In the early 1980s, following Hum’s death, the Club settled into a steady routine

and one is tempted to resort to the excuse used by Sir Arthur Underhill in his

brief history of the first 50 years of the RCC when he remarked, ‘after 1924

the Club had no history’. But this would be to fall into the trap which befell the

executive of the time who, in retrospect, permitted a degree of complacency

which was almost the downfall of the Club.

For several years Peter Pattinson had used the services of his partner, Shirley

Marsham, as his assistant, but the fairly nominal honorarium did not stretch to

many hours of paid time and certainly not the hours required to chase the many

subscription defaulters. So, in 1981, they asked to be replaced at the next

AGM. For too long the Club had relied on the goodwill of the Secretary, paying

scant regard to the amount of work involved, but with a membership of almost

1700 spread around the world it was clearly time to put the administration on a

more professional footing. In fact the membership was recorded at an artificially

high level, as a survey showed that almost half failed to pay on time and many

never paid again after their first subscription. The post of Secretary was

advertised and, although still at a miserly stipend, several applications were

received. However, before a decision could be made Peter offered to carry on,

but at a much enhanced salary. This was eventually accepted by the Committee,

but with some trepidation as the subscriptions had just been more than doubled,

from £4.50 to £10, and a considerable loss of membership was anticipated.

The decision to accept the Secretary’s terms was partly prompted by the

upheavals about to occur at flag rank. The Commodore had asked to be replaced

a year early, after seven years in office, and the Rear Commodore, Nick Greville,

indicated that he did not wish to stand for re-election owing to pressure of

work. Thus the whole upper echelon was about to change. Peter Pattinson was

well established as Secretary and the stability and experience he provided was

essential at such a time of turbulence. The Vice Commodore, John Foot had, it

will be recalled, joined the Club after the 1971 rally to Gibraltar when he qualified

in his boat Water Music III. He was first elected to the Committee in 1976 and

promoted direct to Vice Commodore when Harry Jonas retired from that post

in 1979. John was a full-time businessman and had recently been elected Vice

Commodore of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, an onerous post since the

Commodore of that Club is traditionally drawn from royal ranks and carries

little burden. However, despite this heavy load he agreed to being proposed for

Commodore of the OCC. Desmond Hampton, who had completed a term on

the committee, agreed to stand for Vice, despite having just declared his intention

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to sail in the first BOC Around Alone race later that year. Rather surprisingly,

Peter Pattinson said that he was willing to stand as Rear Commodore. How that

could possibly have squared with his position of Secretary is not clear.

By the time of the formal election of these officers at the 1982 AGM, not only

had Peter and Shirley agreed to continue but Nick Greville was persuaded to

serve another term as Rear Commodore. So what had promised to be a wholesale

change of Club officers turned out to be largely a case of rearranging the deck-

chairs. However, the next year Nick Greville again pleaded pressure of work

and was replaced at the 1983 AGM by Howard Gosling.

It is easy to be wise in retrospect and to recognise this as the root of subsequent

problems, but the game of musical chairs on the Committee had been going on

for too long with the same names cropping up with predictable regularity.

Undoubtedly efforts were made to attract new blood, but these were met with

the same lack of response common to most clubs, with the result that the

willing few tend to go round and round. Indeed, a resolution was passed in

John Foot, Commodore 1982–1988, with Nicky aboard Water Music

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Admiral Sir Alec Rose

1983 that the expiry dates of flag officers and committee members should be

shown in Flying Fish, in the hope that more volunteers would be encouraged

to apply, rather than relying on last minute arm twisting.

A year after Hum’s death it was felt appropriate to consider appointing a new

Admiral, and Sir Alec Rose was approached. He wrote a charming letter of

acceptance which well sums up the standing of the Club even in the eyes of so

great a sailor:

‘I take up my pen as your newly elected

Admiral to write a few lines to you all for

inclusion in Flying Fish. When the Commodore

approached me on behalf of the committee and

asked me if I was prepared to be your Admiral

I was rather overwhelmed, but very honoured.

For anyone to fill this position, left vacant

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by the death of our much loved and respected

Humphrey Barton, is asking a lot. He was a

man who stood out alone, who was never

happier than when tasting the salt spray on

his lips.

I remember being enthralled and excited

when reading his account of his Atlantic

crossing in Vertue XXXV, and reading of his

plan to form the OCC. At that time the

eligible members were a very select few, and

even in 1964, after the Single Handed

Transatlantic Race when I became eligible,

the numbers were comparatively few. I felt

10ft tall when invited to become a member.

Now, after circumnavigating the world

singlehanded (and as Humphrey Barton would

have approved) under my own resources, and

having the tremendous honour of being

knighted by Her Majesty the Queen, I find

myself Admiral of what is the most select

club of real sailors in the world. No title

or wealth or knowing somebody who can pull

strings can get one elected to membership of

the Ocean Cruising Club. I pledge myself to

uphold this rule, and to fill this office

with, I hope, dignity and honour to the Club.’

It was thought appropriate to recognize Hum’s contribution to the Club by

creating a suitable trophy in his memory. Perhaps his aversion to competition

would have caused him to raise a heavenly eyebrow, but that sensitivity was

overcome when his twin children, Peter Barton and Pat Pocock, proposed to

award a cup for annual competition, to be known as The Barton Cup. They

subsequently produced a handsome chalice mounted with a club burgee taken

from the brooch that had belonged to their mother, Jessie, to be presented annually

to the member completing the most outstanding voyage during the year.

It is remarkable that this was only the second real trophy in a club that had

been in existence for 26 years, but perhaps that was more testimony to the

strength of Hum’s feelings rather than lack of generosity. As already noted, the

first would-be competitive award was scotched by Hum after an anonymous

donor offered to provide money to fund an annual recognition of merit. The

money was subsequently diverted to the Award, which has muddled along ever

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since. Some years later the editor of Yachts and Yachting, Bill Smart, made a

generous suggestion when he was guest of honour at an annual dinner, saying

he wished to give a trophy to be awarded annually to the person who had

contributed most towards the aims and objects of the Club. However nothing

further was heard, so perhaps the hand of Hum was still influential even though

by that time he had gone off cruising. Next, in 1977, came Peter Azevedo’s

handsome piece of scrimshaw, which seems to have made a brief appearance

and then fallen into disuse, since little more is heard of it.

Then, in 1981, the Barton Cup made its appearance – and at a very appropriate

time as the Club was about to hold its most ambitious and successful rally to

date. That year, a pursuit race was organised to coincide with the return of

boats from the first two-handed transatlantic race, subsequently dubbed the

TWOSTAR, in which several members were taking part including two all female

OCC crews – Kitty Hampton and Rachael Hayward, and Liz and Anne

Hammick. The race was arranged to finish at Horta in the Azores, starting

from any point more than 1000 miles distant, and arrival was to be as near as

possible to noon on 2nd August to coincide with the start of Horta Sea Week to

which the Club had been invited. It was a great success with boats coming

from both sides of the Atlantic. Sixteen boats finished the pursuit race with ten

reaching the finish line on 2nd August within sight of each other. A Continental

contingent, under the leadership of committee member Geert

Vandendriessche, met in Ponta Delgada in July before the Horta meet and

several boats sailed on to join the main rally.

Mary Barton flew out clutching the new Barton Cup, which she presented at

a dinner in Horta where some 80 members and friends attended. The first

winner was Wendy Moore who had sailed non-stop from Northern Ireland in

her 27ft sloop, crewed by one other adult and her two children aged ten and

eight. Again the Club received much hospitality from the local people, especially

Peter Azevedo who had, appropriately, been made an Honorary Life Member

the previous year. It is interesting to note that the next committee meeting had

to consider applications from 50 potential members, a record for any one meeting

and confirmation of the success of the rally.

This Azores Rally and Pursuit Race set a pattern, with meets there almost

every other year for the next 15 years. The OCC burgee became such a familiar

sight in Faial that this mid-Atlantic island almost became an outpost of the Club.

Indeed, it was not unusual to be asked by a local simply if one was from ‘the

Club’.

Just in time to come to notice, an Irishman by the now familiar name of John

Gore-Grimes joined in 1981 after an unremarkable Atlantic crossing. This,

however, was to be about the least spectacular of his long passages and in 1982

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he sailed his Nicholson 31, Shardana, to 70º N on the west coast of Greenland.

This earned him the second annual award of the Barton Cup, but was only the

prelude to many Arctic sorties, several more of which were rewarded with

Club trophies.

The trophy famine changed in the early 1980s, as within the space of three

years the number of awards doubled. The Rose and the Rambler medallions

were struck and the new Commodore, John Foot, presented a set of

meteorological instruments set into a wooden cube, to be known as The Water

Music Trophy. In 1984 an Awards Sub-Committee was set up under the Vice

Commodore, firstly to consider the definition of the new awards and subsequently

to allocate them annually. This set a pattern that has continued to this day. The

sub-committee decided to have a medallion struck, suitable for bulkhead

mounting, to be given to all award winners in addition to the actual trophy

(where there was one) which would be retained only for the year in which it

was awarded.

Contradictorily, one of its first recommendations was that Richard Broadbent,

a non-member, should be given the OCC Award. Richard was taking part in the

Around Alone race when he turned back to rescue a fellow competitor. He was

in the Southern Ocean approaching Cape Horn when Richard was alerted that

Jacques De Roux had overturned with considerable hull damage, so he beat

back to the last known position and found the wreck at twilight after several

hours of searching. Jacques, with great Gallic aplomb said, ‘I have a slight

problem, could you possibly take me aboard’. His boat sank within 15 minutes.

Since this award was for members only, it suggests that there was confusion

with the Award of Merit which is open to all. However, having been told he was

to receive an award, Broadbent heard nothing more about it.

Perhaps the most interesting proposal at that time was for a ‘Youth Sail’

Sponsorship Scheme for underprivileged young people. In essence it would

provide sailing opportunities for youngsters perhaps unemployed or at risk, or

from deprived backgrounds, with the aim of encouraging personal growth and

development. The berths would be provided by the Ocean Youth Club for a

seven day cruise. All members would be invited to suggest candidates and the

Awards sub-committee would do the winnowing. It was a most altruistic and

forward-looking scheme, particularly considering the parlous state of the Club’s

finances but, despite further references in the minutes to the scheme being

considered, there is no evidence that it ever came to fruition.

Whether it was as a result of a good dinner or a genuine desire is not known,

but after being guest of honour and speaker at the 1983 dinner, Peter Blake

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applied to join. He had qualified with a crossing of the Tasman Sea in 1970,

before his high profile racing passages which at the time of joining could have

disbarred him on the grounds of being a professional. Up until 1985 the Rules

were quite clear that one had to be an amateur, but at the AGM that year it was

unanimously agreed that this requirement was anomalous in that many, such as

Peter, might well be professional sailors but at the same time they were keen,

deep-sea cruising men and that to disbar them would deny the Club some

admirable personalities. Sir Peter, as he was to become, remained a member up

to the time of his tragic death in 2001 when he was shot dead by pirates near

the Amazon River town of Macapa.

In addition to the Azores Rally, the early 1980s saw an ambitious programme of

Club rallies worldwide. Australian Rear Commodore Sid Yaffe, together with

Club Captain John Tavener, announced a whole series of events. In 1981, to

demonstrate that it was not all soft sailing down-under, they held a most

successful mid-winter rally to Shark Island, and their autumn cruise to

Tambourine Bay the following May attracted some 80 members and friends.

Later that year the Australian annual dinner at Middle Harbour Yacht Club, Sydney

was attended by 82 members and guests, rivalling the London dinners.

Three days after their annual dinner it seems that most of the participants

came to the line for the Sydney-Suva race. OCC member Lou Abrahams

in Challenge took both line and handicap honours, although the fleet was

led for most of the way by Sid Yaffe in his immaculate Patsy. John Tavener

reported that there had been a great amount of interest shown in the Club

and that he anticipated a surge of membership. However, somewhat

contradictorily, Sid wrote in the next issue of Flying Fish on the problem

of the nature of the Club being adversely affected by the influx of too

many racing yachtsmen:

‘The OCC was founded long before there was the current

predominance of long distance ocean racing. For instance, in the

last few years there were at least two sponsored races out of

Sydney which were over 1000 miles and consequently the

majority of our new members are racing yachtsmen. I made it

very clear that I welcomed the new members who have become

eligible to join the OCC. However, I did express some fear of

losing or not recruiting the cruising types who do not go to sea

merely to win races but who sail for the sheer love of adventure,

going to somewhere new, their love of the sea and their love of

their boat, however old and decrepit it may be. If this is happening

in Australia I feel it must be happening in other parts of the

world, particularly in England.’

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The Commodore replied:

‘We are very much aware of the problems which you mention

and certainly it would be wholly contrary to the spirit of the Ocean

Cruising Club, and the purpose for which it was founded, if genuine

simple long distance cruising yachtsmen were to feel there was

no place for them in the OCC because they were crowded out by

the number who joined after racing passages. So far this has not

happened in the UK, principally because we have not the long

distance races taking place from here. The problem arises of

course when a number join the Club after a race who will all at

least know one another, whereas the solitary yachtsman, for whom

the Club was founded, may not, and will therefore feel himself

outnumbered. I do not think there is anything very practical that

we can do about this except to hold as many rallies and gatherings

as we can and to make sure that everyone feels they are welcome

and that no-one is left out. Indeed, I think this is very much the

function of the Flag Officers of the Club.’

The Australians’ concerns were never borne out in Europe or America, and

indeed the racing men were, in the early years, the strength of the Club rather

than its weakness. It seems that the racers enjoyed the camaraderie of cosy

meetings in a relaxed cruising setting since, although they sailed in close proximity

as opposed to the cruising men’s lonely furrow, they rarely socialised as part of

their racing programme. Only when a race ended at a distant venue did they get

together, more often sailing from their home mooring direct to the line and back

from the finish. Perhaps in reaction to this routine, some of the UK racing

members have throughout been most active in Club affairs. It is interesting to

note that under Any Other Business at the 1995 AGM a member suggested that,

in view of the rapid expansion of the Club, it might become necessary to limit

membership numbers. This elicited the immediate riposte from Australia, when

they received the minutes of the meeting, that the OCC was an egalitarian club

and that the only qualification for membership was as stated in the Rules and

that they would brook no thought of limiting numbers. Australia by then had

170 members, the third highest national total after England and the USA. Indeed,

when the Club’s Events Diary started being published in 1985, almost half the

activities in the first list took place in Australia.

1982 was the year of the first Spring Rally, held at the Royal Southampton

Yacht Club’s premises at Gin’s Farm on the Beaulieu River, an event which has

been held each year since without exception. Other rallies were held at Gibraltar,

at Vilamoura in Portugal with a cruise in company to the Azores, and at several

locations in the UK, though none became firm annual fixtures like the Beaulieu

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Rally. A meeting in Piraeus, Greece was proposed but there is no evidence that

it ever took place.

The Continentals continued their ambitious programme of winter meets and

summer cruises. In 1982 Gaston Trogh tendered his resignation from the

Committee as he intended to go off long distance cruising, but so valuable were

his efforts on the Club’s behalf that a position for him had to be devised. Thus

the post of Roving Rear Commodore was invented. He duly went off to the

West Indies, returning for a committee meeting the next year to report that he

had secured the services of Port Officers in Martinique, St Thomas and Puerto

Rico. Gaston was replaced as Rear Commodore Europe by Geert

Vandendriessche, who had faithfully served a term on the London committee

and been most active on the Continent.

In 1981 Jan Swerts Gaston was recruited to the club by Gaston, having just

arrived back in Antwerp after a four year circumnavigation. Jan had departed in

1977 to go uphill, solo, around the Five Great Capes in his 30ft Van de Stadt

sloop Tehani. Unfortunately he lost her on a reef off Tahiti, but went on to New

Zealand where he found another Van de Stadt, this time a 41ft Rebel named

Peti. After months of work he got her fit for sea and resumed his

circumnavigation via the Cape of Good Hope. His final ocean crossing included

a two month non-stop beat from Rio to the Azores. Jan joined the swelling

ranks of Belgian members which by 1984, when the List of Members first

showed nationalities, boasted 75 – out of all proportion to their population.

In 1982 Gulshan Rai, the first Indian citizen to become a member, joined with

a qualifying passage of 1080 miles across the Arabian Sea, and for almost half

the life of the Club has been the sole representative from the Sub-Continent. He

became Port Representative for Bombay (now known as Mumbai) in 1980,

which stood him in good stead before he qualified. In 1979 Gulshan had attempted

to sail from England to Bombay in Jaykus, a 27ft Albin Vega, but had lost her on

a reef in the Red Sea. He was sailing with his wife Ujwala and a tindal (a

combination of servant and a paid hand), which caused no end of embarrassment

when the three of them were confined to the liferaft for three days. He and

Ujwala, accompanied by a new tindal, returned to Hamble two years later and

bought a new Dolphin 31, naming her Jaykus II. They were not having a lot of

success fitting out, as Gulshan openly confesses in his book Sailing the Oceans,

but our man Dick Snell saved the day:

‘In this maelstorm of crisis, where the project is scraped together

on a shoestring budget, appears an angel. Captain ‘Dick’ Snell.

He is a corinthian yachtsman and the Port Officer, in honorary

capacity, of the Ocean Cruising Club. The premier objective of

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the Ocean Cruising Club is to foster and encourage ocean cruising

in small craft and the practice of seamanship, etc etc. The

secretariat of the Ocean Cruising Club is based at Worcestershire,

who inform Capt Snell, that his counterpart, Port Officer for

Bombay is at Hamble.

The ocean yachtsman that he is, Capt Dick Snell takes one

look at our plight, our plans in shambles, and involves himself

fully with our project. He drives us around Southampton, from

the factories to the junkyards, to get us the spare equipment

thirty to seventy-five per cent cheaper. It is incredible but true.

Looking for a spinnaker pole, he drives us to the world famous

Proctor spars factory and gets us an aluminium alloy boom for

£15, while at any chandler it would be £100, and to a scrapyard

for a slightly used spare CQR anchor.

To get these extra articles, he bulldozes his way where men

were concerned and browbeats them, and charms the salegirls.

He also has a look at our navigation methods and finds Ujwala’s

system of working out positions based on the Berton’s tables as

too old-fashioned and cumbersome, where there was room for

error in view of too many calculations. He sets to teach her a

labour-saving, quicker, shorter method of astronavigation, of

kindergarten simplicity, based on air navigation tables.’

Gulshan sent his first report from Bombay in 1981, with mouth watering

statistics such as abundant teak, shipwrights’ labour at £1 a day and diesel at 6p

per litre. As a customs officer he has also proved useful to members having

trouble with the inevitable Indian bureaucracy.

Not only Gulshan, but several Port Officers in remote areas wrote to Flying

Fish with local information which was not otherwise available in those days

when pilot books were scarce. In the same 1981 issue Robin Boyd, who was

on the home stretch of his circumnavigation in Ballerina, wrote a veritable