob Sweinhart, Jill Turner and Linda White, all US citizens. All got ashore safely, but a Cook Islands man, trying to assist them, stepped upon a crown of thorns starfish and had to be given medical treatment.
“The crew were splendid,” said Dick Tretheway. “All remained calm, and the girls got out the life jackets and carried out the drill. I’d sail with them anywhere.” Also on board the yacht was an electric organ belonging to Dick Tretheway, and it was brought ashore suffering some salt water damage. By the following morning it was seen that there was little hope of salvaging the $U563,000 yacht as a large hole had been stove in the star board side and there was no equip ment available to lift the cutter, plus
its many tons of sea water, to safety.
Members of the Boy’s Brigade did what they could to salvage gear from the wreck on Sunday, April 29, but their attempts had to be abandoned due to heavy rain. By May 1 the yacht was breaking up and its owner had abandoned all hope of salvaging it. Dick Tretheway began his voyage in Wind Waggon II from Los Angeles on February 27, 1972, and called at Hawaii before spending 10 months in the French Polynesian islands. He sailed from Papeete and Bora Bora to Rarotonga with an American crew he had signed on in the French islands. He had called at the Cook Islands in 1968 in his ferro-cement yacht, WIND WAGGON I, which he built himself. A retired lawyer from Los Angeles, Mr Tretheway expected to be back in California in June. • MARAKIHAU, 56 ft three masted schooner, arrived at Raro tonga on April 28 with a sick captain on board. Skipper D. Chubb was given hospital treatment at Rarotonga.
Also on board were Mr Chubb’s wife, Carmen, their two daughters Helen and Cherie, and Mr Bob Edgar. The schooner left New Zealand in April, 1968, and had almost completed its five-year circumnavigation. Calls were made at Australia, Indonesia, Africa, Brazil, West Indies and Panama before re-entering the Pacific. The Chubbs plan to sail directly to New Zealand. • BEAR BA LOO, 35 ft sloop registered in London, arrived at Rarotonga on April 27 with co owners John Boon and John Heslop on board. They sailed from the UK last August and made calls at the Canary Islands, West Indies, Panama, Easter Island, Pitcairn, Mangareva and Tahiti. After a week in Raro tonga, they planned to visit New Zealand, arriving in Auckland by the end of May. • PAULMARKSON, the 60 ft ketch-rigged motor sailer which called at Rarotonga last October, returned to Rarotonga in April from Bora Bora with skipper-owner Reginald Mossman, a New Zealander, and crew member Miss Jeane Harrys of Bora Bora on board. Mr Mossman said that he had changed his original plans to call at Honolulu, and possibly the US, and that it was good to be back in Rarotonga. Since leaving Rarotonga he had called at Papeete, Raiatea, Tahaa and Bora Bora, and his plans were to sail back to New Zealand after spending about a month in Rarotonga.