OBITUARIES

The Flag Officers and Committee would like to express their sympathy to the relatives and friends of members who have died during the past year. As Editor I would also like to thank those who have contributed the following appreciations, since Club records are seldom full enough for these to be compiled without additional information.

Mrs Leni Moller

In 1966 Leni and Gerd Moller started on a circumnavigation aboard the 36ft Raireva, a Dutch built steel sloop.

They returned after seven years to Dosseldorf Yacht Club and were among the first German circumnavigators. Leni Moller joined the OCC in 1969. For their trip with navigational highlights and without any modern electrical equipment Trans-Ocean honoured them with the `Trans-Ocean Prize' for 1973.

Leni suffered from cancer for many years and passed away on 9 December 1994 at the age of fifty-six. We will miss her.

HB

George F B Johnson

Although I had known George Johnson since the late 1960s we only sailed together once, in the 1974 Newport to Bermuda Race on a Swan 48 called Weald II (formerly Noryma). We were nearly thirty years apart in age, and despite being familiar with his long history of ocean racing I remember being apprehensive about having George aboard for the race. How wrong I was.

George was a dynamo on the boat -- he seemed to come to life once at sea. He could not have been a better shipmate, in every way. Always ready to pitch in, no matter what the job, no matter how tired, he set a pace and example for the young `bucks' on board. To see someone who seemed so completely content to be sailing is a memory that I have kept with me always.

The photo of George at the wheel of Weald II was taken during that race. To me, when I look at this photo, I see the glow of someone entirely happy. It is a good memory. That is how I remember George Johnson.

WSL

Bill Rogers

I only met Bill in his latter years, when he joined the crew of my yacht Black Shadow in Newport, Rhode Island in the summer of 1992. We set sail very soon after this and although Bill had little experience of blue water sailing he was the one person who remained cool and confident when he hit a tropical storm with savage seas just a couple of days out.

Besides our transatlantic trip, Bill joined me for several weeks on another cruise off the Spanish coast. He worked in Italy for a number of years in the Supply and Provisions Department of the United States Army. It was during this time that he enjoyed many hours of singlehanded sailing in his own boat.

Bill was the type of man that fellow-members would have been proud to know, a person who put the responsibility of caring for his ailing wife, who predeceased him, before his great love of being on the water.

I will remember him as a friendly, easy-going fellow always willing to help and with a ready supply of jokes and stories, who was a pleasure to sail with. May he rest in peace.

DN

John O Tinius

John died at his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northern Georgia last July after a long illness. His beloved Currituck was left in the Mediterranean at the discovery of his illness in 1993 -- he had qualified for the OCC aboard her on passage from Bermuda to the Azores in 1988.

John also had a home at Hidden Harbour, a waterside development at the juncture of the St Lucie River and the Intracoastal Waterway on the east coast of Florida where Currituck was moored when in the States. The discovery of his health problems came during an extended period of voyaging.

GGE

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