Yachts

Joan D. Pease Re

ports from Pago Pago ,

American Samoa:

• FREEDOM. A 11.6 m sloop owned by Pat and Shirley Hine, Freedom arrived in Pago Pago in November on a crossing from Fan ning Island. The couple began their cruise from the Channel Islands in southern California in April 1981, crossing to Hilo, Hawaii in 29 days.

After visiting anchorages through out the Hawaiian islands, they left from Oahu in September and sailed to Washington Island where they were only the second yacht to visit the atoll this year. Since it is an

open-ocean anchorage, they stayed

only for three days. They made the short passage from Washington to Fanning Island in 18 hours and stayed for two weeks. They were guests at the home of Willie Yee- On, the parliamentary representa tive for the atoll, where they were introduced to heart of palm and breadfruit. The Hines also had many of the local people aboard Freedom for a dinner, and admitted they were very sad to leave the island.

Neither Pat nor Shirley had sailing experience before buying the sloop. ‘We had talked about sailing for years,’ said Shirley. ‘And finally we put things up for sale and bought the boat.’ Freedom has a Yorktown hull and deck which were built in Wilmington, Calif. The vessel was

then shipped to Taiwan for con struction of a teak interior. ‘We’re novices.’ Pat said, adding that they learn more about the boat with each sail. Although they did not know celestial navigation before they left California, Pat said, ‘I bought a book on simple navigation by the sun, and an $BO sextant, and learned on the way.’ After their shortwave radio was drenched by a wave, they had difficulty getting accurate time for their sun fixes but found they could receive the British Broadcast ing Commission on the radio and listened for time hacks.

The Hines expect to spend the season in Pago Pago and then go to Western Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. • SEAHORSE V. A 14.6 m ketch from Vancouver, Canada, Seahorse V visited Pago Pago in September and October, ’Bl, before leaving for Australia. Owners Gary and Phyllis Stratton and their four children have been cruising in the South Pacific for two years. Randy, 16; Kathy, 15; Danny, 13; and Jill, 11,

are enrolled in correspondence

courses through the Canadian schools and mail their assignments from their many ports of call.

The family left Canada in June, 1979, and first travelled north to Alaska where they stopped at many anchorages. Then they sailed south along the west coast of North America as far south as Acapulco, Mexico. When they left this port in

May, 1980, they crossed to French

Polynesia where they stayed on many islands in the Marquesas, Tuamotus and Societies. They called at American Samoa, Tonga and Fiji before arriving in New Zealand in November, 1980, for the hurricane season. In 1981 they

again visited Tonga and American Samoa.

There’s always a problem of space when you cruise with four children aboard, says Phyllis. They have windsurfers, diving gear and all their friends. It’s much simpler when kids are young.’ She feels the trip has been good for them how ever. ‘They’ve matured more quickly and are more helpful and responsible. They’ve learned how to do so many things,’ she said.

Although she feels they may not be as sophisticated as kids in a high pressure society because they have not been exposed to such problems as drug abuse and homosexuality, she feels they have learned more about people since the cruise began. ‘They talk with adults on an adult level and communicate with all sorts of people,’ she said.

Jane Deridder Re

ports from Kerikeri ,

New Zealand:

• INVICTUS. This Shannon 38 ketch paused long enough in Whangarei to have radar fitted before carrying on to Sydney in December. Marsh and Fran Demerell left their landlocked

home base of Elna, New York, on Lake Ontario on a cross-country trek to the sea. They passed through the Great Lakes to Chicago, thence, with mast unstepped, through the Illinois waterway to the Mississippi River, a good workout for their Westerbeke engine. With mast restepped, they travelled down the Mississippi with a current averag ing 3 knots on the 1600-km-plus journey to New Orleans. Invictus then sailed westward through the Panama Canal and the Pacific islands. Kathy Beckland. a niece from Minneapolis who is taking a semester off college for an edu cational experience, made the fair weather passage from Suva to the Bay of Islands in early October.

Known as ‘the boat on the sched ule’, Invictus is due to arrive back home in Elna, New York, in August of ’B3 after a circumnavigation, say

Pat and Shirley Mine from the sloop Freedom have been cruis ing the Pacific for 10 months, they are shown here in Pago

Pago. - Joan Pease picture.

The smallest vessel to join the Pago Pago yachting community for the hurricane season 1981/82 was Black Whale, a 6.9m sloop owned by Tom Laginess of Berkeley, California, US. - Joan Pease picture.

The Shannon 38 ketch Invictus was photographed here in Moorea before sailing to New Zealand, where a radar instal lation was carried out, and then on to the Australian east coast.

Invictus is making a circum navigation and is due back in USA (Elna, New York) in August next year.

the Demerells. Marsh Demerell’s reasons for making the round-the world voyage are expressed in W.E.

Henley’s lines: ‘I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul.’ • TALOU. A good family boat for Ray and Brenda Lewis and chil dren, Talou of Toronto was lavished with routine maintenance in the Bay of Islands before moving on.

The 15 m ferro Seabreeze ketch has not stopped sailing since she was launched in 1976. Built in Toronto by two couples from the north of England, the Taylors and the Lewises, Talou cruised with all four to the Bahamas. Then the Taylors took her on a circumnavigation.

Now it’s the Lewises’ turn. They cruise with Joanne, aged four, and Kathryn, who is only four months and who was born in Sydney.

Highlights of their trip to date?

Easter Island, where they spent three weeks, and Pitcairn, where luck and a break in the weather allowed them to stay for nine days

enjoying the warm hospitality and unspoiled charm of an area where most yachts are forced by weather to move on in a matter of hours.

• Quintessence. From New

port Beach, California, Quintess ence has made a few near-record passages for example, Puerto

Vallarta, Mexico, to the Marquesas in just 16 days. She’s a big boat for two people to be sailing alone. But Eric Tarr and Lorraine Burne have been handling the 17 m fibreglass sloop on their own since they left Tonga, with the help of a Sharp auto pilot, a Sterns double-slot

roller furling system and some hefty #3B Barient winches. The freedom gained is worth the extra work which short-handed sailing entails,’ they agree. The big Islander’s deck layout and interior were designed by Tarr. A Jacuzzi in the owner’s stateroom, an antique carved English oak sideboard, a Dutch porcelain Tristan and Isolde’, a Chinese jade flower-and-bird carv ing, and an ancient painted ivory fan, are just some of the furnishings which make the California anaesthiologist’s vessel what her name suggests: a ‘most perfect manifestation of quality’.

The teak interior is set off by basketry made on Pangai Motu in Vavau in the form of woven cabinet doors, and baskets to house a collection of plants. (The dozen or so plants were being slowly replaced after having been seized by agricul tural officials on Quintessence's arrival in New Zealand. Even Lorr. ine’s supply of honey was confiscated!) Commenting on their weather facsimile electronics, Tarr said he was much more impressed by the uncanny weather sense of the 75-year-old chief of the island of Ofu who sailed on Quintessence to Nukualofa. After a season in New Zealand, Eric and Lorraine plan to sail to Fiji, and then ‘Who knows?’

‘A good family boat’ is how Jane DeRidder describes Talou, a Canadian Seabreeze ketch be ing sailed in the Pacific by Ray and Brenda Lewis. And here’s one of the family: Joanne, aged four, is never on deck without her life harness.