In pursuance of Object (b) of the club rules the Secretary wrote to all members

on 3rd April 1954:

‘Dear Members

I shall be very glad if you will let me have

any news of ocean voyaging in small craft

which may be of interest to members. I also

require such Information for the Club

records.

Ann Davison has very kindly presented to

the Club the red ensign which she wore aboard

Felicity Ann during the voyage to New York.

She is busy writing another book and plans to

return to New York in May and carry on with

the voyage in little Felicity Ann which she

left at City Island.

Bill Howell sails shortly in the 50ft

steel ketch Goodewind for the States. The

yacht is owned by Dr. Laws who has entered

her for the Bermuda Race. As far as I know

she is the only British entry*.

Victor Clark, who is on his way round the

world in the 34ft. ketch Solace, is now at

Kingston, Jamaica. He plans to leave Panama

early in May.

The Commodore tells me that he is trying to

track down a remarkable voyage which was made

across the N. Atlantic in 1932 by Miss Anna

Cedarblom, a young Swedish lady. The voyage

was made single-handed in a 15ft launch with

an outboard engine and calls were made at

Lerwick (Shetland Islands}, the Faeroes and

Iceland. From West Greenland the boat is

believed to have been shipped back to Sweden.

*Records don’t indicate whether they took part in the race, but it looks doubtful

as a Dr Small qualified for the OCC in the same boat that year with a voyage

from Cork to the Azores and back).

59

I hope that my next news bulletin will be

more informative, but please remember that I

am dependent upon you for information.

Yours sincerely’

Although this was first referred to as the Bulletin, it was clearly the start of the

Newsletter, but wasn’t given that title for another two years. It was realised

from the very beginning that the Newsletter, in whatever form, was the only

tangible contact that many members had with the running of the Club. Indeed,

also from the outset, the few grumbles recorded were that it was poor return

for the money. The Secretary was always at pains to emphasise that the

Newsletter was only as good as the news he received, and he constantly cajoled

members to send him information. It was also inevitable that, with so relatively

few members sending news, the more vocal and interesting got more than their

share of publicity. One or two faithful correspondents got so great a coverage

that we are able to follow their progress in one issue after another, and it must

be said that some make dull reading.

As members responded the Secretary’s letters got progressively longer, still

typed on foolscap, some running to six pages of close type. He promised to try

and produce two a year and more or less succeeded. His early letters are a mine

of information and show how the Club was gradually taking shape worldwide.

Apart from routine matters they were largely about cruising members, but

rarely did he quote directly from letters, preferring to paraphrase. This must

have made for a lot of work as the likes of Bill Crealock were likely to send

him a ten page missive which had, perforce, to be severely edited.

In his second letter, in January 1955, he reported somewhat laconically on

the wreck of Victor Clark’s Solace on Palmerston Atoll, referring to Victor’s

‘bad luck in getting ashore’, when in fact half the starboard side had been torn

out of the boat. He also reported that seven OCC boats – Freelance, Havfruen,

Carrina, Revive, Yasme, Seal and Enchantra – had gathered in Antigua to

celebrate Christmas in the first year of the Club’s formation. Quite a good turnout

even by present day standards. He ended with the admonition that subscriptions

were due, £1 or $3.20. He was a devil for punishment, adding the postscript, ‘My

appetite for news of long voyages in small craft remains insatiable’.

Mostyn’s encouragement to report sailing news seems to have borne fruit as

his third letter, in October 1955, had almost five pages about members on the

high seas, despite his lament at the beginning that he had practically nothing to

report. He tells of the wreck of Solace at rather greater length than his previous

terse remarks:

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‘The weather deteriorated but as he was under

the lee felt quite safe, especially as the

natives assured him that the northerlies did

not commence until December. Commander Clark

and his Boy slept aboard. About midnight he

awoke hearing the surf louder and closer and

apparently abeam instead of ahead. The motion

too had changed. On deck, he found they had

swung round towards the reef, the wind having

backed 10 points; a nasty sea was running and

he now had a lee shore uncomfortably close.

In swinging, the anchor cable had fouled a

coral head and the ketch was snubbing badly.

The sea got up very quickly, probably owing

to the shelf and cliff edge formation. The

winch was almost pulled out of the deck and

the shaft bent, but Commander Clark managed

to get the cable off the drum and round the

Samson post. At that moment the cable parted

and they were in a smother of breakers at the

edge of the reef. At the critical moment of

reaching the reef he says ‘a seventh great

wave’ seemed to lift them on to the reef

instead of driving the ship against the cliff

edge, where they would have been match wood

within a few minutes, and sunk in six

fathoms. Successive seas flogged them across

the reef until they were about twenty yards

from the edge, and there they rested. It was

an awful night, blowing a gale, raining,

covered in spray, heeled over about 50

degrees, holed on the starboard side, the

cabin a chaos and flooded.

The next four weeks were spent in hauling

Solace across the reef, floating her in the

lagoon, hauling her up the beach and shoring

her up under the palm trees. The hole on her

starboard side measured 19 feet by 6 feet.’

It is interesting to note that he also reports at length on Bill Tilman even though

he had not yet become a member. Perhaps this was because he was an old

friend and sailing companion of Hum’s and they had designs to press him as

61

Solace at Porto Santo, soon after the start

of her three year circumnavigation

soon as he got home. Bill was setting off on the first of his several high latitude

voyages to facilitate his first love, scaling unclimbed peaks, which by then

were only to be found at the ends of the earth.

In February 1956 the Secretary headed his fourth letter, Ocean Cruising

Club Newsletter. There is no evidence that this was a conscious decision on

his part, or by the Committee, but the minutes of a meeting in October 1955

also allude to ‘The Newsletter’ so it appears that the name was arrived at

empirically. Nevertheless, the Newsletter continued to be laboriously typed and

hand duplicated by Mostyn, and faithfully kept the membership informed of the

progressively expanding numbers who were crossing the oceans. Indeed, there

seemed to have been a veritable explosion of deep-sea sailing in the two years

since the club had been formed, or was it just that, at last, there was an

organisation collecting this information whereas previously much had gone

unsung?

The Secretary had obviously got his tentacles, out as his reports came from

a great variety of sources. He noted that on 31 October 1955, ‘The United

Kingdom Radio’had reported that Yasme had left Panama for Tahiti the previous

day, though why the BBC should be interested in a small boat setting out across

the Pacific is not clear. He also quoted a paper cutting from Canada:

62

‘A Vancouver paper dated the 9th November

1955 gives some details of John Guzzwell and

his 18 footer Trekka in which he sailed

across from Victoria B.C. to Hawaii in 29

days.’

Mostyn goes on,

‘The paper suggests he may be the smallest

ever to sail to Hawaii from the west coast of

America. She was built by Guzzwell himself

and it took 18 months. He is going to New

Zealand and may then sail on to South Africa

where he once lived. Trekka looks like a

larger Sopranino, which was designed by

Laurent Giles and sailed out to the States by

Pat Ellam and Colin Mudie in 1951. Trekka is

rigged as a yawl and she must be

exceptionally fast.’

Trekka was in fact 20ft 6in overall, which does make her a bigger version of

Sopranino at a little under 20ft. She too was of Laurent Giles design.

There were regular updates on the movements of Bill Crealock and Ernest

Chamberlain, both Founder Members, who had bought and restored the old

105ft gaff schooner Gloria Maris in Newport Beach. They converted her to

Bermudan rig, putting a 110ft pole mast in her for ‘easy short-handed sailing’.

At the time of Mostyn’s report they were crossing the Pacific with a party of

scientists, in search of poisonous sea animals from which to extract the venom

so as to make an antidote. Bill eventually settled in California where he practised

as a yacht designer, drawing the well-known Westsail series and later the famous

Crealock 37, a sturdy cruising boat still very popular in the US. Bill has been in

and out of the Club several times as his membership was allowed to lapse, but

it is gratifying to learn that, on hearing of the Jubilee, at the age of 84 he has

applied to rejoin.

Not all reported passages were as exotic or successful as Bill and Ernest’s. In

his action-packed Newsletter of 9 August 1956 Mostyn retold at length the trials

and tribulations of new members David Beard and Gordon Auchterlonie,

much of which is worth quoting:

‘Mr. Beard and Gordon Auchterlonie left

Lowestoft on the 25th October 1955 in Skaffie

and arrived at Madeira on the 1st December

63

(their qualifying passage). Skaffie is a 20ft

Bermudian sloop with a beam of 7ft 3in. They

had bad weather most of the way and were

dismasted off Cape Finisterre, losing their

dinghy, their engine being flooded and put

out of action. They carried on under jury rig

and it took them nine days against head winds

to cover the last 240 miles into Funchal.

They made the West Indies safely but ran into

serious trouble later when making for the

Canal Zone. A hundred miles from Grenada

their rudder split down the centre and with

only half the blade they found it almost

impossible to steer except down wind. They

decided to try and make Curaçao.

When endeavouring to get to the south of

Bonaire Island they were blown and washed

inshore and being unable to tack finally

struck the coral and the boat stranded. They

scrambled ashore and after an all night walk,

found help at the town of Kralendijk. With a

bulldozer and many willing hands Skaffie was

dragged ashore and transported across to the

west coast of the island on a lorry. She was

pretty badly damaged. She had five new planks

and part of her keel replaced. Mr Beard says

they cannot speak too highly of the Dutch

Authorities for all their help and of the

inhabitants for their assistance and the many

necessities given to enable them to continue

their voyage.

They left Bonaire Island on the 2nd April

and made good runs until the 5th, when the

wind increased and the sea got up. They were

then about one hundred miles from the

Columbian coast. The weather continued to

deteriorate and they rode to a sea-anchor. On

the 6th this carried away; at the same time

they shipped a ‘terrific sea’ and Mr. Beard

was washed overboard. He swam back although

he had on oilskins. The rudder also broke

again. They bailed out and hove to with just

64

a corner of the mainsail set, but with the

wind still increasing and only a bit of

rudder left, things looked black. On the 7th

they again shipped a big sea which put them

over on their beam ends with the mast in the

water, the cockpit flooded and the cabin

became a shambles. They thought for some

seconds it was the end, then Skaffie ‘came up

slowly’. The dinghy had broken adrift and

soon broke up completely. The chronometer had

been thrown out of its case and had stopped.

They were swamped once more but on the 8th

the weather improved. They rigged a jury

rudder with a boom and floor boards and

sailed on, finally arriving at Colon on the

19th April after being becalmed and almost

driven ashore on the islands south of

Manzanilla Point. Their navigation for the

last part had been mostly guesswork – no

chronometer and a shark had taken the rotor

off the log line. ...

I am sorry to say that after all their

efforts they have had to give up for the

present.’

The Mr Beard is of course, David Beard, still a member and now our Port

Officer Brisbane.

Ben Carlin hadn’t been idle since his reported departure the previous year in his

amphibious jeep, Half Safe:

‘He reached Hong Kong on the 6th May. The

London-Calcutta ‘passage’ was fairly

straightforward, the English Channel and the

Bosphorus like mill ponds. Heat and several

broken steering arms in Persia delayed him.

Mrs Ben Carlin accompanied him in a small 5

cwt. van with spares and supplies. This van

did very good work in Persia and covered

several extra hundreds of miles getting the

steering arms repaired many miles away from

where Half Safe was stranded. They did not

65

arrive in Calcutta until the 15th July 1955,

too late to continue their journey to

Australia under their own steam. They

therefore shipped the jeep and themselves to

Fremantle, arriving on the 9th October, and

motored across the continent to Sydney to

keep some business appointments. Later they

motored to Melbourne and Ben shipped with

Half Safe back to Calcutta and Mrs Carlin

came back to Lebanon, where she now is.

He eventually left on the 19th February

and ‘steamed’ across the Bay of Bengal alone

and picked up his new partner, Harry Hanley,

at Akyab. Together they drove across the

rough mountain track to Proune thence down

the main road to Rangoon. They then set off

down the Rangoon River, across the Gulf and

up the river for 40 miles to Kyondo. There,

after he says, ‘much fun’, the 39 miles over

the mountains to the Siamese border took

eleven hours solid driving. He marvels how

Half Safe survived this pre-war road, which

is now a ‘giant’s rosary’ of granite

boulders. The temperature in the jeep was 146

degrees.

The next stretch of 60 miles was almost as

hard and took them one and a half days:

impossible gradients up which the jeep had to

winch herself a dozen times. Bangkok was

reached on 26th March. Then on into Cambodia

through Angkor Wat to Pnom Penh and entered

Saigon on the 12th April. Stayed another

week then drove north to Nha Trang. Here

they went afloat again and steamed the 275

miles to Tourane. The passage from Tourane

to Hong Kong was 530 sea miles which they

covered in 79 hours (sic) arriving on

Sunday 6th May. Ben says constant head

winds slowed them down and they spent one

day hove to and a second inducing a leaded

up valve to function.

Hong Kong must have been a pleasing sight.

66

Their arrival was recorded on B.B.C. TV News

on Tuesday the 15th May. After a rest, refit

and no doubt some relaxation, Ben was heading

for Hakodato on the north island of Japan. He

plans to follow the Kurile islands and call

at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands, and finally

make Anchorage in Alaska. After that, going

down the coast south to Vancouver should be

child’s play. He is full of praise for the

jeep, and said the engine had never had a

major overhaul since he left Nova Scotia in

1950.’

The whole ‘passage’ shows up as a most

courageous enterprise. Good luck to his

future progress.’

Bill Tilman got further mention having arrived home after successfully climbing

the previously unexplored Patagonian Ice Cap. This involved a three week trek

from Peel Inlet with all gear and food. They sailed home via the west coast of

South America and Panama Canal. Bill then felt qualified to join and entered,

modestly, ‘South America to starboard, 20,000 miles’, as his qualifying passage.

Indeed, by the time his name first appeared in the List of Members in 1960 he

had sailed 40,000 miles since the club was formed – all this in his primitive,

gaff-rigged Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter, which leaked as much through the

deck as she did through the bottom. Hum recalled how, when setting out on a

passage in her, he found Bill wringing out his socks before putting them on

again. When asked why he didn’t put on a dry pair he replied that he only had

one pair.

Tilman seemed totally inured to hardship. Perhaps it was his wartime

service that hardened him, but he was a born ascetic. He started climbing

in Kenya in 1920 and went on to make several Himalayan sorties in the

1930s. He abhorred the elaborate and expensive expeditions and, together

with Shipton, mounted a five month first exploration of the Nanda Devi

basin at a total cost of £286, including return fares. During the Second

World War he joined the Special Forces and worked behind enemy lines

with the partisans in Albania and Italy. He didn’t take to sailing until after

the war, when he considered himself too old for the Himalayas but thought

a boat the ideal way of finding unclimbed peaks.

There was also an update on Victor Clark, who had arrived in New Zealand

after his year at Palmerston Atoll rebuilding Solace. He had expected to have to

replace most of the jury work done, but when the surveyor saw the hand sawn

67

frames cut from local timber on Palmerston he said, ‘Don’t you touch them.

You won’t get as good a job as that done anywhere in New Zealand!’

In that, Mostyn’s final Newsletter, he added that the Commodore had spent a

lot of time at sea, his longest trip being a delivery to Naples in Old Fox, a 65ft

yawl with a crew including his daughter, Miss Patricia Barton, and Mr Harry

Goodhart, Mostyn’s successor as Secretary. They sailed non-stop to Gibraltar,

therefore qualifying for the OCC. It is not surprising that being the Commodore’s

crew they joined to a man, or a girl, in Pat’s case. Pat, of course, is now Mrs

Pocock, wife of recent Commodore, Mike.

Harry Goodhart, who took over the secretaryship from Mostyn, carried on the

good work, laboriously typing and duplicating, but his first Newsletter was little

more than a series of snippets of the many voyaging members. He reported the

arrival in the Antipodes of David Beard and Gordon Auchterlonie who, it will be

remembered, had had a rather trying start to their voyage. Even though the

membership at this time was only some 250, there seemed to be an extraordinary

number of them crossing the oceans. Harry’s next Newsletter was another

gem. He updated the South Sea wanderings of Victor Clark who, after his refit

in New Zealand, sailed back to Palmerston to thank the locals for their help. On

his way he called at the island of Tanna, as Victor puts it ‘only recently

decannibalised’ to find that:

‘There has been a recrudescence of a peculiar

cult amongst the natives. They expect an

American negro by the name of Jon Frum to

come in a white ship, leading a convoy of

cargo ships bringing them all the good things

that the white man enjoys, which they will

thus get without having to work for them.

There had been mass demonstrations the week

before my arrival, at which the leaders

declared that Jon Frum would arrive the

following Friday. Nothing happened, of

course, and there was considerable feeling

and some disturbances and rather repressed

reaction. The next day, however, after dark,

a white ship threaded its way into the

anchorage and dropped anchor (Solace). The

buzz went round quick that Jon Frum had

arrived, and when the following morning the

white ship was seen to carry a negro (poor

68

little Stanley), excitement was intense. We

decided that as we couldn’t produce the

expected cargo, Stanley had better not pose

as their Messiah, but not until we left five

days later were they convinced that he wasn’t

Jon Frum. He was entertained ashore with

lashings of food ...’

Harry had heard from Bill Tilman, who had become a member the previous

year, but he didn’t stay ashore long enough to take much part in Club affairs.

He had left for Heard Island, an uninhabited, unclimbed rock some 2000 miles

southeast of Cape Town but, not surprisingly, had difficulty recruiting crew.

Finally he resorted to an advertisement in the local press: ‘Sailing man wanted,

willing to cook on small boat. Long voyage, no pay, no prospects, very little

pleasure.’

Harry also reported on John Guzzwell, who had joined the Club the previous year

after his solo Pacific crossing. John had left Trekka in Australia to join Miles and

Beryl Smeeton in Tzu Hang on their planned return to England via The Horn.

Harry seemed to vie with John for understatement when he reported that they had

a ‘narrow escape in the South Pacific’, then quoted from John’s letter:

‘We left Melbourne, Australia on December 26^th, 1956, bound for Stanley, Falkland Islands. We went along very well for 50 days during which we made good some 5,000 miles when on the morning of February 14th at Lat 51º 17’ S, Long 98º W, we were swept bare by a huge wave. Both masts went at deck level, two side hatches were completely smashed, the two dinghies went, the doghouse went at deck level, the bowsprit snapped off, the compass and most important the rudder was torn off. Mrs. Smeeton who was at the helm running the ketch off down wind under bare poles towing a warp was swept overboard but we got her on board again. There was 4ft of water below and while the skipper and his wife started bailing I covered up the 6ft by 6ft opening in the deck where the doghouse had been with floorboards and sails. It was not until the following day that the ship was reasonably safe. We were 1,000 miles from land.’

69

In what was to be the last of the Secretary’s arduously typed Newsletters, in May

1958, he quoted a letter from Stephen Newmark, the Club’s first USA West Coast

Rear Commodore, which shows the suspicion with which the newfangled fibreglass

was greeted. He said that he had raced in a 41ft fibreglass sloop which they had

driven very hard but there was no sign of fatigue or deterioration.

Another sign of the times that one would be unlikely to read in today’s politically

correct world was a quote from Batchy Carr who was circumnavigating with

his wife in their 60ft Colin Archer ketch, Havfruen – Batchy referred to taking

a wife to Tahiti as being like ‘taking coals to Newcastle’. Havfruen was the

biggest yacht that Colin Archer had designed when he drew her for her first

owner in 1894. She was built in Norway by the Porgsgrund yard and delivered

in 1896, the year after they had completed Amundsen’s Fram. Batchy bought

her in 1947 and lived aboard for the next 27 years, completing 12 Atlantic

crossings and a circumnavigation in her. She is now back in Norway and has

been beautifully restored as a sailing exhibit of the Stavanger Maritime Museum

(see photograph page 83). Batchy’s son, Paddy, is a current member.

Harry reported on the first of the several accolades which were showered on

Bill Tilman for his many extraordinary voyages. Bill followed Al Petersen to

become the Club’s second member to be awarded the CCA’s coveted Blue

Water Medal, for his circumnavigation of South America, but by the time of the

award he was back at sea, this time in the Indian Ocean.

Ben Carlin’s exploits were brought to a close. He had crossed the North

Pacific from Hong Kong via Japan and the Aleutians, thence down the Alaskan

Highway and across the States to Annapolis to complete his seven year

circumnavigation. An incredible passage, any one leg of which reads like a far-

fetched novel.

Club records are sparse over the period 1959–60, as was the next edition of the

Newsletter which was one folded sheet in September 1959 after a gap of 16

months. But it was printed with the Club burgee at the letter-head. Black and

white, of course, but a great step forward from the previous amateur efforts.

It reported that John Guzzwell had completed his circumnavigation in his

20ft 6in Trekka, making her the smallest boat ever to encircle the globe. John

made some remarkably fast passages, on one occasion covering 1101 miles in

a week with a best day’s run of 192 miles. Victor Clark had also arrived home

after his six year circumnavigation. He then lent Solace to the Island Cruising

Club and settled down to write his delightful book, On the Wind of a Dream.

The May 1960 issue of the Newsletter was the first under the new Commodore,

Tim Heywood, who appears to have written it entirely himself. It was, for this

70

issue only, inexplicably printed on quarto paper which must have played havoc

with the filing system. Tim reported on an offer from Marshall Wright that

the Club could not refuse:

‘I am now well established in this lovely spot‘  (Noumea) and we are all–––––wife, daughter, dog (shipped all the way from England), cat (local)––––– enjoying it immensely. So much so that I see little chance of our ever returning to Europe, except for holidays. At the end of June there was a Sydney-Noumea race for amateur yachts. Having let it be known that I was interested in sailing and a member of the O.C.C., I was put on the reception committee, otherwise all French of course.

Four boats started but ran into a cyclone of dangerous force on the second day out when retired. This left two slightly battered survivors one of whom was Dr. Franklin Evans in his Kochab. The. other was Malohi skippered by its owner Neville McEnnally. Most of the lads were members of Middle Harbour Yacht Club of Sydney and I signed application forms for membership of the O.C.C for at least four of them. One of Kochab’s crew was Wally

Burke, the Commodore of M.H.Y.C., a splendid chap.

He would try and make speeches in French of which the ten words he knows would have been most useful if only he could have pronounced them. Well, here I am, an Englishman in a French paradise, and willing to be Area Representative or anything else the O.CC. and any of its members who visit us.

As we have seen already, only two years later Wally Burke became our first

Flag Officer Australia.

In the space of two Newsletters Bill Tilman had got back to Lymington to

collect another dinghy and was off again for the elusive peaks deep in the

southern ocean. Bill wrote as follows:

‘You will be relieved to hear that we made the Crozet‘ all right, so I have got that out of my system. The anchorage was quite good with a handy landing

71

place on a rock ledge. This was white with King Penguins, a rookery of several thousand sea elephants lay about like giant slugs, and albatross and giant petrel were nesting on the slopes above. Tufft ringed over 200 of them. The eggs made good omelettes and we knocked off a Penguin or two for stew. The mountains were disappointing. According to the Antarctic Pilot they are 5,000ft high and snow covered, whereas we made the highest about 3,200ft and the snow very temporary. In 10 days carrying and climbing Tufft and I cleared up the lot. Not climbing in the technical sense. So after only 15 days there we pushed on to Kerguelen, 700 miles east in latitude 49. It is a big island 75 miles across, no danger of missing it as we might the Crozet. There are over 300 islets and lots of lovely fjords, rather like the west coast Scotland. Anchorages abound. Along the west coast is an ice cap sending glaciers down to the sea on both sides. No height is given on the chart and I suppose no one has visited it. Tufft and I spent 10 days crossing it. We didn’t get right down to the sea on the west owing to low cloud. It is only 3,600ft high, a surprisingly low figure for an ice field 12 miles across and some 25 miles long, fed by no big fed by no big peaks in a latitude as low as 49 The old boat is in good shape in spite of all she has had to put up with but the sails are getting devilish thin.’

This Newsletter also told of the progress of Keith Laws, who had left for

Australia the previous year in his 50ft ketch Goodewind:

‘From the Galas we headed for Pitcairn Island

which we reached on 29th January after an

uneventful but very pleasant voyage with

mainly light to medium airs and odd calms.

The reception at Pitcairn was magnificent and

we took turns staying ashore as guests of the

Christian, Young and McCoy families. The

hospitality was overwhelming and we were very

72

reluctant to leave this wonderful island.

John Christian, the chief magistrate asked

what stores we would require. He was given a

list, the island bell was rung, the

inhabitants congregated and orders were

issued. It was not long before a line of the

islanders was heading beachwards to take the

stores out to the yacht. The weather had been

very good to us during our stay and the local

narrow craft had no difficulty in getting the

stores aboard. We still had supplies when we

reached Tahiti a month later. (Perhaps

Christian was still working on clearing his

conscience for his previous mutinous

behaviour). Nothing but praise can be given

these wonderful people and the arrival of a

yacht is something unusual. We were told that

we were only the second yacht to visit the

island en route from England.’

What a delight it must have been to cruise the Pacific in those early days!

The next letter, in November 1960, had reverted to the smaller format with yet

another change of heading. It ran to 24 pages, but 17 of these were devoted to

Hum’s passage from England to the Canaries, and five to the Pacific wanderings

of Australians Harry and Pat Fink aboard their home-built ketch Kylie. Hum

had spent some time in Vigo where Alfredo Lagos slipped Rose of York. He had

first got to know the Lagos family when he had called at Vigo on delivery trips,

so their friendship with the Club now runs to three generations.

Whilst cruising yachtsmen may have been thin on the ground in the Pitcairn

area, they were plentiful further west. Marshall Wright, having now been

appointed as Port Officer for New Caledonia, had so many Club visitors that he

reported blowing up his washing machine looking after them. We hear later that

Marshall was threatened by the local washerwomen’s protection society for

taking away their trade with his newfangled machine. The Finks contributed to

the overload having worked their way north from Sydney then out to the islands.

Either they had been at sea too long or were suffering hallucinations from lack

of drink, as all their references to radio frequencies were given in milligrams.

At last members began to send in more news and a number of Port Officers

reported on activities on their patches, so that the Newsletters gradually got

73

fatter and more readable. Unfortunately there was a tendency to reproduce

some long and tedious logs verbatim even when they consisted of little but daily

entries, but these were more than offset by the yarns of the more intrepid. It

appears that a Newsletter was issued when there was sufficient material, and

not all were dated, but they began to settle into a twice-yearly pattern and,

although still headed Newsletter, they were starting to resemble the Journal as

we know it today.

Assuming that not all members reported their activities, it is amazing just how

many were on the high seas by 1960. Until the appointment of the Australian

Rear Commodore it had been very much an Atlantic club. Now we begin to

hear more of what was happening on the other side of the world. Edmund

King out of Sydney had just completed a circumnavigation, as had James

Crawford from Florida. We hear of the Bradfields’wanderings in the dangerous

Moluccas where they were arrested at gunpoint and escorted to the military

headquarters in Ambon. There they were warmly greeted by the commander

who bestowed the freedom of the city upon them and the navy provisioned

them with as much as they could carry. Ted Hollingsworth, Port Officer Pago

Pago, reported having three Club boats in at the same time. There were the

obligatory 15 pages from the Admiral, who had arrived in Antigua which he

reported as ‘a simply delightful spot’. He describes with pride how he put Rose

alongside the quay under sail, despite there being ‘about a dozen other boats in

the harbour’. He doesn’t confess what his reply was when on arrival a dusky

maiden asked, “Captain sah please, do you want a maid?”

The May 1961 issue contains, for the first time, a list of Port Officers, showing

thirteen with a good international spread. This list included Founder Member

Ian Nicolson as Port Officer Clyde, and a glance at the 2003 Members Handbook

will show that he is still our man there, having carried the burden throughout

the life of the Club. Furthermore, Ian has always been forthcoming with

interesting news of members and goings-on in his neck of the woods. However

the name issue was even further confused by the announcement that: ‘Port

Officers would be known as Club Officers followed by the name of their Port

or Area’.

Bill Tilman was on his way again in the spring of 1961 and got a mention in the

next Newsletter – which had again changed its form, if not its shape, as it was

now headed with a list of flag officers and Club officials. Bill, having climbed

the available unclimbed peaks in the southern high latitudes, had turned his

attention to Greenland. His report is in stark contrast to Hum’s – which describes

the luxuries of sparsely populated tropical harbours – being all fog and icebergs:

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‘If you’re in tropic seas this line from the

Arctic will be welcome. We are now five weeks

out from Belfast and it has been a long hard

passage in wet, windy waters. We did well the

first two weeks but the last three we’ve had

only head winds, some of them Force 7. A week

back we were only 50 miles east of Cape

Farewell when a N.W. blow lasting three days

set us 150 miles south. Yesterday we were

closing the land again in thick fog and had

just run her off to avoid a socking great

iceberg about 100 yds. long and 100ft. high.

At that moment the fog lifted, the sun came

out, and close ahead stretched a magnificent

piece of coastline fringed with great

icebergs, backed by barren mountains and

glaciers, and behind the Greenland ice-cap.

What a landfall! It was a most welcome sight

as we were beginning to wonder if we’d ever

make it. We were just south of Cape

Desolation. We have 200 miles to go to

Godthaab where we shall have a few days to

refresh, and then 40 miles to Umenal (lat.

71ºN) where we hope to climb. It will take

some time as winds in the Davis Strait are

light and northerly. There are lots of

icebergs about but as it is light all night

they are not the menace one feared. Fog is

the curse. The sun is out most of the day but

the horizon is seldom clear enough for

sights.

Crew are well and cheerful in spite of the

cold.’

After several sorties to Greenland Bill reflected on climbing, thoughts that apply

equally well to cruising:

‘Mountaineering is happily not yet a

competitive sport. There are no medals to be

won, no records to be broken. The mountains,

whether or not we overcome them, are the

prize and there are as well the rewards which

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each individual finds for himself, health,

peace of mind, high endeavour, a sense of

achievement, staunch companionship, and at

the end of it all a store of mountain

memories.’

John Guzzwell was also on his way again and gave a wonderfully understated

account of his cruise that would have won a Club cup today considering that

Trekka was home-built and only 20ft 6in overall. He left from Vancouver in

early May and headed south for warmer water:

‘After eight days we were south of San Francisco and into warmer latitudes, then our course started to curve away to the S.W. and towards the Islands. We were running along one evening with twins and spinnaker up, the boat steering herself, when I noticedspinnaker up, the boat steering herself, when I noticed that the steering was not acting as it should. Examination of the rudder showed that the metalExamination of the rudder showed that the metalExamination of the rudder showed that the metal stock had sheared off just inside the hull, leaving the rudder swinging below with no means of controlling it. After some thought on the matter I decided to fasten a G clamp to the trailing edge of the rudder and run two lines through blocks on the end a spinnaker pole lashed across the after deck. The lines then ran to blocks on the coaming, then tied on the tiller. The only trouble with this arrangement was that it used up one of the spinnaker poles and I was unable to set the twin staysails without it. We ran on towards the Islands with the small spinnaker up but the night watches constant steering were taking much of the pleasure out of the passage so after 30 days I figured out a way of using the dinghy oars lashed over the stern to replace the needed pole. Soon afterwards we were running along with the twins and spinnaker up with the self- steering working. On the 32nd day we entered the port of Kahului on the island of Maui where we spent a few days before continuing on to Honolulu We spent nearly eight weeks in the group before leaving for the west coast, a long passage of 2,800 miles

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nearly all to windward eventually arrived at Santa Barbara, California, 37 days out after a very slow passage, then proceeded on to Los Angeles where we were bound.’

A pleasant little 6000 mile summer cruise for John and his new wife!

John had then intended to travel to England to build a larger boat on the lines

of the Commodore’s Donella class 44ft cutter, but got diverted when invited to

join the OCC member Baxter Still, skipper of Ticonderoga, on a passage to

Florida. John reported some magnificent sailing in this classic 72-footer, ‘different

to Trekka – almost as nice’.

The spring 1962 issue contained three book reviews – which were to become

a regular feature of the Newsletter/Journal – all recently published by members,

namely Francis Chichester, David Lewis and Ian Nicolson. The first two had

written of their Atlantic crossings in the previous year’s OSTAR – hardly cruising

yarns, but they do shed light on the early days of singlehanded sailing with its

reliance on some form of self-steering. Like the spin-off from racing cars to

family saloons, so the pressure and money behind the rigorous requirements of

the racing boat led to the development of reliable self-steering, now an accepted

item on most cruising yachts. However, Francis’s book did not receive unstinting

praise from his reviewer, who wrote,

‘The fashion of modesty in autobiographies is

nowadays carried so far that one is often

left wondering who on earth could have

prevailed upon the author to record such a

dull life. Francis Chichester’s account of

his magnificent sail westwards across the

Atlantic to win the first single-handed

transatlantic race suffers a little from the

same thing. So anxious is the author not to

pitch the story in an heroic key that much of

the time we are treated to a sort of Mrs.

Dale’s Diary* of yachting: “Then I had

breakfast of toast with some of Mrs. Philip

Younge’s scrumptious home made butter ...”

and so on. But if this emphasis on the

trivial, with a sometimes uncomfortably

*A long running British radio soap of the 1950s

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intimate style, takes away from the book as a

piece of writing (and one feels that less

rush would have produced a better book) it

does not entirely spoil it as a record of an

amazing journey. Chichester’s crossing from

Plymouth to New York in 40 days was by far

the fastest single-handed east-west crossing

there has ever been, and this is an

achievement well worth reading about.’

The review of Ian’s book, on his slow passage to Vancouver in Maken, shows

what a stark contrast there was between the ‘modern’ racers and the heavy

displacement gaff-rigged cruiser of few mod-cons and, of course, no self-

steering. The reviewer is daring enough to predict that the book ‘could well be

one of the last accounts of voyages in a boat of that nature as more modern

craft become the only ones left’. He was a little ahead of the times.

Another innovation in this issue were the several reports from ‘Club Officers’,

the latest pseudonym for Port Officers. They were responding to the Club’s

search for information on foreign ports and described the facilities available in

their regions. Although at this stage uncoordinated, this was the beginning of

the Club’s Cruising Information Service which it was hoped would become the

‘Michelin Guide’ of the sea.

In 1962 there were, for the first time, two successive issues which were more or

less the same layout. The cover page gave the names of the flag officers and other

Club officials and the letter began with a ‘Note from the Commodore’, but they

were not necessarily dated. One must divine the date of issue from the content

and, even more annoyingly for the researcher, there were no contents lists.

The myth that tales of old boats would soon become extinct was quickly exploded

when the Commodore reported news of his previous boat, Lucent, a Cornish

Lugger of most primitive rig. (Luggers originated for coastal fishing and carried

their sails laced to heavy spars which had to be ‘dipped’ when going about.

This was done by lowering the sail sufficiently to carry the heel of the spar

round the mast before rehoisting it.) Tim was anxious to hear news of the old

girl and eventually ran her to earth in Miami. The new owner, Roger Jameson,

was not a member but was soon to join and write some delightful tales for the

Newsletter. Telling Tim how he had refitted Lucent for ocean cruising, he wrote:

‘We changed her rig by adding a 16ft. bowsprit with

11ft. outboard which either sports a working jib or11ft. or

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250 sq.ft. Yankee. This once gave us 8.2 knots for about 20 minutes in calm Thames Estuary water–––––most alarming. We also gave her a pair of square yards, permanently horizontal, on which we hoist two upside-down staysails for self-steering. With this rig we can also hoist Yankee, 3 reefed main for steadiness, mizzen and mizzen staysail. This is our usual Tradewind rig and when we crossed the Atlantic we never had to steer, only make occasional adjustments. If the wind is on the quarter, we lower the leeward staysail and hoist whole main and topsail and substitute elastic for the lee brace. This works even better as we can set the spare staysail in its proper place on the stem-head and we then have 1,125 sq.ft., most of which pulls most of the time. No doubt you remember Lucent needs driving. We also put a Kentish cherry picker’s ladder, cost 4s.1d. per rung, specially made, up the forward side of the mast to the hounds. It weighs about 80–––––90 lb. only, is of spruce, and is a feature which is most useful if unconventional. We find her much stiffer when put down aft about 3 in. by stores and 480 cans of beer and then she goes to windward (close reach) with less ocean above you. In the W.I.s when we were light, you even got wet sitting on the square yards, but not so in the Bay of Biscay. We always drive her hard or else she goes sideways. Inside ballast seems to make for a comfortable roll and not too much of that. With a tablecloth, you can even neglect my first rule of seamanship which is ‘always replace the cork in the rum bottle’

This issue found the Admiral in Rhode Island, having cruised north through the

Caribbean and Bahamas then up the East Coast to New York. The Committee

were obviously feeling strong-minded as they only felt it necessary to devote

eight pages to Hum’s wanderings. The Bradfields also got eight pages, on their

passage across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea in company with the

Hiscocks in Wanderer III. Perhaps the most experienced ocean cruisers in small

boats at that time, the independent Hiscocks never did join the Club, but their

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books soon became the bible to most aspiring ocean voyagers. An interesting addition

had crept into the Newsletters in the form of advice on particular points of seamanship.

This has been obviated today by the many books and courses available on boat handling,

but in those days very little was written down and it was most useful to receive the

wisdom of the more experienced members. Francis Chichester wrote on self-

 steering and David Lewis wrote of his experiences in heavy gales. One correspondent,

Joseph W Outerbridge from New Jersey, being of a statistical turn of mind, wrote that

he had calculated from the 1960 List  of Members that the 328 members had sailed a total

of 1,797,028 miles in vessels of under 70ft. This was at a time when all declared voyages of

qualifying distance were recorded on the list. He then teased his readers further by adding that

he had just crossed the Atlantic again for the first time since his qualifying voyage in 1931 and,

since he was now more than twice as old as he was then, he was gratified to

find that he enjoyed it as much as ever.

The next issue was to be the first under the guidance of David Wallis and,

as we have already heard, was boldly entitled ‘1963 No.1 NEWSLETTER’,

suggesting that a numerical serialisation was about to start. David’s influence

was also apparent on the contents as the Admiral’s report was, to coin a

phrase, admirably brief.

David Wallis, the Club’s first official Editor

80

Peter Azevedo at the door to his

fascinating scrimshaw museum

Hum on ivory

81

After a brief flying visit to England Hum had returned to Rose of York in Newport

and set off for home. He made a call at the Azores and there, inevitably, visited

the Café Sport, presided over by the father of Peter, the present proprietor.

Thus began the long association between the Azores and the Club in general

and with the Azevedo family and the Café Sport in particular, a friendship

enshrined in a good likeness of Hum engraved on a whale’s tooth in Peter’s

famous scrimshaw collection. Hum sailed on for Lymington, but only stopped

long enough for engine repairs before heading off south again. Unfortunately

he could not find a long-term crew, so had to abandon his plans of wintering in

warmer climes and instead returned to Falmouth. This was perhaps just as

well, as he was then building a new boat in Norfolk and would be on hand to

supervise its construction.

The overseas Rear Commodores were given pride of place in the Newsletter

following the Commodore’s report. Jack Parkinson, Rear Commodore USA

East, told of arriving in Newport, Rhode Island in his new boat Winnie of

Bourne and, when the driving rain cleared, finding that he was anchored next

to the Admiral. This was their first meeting so they celebrated at the famous Ida

Lewis Yacht Club. Jack also met Francis and Sheila Chichester in Buzzards Bay

so they enjoyed sails on each other’s boats.

Francis was not satisfied with his 40 day crossing in the first OSTAR and

was determined to beat it, so crossed singlehanded again in 1962, this time in

36 days. Sheila then joined him for a short cruise before returning. Jack marvelled

at Francis’s self-steering, ‘Miranda’, which he described as being almost alive.

He then expressed what must have been heard so many times around the world

over the past 50 years, and what was enshrined as an Object in the first issue of

Club Rules, ‘On account of the OCC, I certainly meet some interesting and

nice people’.

Although we were not told of it in earlier issues, it appears that Bill Howell had

again abandoned his London dentistry practice and set off for his native Australia.

This Newsletter picks him up singlehanded and engineless running down to

Panama in Stardrift. Bill takes up the story in his usual racy style:

‘In fact, in those 8 days I did 1,100 miles

and was only 100 miles from Panama, and was

rubbing my hands in smug anticipation of

another record single-handed passage to hang

alongside the scalp of my recent trans-

Atlantic trip.

At 10.00 hours on the 9th day the trade

wind was blowing force 6. At 11.00 hours it

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Havfruen, now a sailing exhibit in the Stavanger Maritime Museum

(see page 70)

stopped dead and I was completely and utterly

becalmed - just like that! I’ve never known

such a dramatic change. And for the next 10

days it just didn’t come back, and the

realisation was slowly forced through my

bone-brain that here were the doldrums, a

month earlier than usual.

During those 10 days I did manage to get

some sailing in, making about 30 miles a day.

But here I had to pay for that big lift I had

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The first appearance of the word Journal -

the title Flying Fish was not to appear for another six years

84

The inimitable

Bill Howell

been getting from the trade wind current,

which plunges into the Mosquito Gulf and then

comes back along the Isthmus of Darien as a

counter current. This counter current runs

back to the east at about 30 miles a day, so

that I was in reality standing still. In fact

my sun sights on the 10th day in the doldrums

showed that I was 95 miles from Panama, and

it doesn’t take an electronic computer to

work out that I had managed to travel 5 miles

in 10 days. And to think that I had rocketed

through 1,100 miles in the previous 8 days!

Ten days of brooding over the Sailing

Directions convinced me that I didn’t have

any prospect of relief from the doldrums

until the middle of December, which was three

months off, so I decided to call for

assistance from one of the numerous

freighters that were continually trudging

past me on their way to the Canal. Finally a

ruffle of breeze allowed me to hoist the big

masthead genoa and off I went on a collision

85

course with a nearby steamer. He altered

course and pretended he hadn’t noticed me,

but I fired a red flare practically into the

bridge house and he then had, in all decency,

to stop.

I offered the skipper 300 dollars for a

tow into Cristobal, but he couldn’t oblige as

he had a booking into the Canal locks and he

was already behind time. However, he promised

to tell the Harbourmaster of my predicament,

and gave me two bottles of beer, fresh bread

and fruit, cheese and salami sausage, and a

can full of ice-cold water. The beer and the

water were real windfalls, as it was 95

Robin Knox-Johnson – the first man to circumnavigate

non-stop solo  (see page 95)

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degrees F. down below in the cabin. Before

they got warm, I drank the beer and then

opened a bottle of rum, which I drank with

the ice-cold water. By nightfall I was blind

drunk, so I pulled down all the sails and

climbed into the bunk.

At 03.00 I was awoken from a delightfully

drunken sleep by the most infernal din. There

were whistles blowing and engines roaring and

megaphoned voices shouting. The cabin was lit

up like day. My first reaction was: A bloke

can’t even get a decent sleep here in the

middle of the Caribbean all by himself, when

I realised that it was a rescuer, in fact, a

United States guided missile destroyer,

nothing less, the U.S.S. Hoel.

A giant mooring warp was fastened about

Stardrift’s mast and helmsmen and signallers

were cascaded on board with Aldis lamps and

walkie-talkie sets. A special tension device

was attached to the warp so that, by

measuring the drag of my hull through the

water, they could tell when they were towing

Stardrift at her maximum speed (now at last I

know it’s 7 knots). At lunchtime there was a

flashing of semaphore signals between

Stardrift and the Hoel’s bridge; they wanted

to know what I should like for lunch. A

launch was lowered from the destroyer and

lunch duly arrived: soup, veal escalope,

french fried potatoes, asparagus, runner

beans, cold slaw, apple pie and ice cream,

coffee. In the afternoon another exchange of

signals, and a request from the skipper to

have dinner that evening with him and his

officers in the ward room. Another special

launch trip, an officer-yachtsman to take

Stardrift’s helm in my absence, and I was

hoisted on board the U.S.S. Hoel to face the

biggest barrage of cameras of all shapes and

sizes that I have ever seen.

Full of food, I was delivered safely back

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to Stardrift and about midnight the destroyer

and her tow, looking like an absurd little

water beetle behind the giant bulk of the

warship, safely passed through the low

breakwaters that enclose Limon Bay, the

Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. As a

wonderful final gesture, Commander Slifer

lowered his personal launch and had me towed

to a safe anchorage, while the Hoel hove to

like a watchful mother, then after my sincere

thanks slowly steamed away into the night to

lock through the Canal. After that

experience, here’s one man who’s for the

Stars and Stripes forever!’

Within a year of becoming Editor, David Wallis had introduced a stiff, coloured

cover in dark blue with an emblazoned flying fish logo. Whether it was for

reasons of economy or appearance is not clear, but it now measured 5in by 7in

(127 x 178mm), the fifth change of size in as many years. Much committee

discussion ensued on the question of the title. David suggested it be called a

Journal but was overruled; it was to remain a Newsletter! However as not only

the editor but also the printer he had the last word, and the next issue appeared

with the almost subliminal wording, ‘The Journal of the Ocean Cruising Club’,

smuggled aboard at the bottom of the front cover. However we had to wait

until 1970 before this was big enough to read without a magnifying glass.

Otherwise the cover contained only the simple wording OCC 1964/1, and so

began the system of serialisation which is in use to this day. Thus the Journal

was born within days of the unsung tenth anniversary of the Club’s formation.

In his letter, the Commodore referred to ‘a News Letter with a difference’ so it

appears that he not only disapproved of the new title ‘Journal’, but had decided

to change the long accepted Newsletter. However, this is the only time the word

is used throughout the issue, so the Journal was born unsung and almost by

default. There is no record of Committee dissent but it is noticeable that the second

issue, dated December 1964, had, in equally small lettering, the words ‘Ocean

Cruising Club Newsletter’ on the inside of the front cover.

The Admiral was off again and wrote from Grenada aboard his new boat,

Rose Rambler. It is possible that the Newsletter with details is missing as there

is no mention made of the new boat apart from the letter-head. He left Tenerife

in company with Primavera but they quickly lost contact as neither had radio.

At 45°W, deep in the trades, he spotted a sail on the horizon so motored to

close her. It was none other than Primavera, so they both hove-to for a

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Rose Rambler, in which Hum made fifteen Atlantic crossings

conversation. The crew of the latter were in distress as they had run out of

paperbacks, and declared that they were coming over to do a swap. To Hum’s

surprise the entire crew rowed across, complete with a pile of books and a

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bottle of gin. It was nearly dark before they deemed it prudent to return, having

finished the bottle of gin.

Even though this anniversary edition passed unannounced, it did demonstrate

how the Club had matured. From sheets of badly typed notes about the few

members who were abroad on the high seas, the Journal was now a stapled

booklet with a coloured cover displaying the Club’s flying fish motif. Not only

that, it now contained exciting notes from the four corners of the world. The

Admiral had crossed the Atlantic for the seventh time; the Griffiths told of

their homecoming to Hawaii, having circumnavigated; Barklie Henry, a new

member who had qualified in a 50 ton motor vessel on a cruise around the

Atlantic, wrote persuasively of the merits of 4500 mile range under power but

convinced no one, including himself, concluding that if he had time he would

do it under sail; Colonel Line told of his voyage home from Singapore; David

Hays wrote of his Atlantic crossing in Rose of York, which he had just bought

from the Admiral; and lastly, Robert Ayer of Maine recounted the launching in

Bremen of his new boat Premise followed by her shakedown passage, describing

his crew, one Toby Baker, as ‘young, strong and salty’. Toby is now Rear

Commodore USA NE.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Journal was that it demonstrated the

way the nature of ocean voyaging had advanced. Flag signals were now rarely

referred to; self-steering, in all its many forms, was becoming accepted (except,

as we have seen, by a conservative few) leading to a growth in singlehanded

sailing which had previously been the preserve of the most intrepid; fibreglass

was no longer viewed with suspicion; the size of yachts was gradually creeping

up, testimony to the advance of boat gear; and the general confidence in ocean

cruising was apparent from the lack of histrionic writing, although perhaps it

was not necessary to go to the lengths of urbanity of Francis Chichester.

It can be assumed that only the Club’s more literate members contributed to

the Journal – there must have been many more at sea who had not time or

inclination to put pen to paper. In ten years a trickle of ocean cruisers had

grown into a steady stream, and numerous writers commented on meetings

with other members in distant ports. The OCC was clearing achieving its primary

aim of ‘encouraging ocean sailing in small boats and social intercourse between

its members’.

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