Know this yacht?
p. 33 · Read in the full issue
Shipping
IN the collection of the Australian National Maritime Museum is a historic yacht that spent some of its colourful career in the Western Pacifie. Museum staff would like to hear from former owners of the ketch Kathleen Gillett, a one-time New Guinea crocodile hunter s boat that was located in Guam recently by Museum representa-
tlves -
Kathleen Gillett was built for Sydney artist Jack Earl in the 1930 s and sailed by him in the first Sydney-Hobart yacht race in 1945. Earl later sailed the ketch around the world in the second Australian yacht circumnavigation.
Kathleen Gillett will be exhibited when the Australian National Maritime Museum opens in Sydney next year.
Curator ot the Museum’s Leisure exhibi-
tion, Daina Fletcher, is researching the
yacht’s history and developing a display
about it. “We have a very comprehensive picture of the ketch until Jack Earl sold it in the early 1950 s to a Sydney stamp dealer who took it up the Queensland coast to Torres Strait,” said Fletcher.
“We know little of the history of ownership since then.”
Among details that have surfaced is a period in New Guinea when the yacht was owned by a plantation owner, thought to be called Fawcett Kay, who sold it to a crocodile hunter, Declan O’Donnel. Kathleen Gillett was taken to Sydney for the 1967 Sydney-Hobart race by a Rabaul businessman, Reg Stevenson, before dropping out of sight
again.
In 1987 the yacht, by now in poor
condition, was tracked to Guam by Syd ney yachtsman, journalist and Museum Council member Bruce Stannard. It was taken back to Sydney by solo sailor lan Kiernan and has been undergoing res toration funded by the Norwegian Gov ernment which has made it a Bicenten nial gift to Australia. (The yacht is built to a Norwegian design, famous for its seaworthiness.) “I would like to hear from anyone who remembers the ketch during the 1950 s through to the 1980 s,” said Fletcher, • Readers can contact Daina Fletcher at the Australian National Maritime Museum, GPO Box 5131 Sydney NSW 2001, telephone (02) 552 7777 or fax (02) 552 2318. □
Kathleen Gillett: does anyone remember her?