Cruising
p. 73 · Read in the full issue
Yachts
• MAKALAU, 29 ft Columbia fibre (lass yacht, was a December arrival in lonolulu from the Marquesas, taking 17 lays, and carrying skipper Thomas Miley ind Sandy Meier. They were on the way o California to deliver the sloop, built n 1963, to the owner. Dr William Grant. • SHU Bl HIMMANY, 29 ft plywood loop, arrived in Honolulu in December fter a 17-day trip from Nukuhiva, in he Marquesas. The owner, Australian awrence Jenkins, was on the final leg >f a round-the-world cruise. He planned 0 leave Honolulu in March for Australia, ia Fiji. His crew on arrival in Honolulu omprised Mary and Peter Clarke, of Jew Zealand. The sloop was built in ydney in 1967. • MARLUVA, 43 ft yacht, was a re ent arrival at Port Moresby from Sydney ia the Barrier Reef and Cairns carrying he owners, Dan Noyes and Andrew iurnes. Will Castle, a member of the rew, left the yacht at Cairns to take up t/ork, while another crew man, Niko ullivan, had to leave at Port Moresby nd return home. Dan, Andrew and mdrew's wife, Amy, will continue cruis ig, taking in Rabaul and the BSIP, be ore heading through Torres Strait. • In a cordial New Year note from iaptain Irving and his wife, Mrs Exy ohnson, PIM learns that 43 years of ruising around the world—much of it 1 the Pacific —will end this year. The ohnsons propose to sell their now smous vessel YANKEE next October, fter one last wander among the rivers nd canals of Europe.
When PIM last heard of it, the bones f the original Yankee still lay on the ;ef at Rarotonga.
Old hands in the Pacific will remember ow Captain and Mrs Johnson cruised Imost every year, over a long period, mong the Islands of the Pacific and :ores —probably hundreds —of young mericans learned their seamanship that 'ay.
Year after year. Captain Johnson has ad an interesting story to tell of their wanderings. That which covers 1974 tows how the adventurers took their acht into the river Rhone and thence lade their way right across France, just
north of the Pyrenees. Then they went back to the Mediterranean, spent some time in Sardinia and Sicily, dodged a couple of vicious storms, and ended the summer in the Adriatic. What a life! • QUEST, a 52 ft sloop-rigged motor sailer, arrived at Rarotonga on January 19 from Sydney, Hobart, and Russell in New Zealand's Bay of Islands. On board were owner-captain Charles H. Carter, his wife Vann, son Christopher, daughter Charla, and four crew. The cruise started about 3 years ago from San Diego and took the Carters to Honolulu, the Micro nesian islands, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, the Philippines, the Solomons, New Heb rides, Australia and New Zealand. Plans were to call at Aitutaki and Palmerston Islands, then Tahiti, Niue, Tonga and Fiji, reaching Fiji in May or June, then to New Caledonia and Australia's Great Barrier Reef. • MRS BALSER, a 34 ft ketch-rigged double ender, which is registered at San Diego, California, has arrived in Fiji with her owner-skipper Linda M. Balser and crew Guido Rissone, and intends sitting out the hurricane season in Fiji waters and then sail to New Zealand. At the time of writing the two Mrs Balsers, yacht and skipper, were cruising in the Lau Group. Leaving San Diego last June, Mrs Balser called at Kauai and Oahu in Hawaii, staying for a month, and then, after a quick stop to visit a friend on Canton Island, spent three weeks in the Samoas, followed by five weeks in Tonga, with Suva as the next stop. Sign ing herself Linda M. Balser, "that Lady skipper—customs officials never believe it's my boat but this is the Year of the Women and there should be more lady
9 Yachting veteran Alex Bentley, who has died in Fiji, had a "wonder ful devotion to yachting in Suva and, prior to the foundation of the Suva Yacht Club in (1932 (now the RSYC) was responsible for the form ing of a model yacht club at Suva", writes Basil A. Lee, of Dee Why, NSW. "During all his years of devo tion to sailing in one way or an other, he was one to whom juniors and seniors could go at anytime for advice, which he gave, no matter how busy he was. His name will always be remembered in yachting in Suva and by owners and crews of overseas visiting yachts".
captains", she told PIM, "Your publica tion is most interesting —something I dis covered here in the South Pacific". • REBEL 11, a 38 ft trimaran with owner-skipper 30-year-old Tony Allen, of Christchurch, overturned on the morning of December 29 about 360 km south-east of Brisbane. He spent 20 days adrift in a rubber life raft before being rescued by a Greek freighter KHIAN STAR on Janu ary 17. Tony Allen, said, when he landed at Adelaide on January 20 that he was asleep when Rebel II began to capsize.
He awoke when she was half-way over.
He worked his way to the deck and dived into the sea. He cut a hole in the side of the hull with an axe to get gear, clothing, food and water which he loaded on to the raft. He stayed by the upturned tri for two days, attached to it by a 150 ft line.