Cruising

Yachts

An Australian brewing company, Tooth’s, has agreed [ to sponsor, to the tune of SA2O 000, the 1980 Sydney to-Suva race, staged every two years by the Middle Har bour Yacht Club, Sydney.

Tooth’s support will enable the Middle Harbour club to plan with much more confidence than in the past when it has had to carry the bulk of race costs itself. Tooth’s has indicated that it will support the event beyond 1980.

In New Zealand planning is well in hand for the two Air New Zealand-sponsored races from Auckland to Fiji starting on May 5. The Auckland-Suva race is being organised by the Royal Akarana Yacht Club and the Suva Yacht Club. The Auckland-Lautoka race is run by the Royal Akarana, the Lau toka Yacht Club, the Northern Club and the Nadi Boat Club.

The main trophies to be won are the Suva Gold Cup for the Suva event and the Air New Zealand Trophy for the Lau toka race. • ANTIGONE, San Francisco registered. Harry Abbott, wife Maradee and daughters Carleen (11) and Simone (8), eft Sacramento in 1973. Harry /vorked for two years in the 3 anama Canal Zone and, with Photos Jimmy Cornell

funds replenished, then moved out into the South Pa cific to the Galapagos before taking the classical route French Polynesia, American Samoa, Vavau to Fiji.

Maradee is looking after the girls’ schooling. • SPINDRIFT, Melbourne registered, 11 m gaff cutter.

Skipper-owner Philip Rose- Taylor brought his boat to Fiji with the help of three friends.

Leaving Melbourne in Sep tember, they sailed to Tas mania and then headed directly for Fiji. After a short cruise in Fiji waters, Philip plans to sail for New Zealand.

For the future he has more am bitious plans; he is determined to return single handed to his native England along what was called by veteran sailor Bernard Moitessier ‘the logical route’ around Cape Horn. • MAC’S OPAL, Coos Bay, Oregon-registered, 12.40 m ketch, skippered by Mac Maclnnes who retired from the US Army and took off to sea with wife Opal as first mate.

They left California in February 1977, sailed to Hawaii, then to French Polynesia, American Samoa, Western Samoa, Vavau and Fiji. They plan to spend the cyclone season in New Zealand. • AKAHI, Hawaii-registered, 11.60 m Cross trimaran.

Bound for Australia, skippered by Briton Gordon Kemp who left the UK in 1962 and has been sailing ever since, mostly on other yachts. His present yacht is flying the Hawaiian flag. Gordon regards Los Angeles as the start point of his present cruise which has already taken him, over the past five years, to Central America, Hawaii, French Polynesia, Tonga, the two Samoas and Fiji. • HORIZON, Stowe, Vermont registered, a Golden Hind 10 m sloop, passed through Suva in October bound for New Zealand with Bruce, Liz and

Jeff (10) MacDonald on board.

The MacDonalds, both teachers, left their home and jobs in 1977 hoping to com plete a circumnavigation in three years. So far they have visited the Lesser Antilles, Galapagos, Marquesas, Tuamotu, Society and Cook Islands, American Samoa and Fiji. They are spending the summer in New Zealand, where Jeff will go to school. • OLIVE MARIE, Oxnard, California-registered, 10.85 m ketch, arrived in Suva from New Caledonia with William and Corinne Budd plus two poodles (Pepe and Miko). Bill, a retired aerospace engineer, took delivery of his boat in Taiwan in 1975, then sailed to Hong Kong, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomons, New Hebrides and Fiji. Next stop: New Zealand.

Forwarding: General Delivery, Russel, NZ.

• Jonathan, San

Francisco-registered. This

7.50 m sloop sailed into Suva with Jeff and Deborah Hartz on board after a long voyage across the Pacific. They left California nearly two years ago visiting Hawaii, Palmyra, the two Samoas, Tonga and Fiji. Favourite spot: Palmyra ‘just like a Robinson Crusoe island’. Forwarding: 1136 Mansanita Drive, Pacifica, California, 94044. • HADAR, 11 m Matangi design steel sloop from Auckland passed through Vila with single hander Adrian Faulkner. Adrian works as a schoolteacher six months of the year and cruises the other six. His latest travels have in

The Abbott family on the Antigone ... a floating school

Bruce, Liz and Jeff McDonald on

Horizon . . . circumnavigation in

three years.

eluded American and Western Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. He was headed for the Loyalty Islands in New Caledonia and then home to New Zealand. • JUNK, at Kieta, Papua New Guinea, in September, is a 16.5 m ferro-cement junk, designed from plans adapted from the US’s Smithsonian In stitution’s 2000-year old Hylam ocean-going junk. The owners, Tom and Terrie Kurth, were visiting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and had left Junk in the care of friends in Kieta.

• LOU IV, Elmhorn, West Germany-registered. Herbert and llsemarie Gieseking and their seven-year-old' poodle Joshua (named after singlehander Joshua Slocum) left their home in Schleswig Holstein near three years ago for a planned five-year ‘sab batical’. So far they have made it to Fiji. • SEA FOAM, Newport Beach, California-registered.

Retired musician Herb Payson, wife Nancy and son Craig Myers, arrived in Fiji after a five-year voyage which took them from California to Central America, Galapagos, French Polynesia, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, French Polynesia again, Samoa, Gilberts, Marshalls and back to Fiji which they seem to like best of all in the Pacific. Forwarding; c/o BNZ, Victoria Parade, Suva. • SARRIE, Auckland registered 12.70 m ketch, arrived in Suva from Tonga with Sam, Harry and daughter Deirdre Bestall on board. They took delivery of their boat in Taiwan in March 1975 and sailed it to the Philippines,

Malaysia and Sri Lanka, through the Red Sea and Mediterranean to the UK and Ireland by 1977. Then it was to Spain and across the Atlantic to the West Indies, re-entering the Pacific via the Panama Canal. In the South Pacific they visited French Polynesia, the Cooks, Niue, Vavau and Fiji before heading for home. • ERYX 11, Gibraltar registered, 26.35 m. Arrived in Fiji under command of French skipper Michel Feuja. This luxury schooner, built in England 12 years ago, left Europe in 1973 for the Carib bean and Panama and later spent two years in French Polynesia during which a five hour documentary, The Voy age of the Eryx, was made and shown on French and BBC television.

• UFO 2, Arnhem, Holland registered, 10.70 m trimaran i sloop. Arrived in Suva with i Dutch couple Antonie and I Beatrix Nagel who left home s nearly three years ago. They ' crossed the Atlantic to the « West Indies, Venezuela and 1 Panama, then, took the < tradewinds route across the ; South Pacific to French ( Polynesia, Niue, Vavau and t Fiji. They are hoping to spend I the cyclone season in Aus- tralia. Antonie: ‘Best thing [ about the Pacific: honesty.’ ’

Forwarding: c/o Dutch Con- sulate, Brisbane. • CON TINA, Los Angeles-registered, 14.30 m ketch,, arrived in Suva with Dr Peten Eastman and wife Betty ase crew. Peter writes short f stories for sailing magazines. .< They left California in 1975 2 hoping to ‘sail for ever’.

Herbert and llsemarie Gieseking aboard Lou IV ... five-year ‘sab batical’

Antonie and Beatrix Nagel on UFO 2 . . . cyclone season in Australia