The Scenic Route To Paradise

Museum

The horizon behind is just as far behind as the one ahead.

’, she asked.

‘Well, it’ll have to be this year. And the latest will be October. Any later and it’ll be into the cyclone season. Otherwise we’ll have to wait until March or April next year.’

‘Oh dear, I was thinking around the end of the year.’

‘Mmmm, remember Cyclone Tracy, it hit Christmas Day and upset the weather for weeks. And if we left in April, say, we would have to spend five months in Malaysia to catch the good weather along the Chagos and around the Cape of Good Hope.’

‘But there’s so much to do- the house to finish and let, the boat to finish and provision and crew to find, the car to store, your tools. It’s February already. Can we do it?’

‘Either we do or we don’t.’

And so ran the deliberations between my Mother and me about when we would depart on our cruise.

In contrast, the decision to take the cruise in the first place was relatively simple. It had always been a dream of mine to sail long distance. Almost eighteen years previous, I had gone on my first long cruise. In July 1976, my Father and my uncle drove me 300 miles north to the regional port of Geraldton. There I joined the crew of the steel, 60 foot, 3 masted junk rigged yacht Wan Fu. It had been in the news recently when the owner, Charles Faulkner, who had been rescued by the Royal Australian Navy, when he suffered from a temporary attack of blindness. At the same time that he had been airlifted off, several Perth yachting highlights were put aboard to bring the boat back to the coast. They weren’t so accurate as their talent suggested and hit a reef. So the first time I saw her, she was up on the slipway at the Geraldton Yacht Club, having a new bow collision bulkhead put in and replacing the damaged concrete.

I farewelled my family, stowed my gear and tried to fit into this confusing tangle of crew. I had raced in dinghies and small trailer-sailer yachts since I was 15 and knew the sharp end from the blunt. This boat seemed to have one of each at each end and though I came from an Asian upbringing, the forward leaning fore mast and the aft leaning mizzen looked peculiar.

The crew also were a peculiar mix. Besides Charles, there was his wife, Margaret, and their four year old son, Charles, known as L.C.; John and Kate, Margaret’s children by a former marriage; Gillian, Charles’ daughter by a former marriage; Greg, Kate’s boyfriend; Chris, John’s best mate and me.

We left a week after I joined and sailed for Mauritius, some 4,000 miles to the west. Though I wasn’t new to sailing, I was totally unprepared for the lackadaisical approach to this life. Compared to racing where everyone had a role and one couldn’t simply refuse. Yacht racing is a team effort and the team sailed the boat or the boat never left the pen. Charles, the captain and owner, was a retired Australian Naval Officer and had all the charts and publications that I would later desire or that could be found in the best equipped Navy vessel. None of the rest of the crew had done any sailing except for the voyage so far, from Melbourne across the Great Australian Bight. It appeared that beginner cruiser as I was I had the most pure sailing experience aboard! That’s not to say that I didn’t learn anything- my learning curve was steep!!

I learnt about the luxury possible aboard long distance boats- how much fun there was to be had in a bath in a seaway; you could almost become seasick doubly! The full time work required staying at peace with such a polyglot crew, the tedium of watches and chores, the never ending turn of maintenance...

But there were compensations- the passage took 33 days nonstop, and stemming from the shock of being left on the boat without a navigator when Charles was taken off, Margaret insisted that we all learn navigation.

This was at a time when satellite navigation was in its infancy and economical units were not widely available. So it was celestial (or astrological) navigation, guesswork or nothing. I think Charles must have been a Navigating Officer himself, for though he didn’t go into the intricacies of solving the spherical triangle, he had a very military approach to producing the correct result. I had never been very good with regimented studies but I’m very glad that my beginnings with navigation had such a solid foundation.

By the time we reached Mauritius, they could hardly keep the sextant out of my hand. I was taking all the standard sun, moon, planet and star sights and getting good tight cocked hats (a cocked hat is the triangle made from the almost intersecting lines of position obtained from navigational observations).

Mauritius showed me the other aspects of cruising; access to lovely beaches and bays, taking your home with you like the gypsy, meeting new people both local and expatriate, the sights and sounds and scents of lands other than your own. And suddenly despite the most ungainly of sailing craft, despite the peculiar diversity of the crew and despite not feeling in any way in control of my destiny, I knew that this was what I wanted to do.

To go cruising; to see more of the world from the vantage of my own mobile home; to learn more of the peoples and cultures that make up the wider world in which I lived; to be able to move my craft through my own efforts and skills to those places that would meet my needs. In short, to be more in touch with the true world, the natural world and its people.

For the next 9,000 miles this feeling hardened into an uncompromising truth.

From Mauritius, we sailed south around the stormy tip of Madagascar to Durban. Then coast hopped the South African coast, Port Elisabeth, East London, Mossel Bay and Cape Town. I made short visits by myself into the hinterland and often felt that my eyes were bulging as much with astonishment as with wonder. So many things to do, to see, to learn and to experience.

Onwards again to St. Helena Island in the mid-South Atlantic, final home of exile for vanquished Napoleon Bonaparte with his house especially built with low door lintels forcing his generals and captors alike to bow when visiting him. St. Helena with Jamestown running like a river to the sea on the arid northwest coast, the anchorage secured by massive chains suspended from ships’ cannon imbedded on the rocky shore; St. Helena with the Morris Oxford utility outfitted as a tour bus cum taxi, which for US$10, took all nine of us for a circuit of the island.

The emergency stop at Ascension Island, with its huge US military base leased from the UK. Landing was prohibited, but due to an abscessed tooth, Charles escorted me ashore; landing by grasping a rope suspended off shore as the dinghy rode a wave and then being hauled to a pier; the Harley Street specialist who lamented that I couldn’t stay for two weeks so he could do root canal work and because he was devoid of outside company for the two years of his secondment; spitting blood into the water by the pier and watching the ferocious multicoloured fish attack the gobbets; reboarding the dinghy by reversing the landing process, infinitely more scary, not wanting to let go too early for fear of falling through the bottom of the dinghy, not knowing if I could hang on long enough for the right height wave to arrive.

And on again, to Fernando Do Noronha on the northeast corner of South America, an ex penal colony similar to Devils Island in the book Papillon. It had a few long serving convicts remaining, but was in the process of being converted into a resort island to service the wealthy American advisors being sent to Brazil to develop its oil industry.

We landed our dinghy through the surf or perhaps better said that our dinghy landed us. We were then taken in a VW Kombi with no doors nor seats and precious little floor by a driver sitting on an ammunition case (full or not I didn’t hazard a guess) who was intent upon finding every pothole at the fastest speed available in top gear- the clutch pedal having broken off! We were taken to the Camp Commandant’s office where we were made welcome, though we were told that we couldn’t stay ashore the night nor could we drink alcohol. One of our number found a willing girl to take him to the top of one of the towering volcanic rock plugs that dominate the area. He later didn’t deny what our sex starved minds suspected him of and we alternately envied and teased him. The rest wandered about the square and the camp, bought fresh fruit and vegetables and enjoyed that one joy unavailable at sea- to sit under a tree!

We were invited to dine in the enormous adobe dining hall and sat as honoured guests with the commandant and his officers at the high table. The rest of the hall was packed with workers and the few remaining inmates all dressed similarly in canvas smocks and pants and barefoot. There were women, and at a far table people in conventional western clothes, though we were not encouraged to meet them. At the end of the meal, which was beans and rice served to all, the commandant asked us to sing a typically Australian song. Charles, who had a good tenor voice, led us in a rendition of Waltzing Matilda, in which I heartily joined in the chorus not knowing the rest, a fact I can now say I have rectified!

And then the bouncing ride back to the beach in the Kombi, far worse this time as in the darkness and without headlights, we couldn’t anticipate the size nor severity of the potholes. Returning to Wan Fu moored in the bay, was just as wet as arriving, with two crew holding the dinghy, Ning Po, in chest deep water whilst the others scrambled aboard. Repeated the second time except that the dinghy capsized backward, dumping everyone into the surf. Finally, though, we were away to Wan Fu, a warm bath and brandy aboard our home-cum-sanctuary.

I think all were happy to leave next day including our Rasputin, heading north-westwards towards the Caribbean.

Though 200 miles offshore, we passed through the well-defined waters of the Amazon. On one side the cool green Atlantic, on the other the murky brown of the river. Finally to St. Johns, Barbados. Anchored more than a mile offshore amidst an array of cruising boats from all around the world including the peculiar Sundancer, built in an English barn in sections to finish 109 feet long and only 14 feet wide. Crossing the Atlantic she bent one of her hydraulically operated lifting keels and therefore had a draft of 14 feet!

There ended my first long voyage as I flew to Canada to join my Mother, to meet her family and to indulge in more of the land travels with which I was more familiar. But it was that first voyage that set the benchmark for future voyages. I knew that I was going to get a boat of my own, as crewing for others would always mean going when you wanted to stay, staying when you wanted to go and missing the places and people you thought of as important. How that boat would materialise and how I could finance it were enveloped in the mysteries of the future, but I felt that it was a truth that would one day appear.

************************************

1992 was a bad year for my mother and I. My father had died in March, leaving my Mother completely at a loss. Their almost perfect love affair of forty years ended with one partner unsure of what her next step was to be.

My marriage failed, I divorced and shortly after my motivation to fight against petty minded clients of my boat building company had waned to complete disinterest.

I am my parent’s only child, and as neither my Mother nor I had a big circle of friends, we leant on each other in this mutual time of need. Fortunately we have an excellent relationship and have had from the very beginning; not the ‘friends’ thing as some of my acquaintances who address their parents by their christian names, but a complete trust and understanding.

So around Christmas time when neither of us were feeling particularly Christmassy, we were talking and trying to decide what to do with all the loose ends of the estate. We were both feeling rather blue and wondering what the point to it all was, when Mum said,

‘Why don’t we sell it all, buy a boat and go cruising?’

I had been trying to support her in all the things that needed doing by being the sounding board, offering suggestions, providing a discussion partner and being the gopher in providing the male voice when that achieved something better or faster.

This latest suggestion left me a little flatfooted. First, to convert all the assets to cash seemed poor investment sense. Second, my Mother, though a seasoned traveller, had never sailed for more than two hours and never out of sight of land. Third, though she once suggested to my Father that we go cruising, he replied that he knew nothing about it, which was the sensible, prudent response; she had never previously expressed an interest in sailing.

I don’t know that I thought Yes, yes, yes! Let’s do it! , for I wasn’t sure that was the best thing for Mum. One thing was sure, though, and that was that some of the bleakness went out of our lives as we had a thought that would carry us over this bad time, and what I suspect began as an idea of fancy hardened into a firm concept.

We compiled a wish list of what sort of boat we wanted, where we wanted to go, for how long, how much we could afford and how to finance the cruising itself.

Since that first voyage on Wan Fu, I had sailed a variety of craft from little Eventide plywood sloops, a trimaran, an 84 foot Viking ship replica, square riggers, gaff ketches, sloops and schooners. I had sailed inshore, offshore and ocean, domestic and international, smooth seas and storm. I had been a boatbuilder in plastics and timber and fitted out steel and ferrocement boats. The experience had allowed me to learn of the advantages and disadvantages of them all.

Besides the parameters of the boat, we also had to take into account where we wanted to go. My upbringing had been extraordinarily unique. My parents met in New Guinea shortly after the War and were married in Singapore in 1953. My Father was Australian and my Mother Canadian, so I guess the earliest childhood illness I had was the travel bug and it’s one I have never been cured of nor wished to be.

Every few years my Father, who was the manager of a motor company in Malaysia and later Singapore, got 6 months long service leave and the adventures we enjoyed will always appear to me to be the norms in which to enjoy the world.

We travelled as passengers on cargo ships to Canada via Hong Kong, to the US via the UK, to NZ via tiny Pacific atolls, to Australia via South Africa. We travelled overland across India, by car through Greece, on the Orient Express across Central Europe, with friends through Italy and France and Britain. We visited family in Canada and in the States and loaned a car to travel the bush roads of Australia where Just a mile down the road, mate, you can’t miss it still brings a wry smile. And all this in the 50’s and early 60’s before Crocodile Dundee and the proud self-consciousness of today’s Australians.

Additionally, I was born, raised and lived until I was eleven in Malaysia, a warm tropical paradise surrounded by all the luscious richness that is inherent in those climes. Even today that soft humid air makes me have a certain mixture of homecoming and exotic travel. So when my Mother and I began to consider where we wanted to go, where in this wide world of which we had seen so much, ideas flooded us. It wasn’t as if we had seen enough, but more that the more we saw the more there was to see. There were places we hadn’t been to for awhile, places more accessible from a small boat, places we had heard about and read about since the last time we had been travelling; just so many places that we really couldn’t make up our minds unless there was some other criteria that could guide us beyond the ones that said that we had to have 6 feet of water to float in and that it was connected to the sea.

Fortunately unless one is a complete masochist there is a criterion that rules all who go to sea and becomes a central consideration when planning a voyage- the weather. Obviously not the weather that is on TV after the 7 p.m. news which warn if tomorrow is a good wash day or if there’s to be an early morning mist, though these can be useful if taken with a pinch of salt. No, the weather we were interested in was on a more worldly scale, the Coriolas effect, El Nino, La Nina, cyclones and typhoons, the ITCZ; all were bandied around with the familiarity of a latter day Thor discussing the future of Icarus with Ra.

By many of our friends, Mum and I are thought of as adventurous, but neither of us considered the voyaging of high latitudes or against the wind. We don’t live our lives that way, so why live at sea in such discomfort. Our interests extended more to the world of human habitation and that tended to be either side of the equator by not much more than 40 degrees. We were happy to plan our voyage in the traditional manner, to have the wind behind all the way if possible or at least favourable, to stay out of stormy seas, to have sunshine and blue skies and warmth and softness.

To achieve that meant only a few possible routes, and each one planned a year or more in advance. From the West coast of Western Australia through the islands of South East Asia to Sri Lanka to the Chagos Archipelago, South Africa, the West African coast (or St. Helena and Ascension Islands again) to Gibraltar. This route seemed to offer all that we wanted in our first year of cruising. A chance to revisit Malaysia, my birthplace, the land of my youth and the scene of so much happiness for my Mother; to see some lands new to one or other or to both of us and to visit friends in South Africa. From Gibraltar the options were as varied as the points on a compass rose, to the East the classic history of the Mediterranean, North East to the chill warmth of Scandinavia, the North the hub of modern Europe backed by a recorded history stretching back to pagan times and beyond; the North West my Mother’s ancestral home in eastern Canada and the areas on the north-eastern coast of the States where I had attended boat building college; West to the Caribbean and its singing steel drums of happy go lucky living; and South West to the South American frivolity of Carnivale curiously mixed with Mayan, Inca and Spanish histories. Some lands we knew others completely unknown; all were as jewels to the poor.

This then gave me a more comprehensive idea of the craft for which we were looking. She should be 35 feet on deck with moderate beam and a draft of no more than 6 feet, long keeled for ease of handling on long passages, transom hung rudder for ease of servicing and to have the turning effort furthermost aft for easier steering, moderate to heavy displacement for ease of motion in a seaway, not only a consideration for my Mother’s comfort but a selfish one too as I wanted to be comfortable and able to handle things as ably at the end of a passage as I could at the beginning; sloop rigged as of all the arguments I’ve heard of the other rigs none of them have been as successful- one set of rigging, easy to handle, reduced windage, more efficient and less complicated all round; she should have good accommodation for four, six foot headroom throughout, ample water and fuel tankage; have a diesel auxiliary motor of 30 HP or more; and finally, perhaps most contentiously she should be of timber construction. Though I have worked in other mediums my preference is wood. Whether it is the spirit within or the general feeling that there is no real rush in the world that wood engenders, I couldn’t really say. The arguments put up that there is too much maintenance or that it’s weaker or prone to decay or expensive or requires specialist training can be shown to be laughable when compared to ANY other material.

Above all she had to be structurally in very good condition. I had spent much of my professional career rebuilding boats and though there was little I wouldn’t have attempted for the right boat, I thought that I would sooner pay a little more to enable us to leave a little earlier. Although it was a buyer’s market, I didn’t imagine that we would find the ideal boat ideally set up for us, step on and sail away.

The only other real factor was money. For the anticipated purchase price, I set a ridiculously low price of A$1000/ foot overall, more from wishful thinking than reality. It was the guideline price for a boat built when I was just starting in the boatbuilding trade twenty five years before!

So with the wish list finalised, I wrote to a couple of yacht brokers I knew in Melbourne with whom I had done some business and asked them to compile a folio of boats that might fit the bill. I had chosen Melbourne as the one place within Australia that was conservative in their ownership of boats. They had a climate that was more conducive to the care of wooden boats and along with Tasmania had the most recent surviving original boat building industry.

A couple of weeks later, Mum and I were looking through the facts sheets and photos of a dozen boats. Few of them looked at all like what we thought we wanted and only one of them remotely close! But the price of that was way out of our league at A$3000 a foot. It seemed that the brokers had looked at possibilities in our price range that were on their books and threw this super expensive one in just to show us how unrealistic we were! Still we picked out the three closest boats and I arranged to fly over and look at those and whatever else I could find the following week.

Of course sellers have to present their wares in the best light but I was appalled at the offerings. The first boat had so much mould and rot that I was afraid to step aboard. The second looked as if the planks forward had parted company with the rest of the boat (I later found out that was indeed the case when she sailed across Bass Strait the previous year and had to be towed in stern first with her hull awash). The third, though in generally good condition, had had so many changes and alterations that there was hardly any original structure left.

I was sorely disappointed. The budget couldn’t stand an extended stay and if the net had to be cast wider that would entail longer delays to our plans and more travel to outlying ports to view boats that, after all, may not be suitable. I had hoped for something within the greater metropolis of Melbourne.

Whilst wondering what to do, the broker suggested that I look through the latest issue of Trade-A-Boat Magazine, a monthly listing of boats for sale throughout Australia and New Zealand. I had perused it for the previous six months without seeing anything that met all our needs. Still, this was the latest issue and at the least I could amuse myself while he sent faxes to his contacts further afield.

Trade-A-Boat is hardly a magazine, as most folk in Australia know, more like a book an inch or more thick with tiny photos and brief descriptions. Many advertisements are submitted by brokerages and are repeated month after month until the boats are sold.

Having gone through it, the broker said Any joy? To which I replied No. The only one that appealed was a little small and way out of our price.

He suggested I might as well see her while I waited for replies to his faxed queries. I didn’t see any real point, as even if I negotiated 20% off the price it was still far more than we could afford and I thought that 32 feet was just too small for what we wanted to do. Still, he obviously wanted me out of his hair, so next day I organised to visit the boat’s brokers in Sandringham.

It was a typical Melbourne day, blustery and raining; the perfect day to survey a boat; leaks are evident and rigging rattles. As a boat builder, I had seen many boats over the previous twenty five years. My business was principally involved in the repair and restoration of timber boats such as the ones I had come to see. In giving estimates for work to be done and the assessments of the time and money involved, I knew the areas to look when conducting a survey.

Broken frames would speak of heavy handling coming alongside or storm damage, cracked paint along seams would show that she had been sailed too hard or that some of the centreline fastenings had let go, soft or rotten frames near the keel would indicate a leaky deck or cabin and that fresh water had been allowed to collect, fastenings that were crumbling spoke of electrolysis, some galvanic action or an electrical problem. And so the list goes on; each problem really only a symptom of something else and that an indication of the greater ill of inattention or the lack of care on the part of the owner. And if the owner didn’t care enough for his investment, then who knew what other ills were lying in wait for the unsuspecting to discover after the Bill of Sale was handed over.

I, for one, didn’t want that discovery after paying what to me was top dollar. Sure, I could repair anything, and I have. I’ve put whole new keels in boats, reframed and replanked others and a new deck and cabin was familiarity itself. But I didn’t want a basket case. I wanted a beautiful craft that would take my Mother and me to the exotic places about which we dreamed and safely around the Cape of Good Hope on the way to further beauties.

Despite all this about constructional concerns and delving into the very essence, I do believe that first impressions are good and are worth consideration, for after all, your eye has to register something with your brain and whether it is good or bad it usually is something that stands out.

With head bowed against windblown rain and barely able to make our way along the jetties and walkways at the Royal Brighton Marina, Rob Doussett the broker, and I staggered against the buffeting to the pen where Bikini lay. My absolute first impression was that she was the perfect place to get out of the weather. Amidst the turmoil outside she had somehow calmed it for herself and lay quietly as if wondering what all the other boats were going on about. They heeled, their halyards slapped angrily against aluminium masts, bows rose and fell like frightened horses and jerked their tethers as if in panic.

Bikini sat placidly as if to say ‘When the going gets really tough, that’s when you should be kicking up a fuss, throwing spray and tossing your head, but this is nothing, lying in your sheltered bed. You young ‘uns really don’t know when you got it good!’ I smiled to myself at this fancy and I guess that Rob thought he was onto a sure thing!

She had the look of those gentlemen’s yachts of the 1930’s and late 40’s, boats like those in the novel ‘Riddle of the Sands’ or which can be found in early cruising books like Hiscock’s ‘Cruising under Sail’, low freeboard with a pleasing sweep of sheer from a lovely curved spoon bow to the gently raking transom and that line carried aft by the projecting bumpkin. Her lofty three quarter rigged timber mast and endlessly long boom would give her a good turn of speed in any wind and yet have a low centre of effort when reefed. Outwardly all the proportions pleased my eye, pleased me inwardly too and I was desperately sorry that I didn’t have the money for this lovely yacht.

A little disconcertingly the owner was aboard and had already opened up. I like to do that myself as the first whiff below lets you know so much of the boat and its condition. I was introduced to David Cockburn and all three of us scurried below out of the weather and there I had my second impression- here was sanctuary.

The sheer solidity plus the insulating characteristics of timber made the storm retreat to further than her inch and an eighth planking would suggest. She was deep. There was full headroom below despite less than three feet of freeboard amidships and a low cabin and I’m six foot tall in bare feet! It gave me the curious feeling of being enveloped, cradled in security; held warm and safe and dry from the tempest outside. When I look back now, the thought pops in that it was a prenatal recollection of my Mother’s womb; no wonder I was predisposed to this boat!

For a traditional 32 foot sloop, she had an amazing feel of space. Not in the same way as modern boats which can be compared to Dr. Who’s Tardis- a four storied block of apartments within a British policeman’s box. Nonetheless there were five berths, a galley with stove and sink and refrigerator, a compact dining area, a head and an enormous Perkins 33 HP diesel auxiliary motor.

After showing me some of the features, David was kind enough to leave me to conduct my own survey though he did provide the results of an independent survey. I must admit to having felt quite guilty that I was going through the motions of inspecting the boat when I could see no reality in it. There just was no way we could afford this boat and it all seemed a sham; it seemed like a black mark on my character that I couldn’t just come right out and say she’s beautiful but we haven’t the money. Still chicken as I am, I continued. I have a prepared list of points I address when I survey boats. Really it’s only a prompt and gives me space to note my impressions, both good and bad, and my findings.

To have any chance of buying the boat, I had to find as many bad points as I could to beat the price down but not so many that the owner would wonder why I would want to buy such a wreck at all, nor to insult him!

I spent three hours going over the boat and in all that time I found only five things that could be counted as black marks that I could use as price lowering arguments. There was a split frame forward (probably a timber defect when the boat was built), a bit of punky planking near the anode (a common timber boat problem), evidence of leaks near the doghouse (the doghouse was a later addition and the timber was moving differently), the refrigerator was no longer working and the liferaft was much too old to be repacked.

At the very outside that might take A$2000 off the price ...not nearly enough.

Rather dejectedly I sat in the saloon after completing the survey, happy for the owner that he had such a beautiful yacht and, as I’d found, in wonderful condition. Sad for me that she was as close as I could imagine to be the perfect boat for us. Solid, proven, all the space we needed, lots of glowing wood highlights below, a sea-kindly shape that would sit easily through any blow, comfortable at sea or at anchor, in cold climes or warm.

But simply more than we could afford...

Rob returned and I told him my thoughts, laid my cards on the table. Though he was the vendor’s agent, he was very understanding and I suppose that if there was any chance of a sale he would remain interested. He said ‘No matter how silly I’m obliged to present all offers. Just put in an offer, it’s the beginnings of discussion and you never know, maybe he’s put the high price on just to weed out dreamers.’

That evening I phoned Mum and we decided to put our top limit into the offer.

When I made out the offer form at the brokers the next day, the disparity between the asking price and our offer was worse than silly, sillier than ridiculous, more ridiculous than idiocy. It was plain embarrassing. But at least it leant an air of finality to my ideas of owning the boat. I couldn’t believe there would be any further communication between the owner and I.

Two evenings later I couldn’t believe that I had received an invitation to dinner with David and Barbara Cockburn, the co-owners of Bikini, at their home!

They live not far from the coast in the Melbourne suburb of Sandringham; an older well-established area and their home reflected the comfortable grace that was found aboard Bikini. We had a lovely evening with conversation roaming widely on our respective histories, outlooks, experiences and it was only late in the evening after a sumptuous roast dinner, dessert and now liqueurs that the talk turned to the reason for our meeting.

Despite being saddened about not being able to afford Bikini, I found the Cockburns to be a lovely couple. I had asked why they wanted to sell the boat, one of those questions one asks, to which they had replied that they were retiring soon or had recently retired and they were finding that they were unable to justify the expense and effort required to maintain her. Additionally, David said that all he really wanted to do was to go fishing in the Bay and that Bikini really wasn’t the right boat for that. Too true.

During the course of the conversation they had asked me what I had done and what my hopes were when I eventually found the boat for which I was looking. I told them a little of my past, and the hopes of my mother and I and a little of my ethos on sailing and life generally.

I guess they looked at one another, though I didn’t notice, thinking perhaps that it was all part of the evening’s pleasant conversation. Jay, David began slowly, we would like to accept your offer.... I think my hearing went a little fuzzy then, and certainly my mind was back with the jacket potatoes and honeyed carrots!

...on the condition you write us from where ever you are and tell us all the news of Bikini’s adventures.

I didn’t know whether to laugh with joy, cry with happiness and relief or be sombre with gratitude.

‘Why...why have you accepted such a low offer compared to your asking price? Surely you could have got much more if you had held out.’ I couldn’t imagine that they were short of funds, which was the only reason I could find for their decision.

‘We wanted to find the right buyer for Bikini. We didn’t want some trendy who just wanted a wooden boat to show off to his mates and be seen at the boat shows. Nor did we want someone with barely two cents to rub together as maintaining any boat is an expensive exercise. We wanted somebody who cares, who knows about boats and particularly wooden boats. And especially we wanted somebody who we had faith in to ensure the well being of Bikini.’

I was and continue to be extremely flattered. It’s not something you bring into the equation when buying property of any kind. I could understand it, however, a need to feel that all your efforts will be appreciated and built upon by the next person and that you all ultimately want the best for it, that those efforts wouldn’t be undone to follow some whim which may be changed as often as fashion dictates. In truth we are only temporary custodians and when the time and person is right, custody should be passed onwards.

‘With care she will outlast you,’ he said.

I could believe it as the information on the boat indicated that she had been built in 1952 making her 41 years old at the time, older than me by several years, and in condition probably better in many ways than the day she was launched. The Cockburns had owned her for 22 years and I could truly understand their proprietorial interest in her.

The sale was ultimately dependent on a trial sail and on a brief inspection out of the water. The very next day we pulled her out on the slip at the Sandringham Yacht Club and I spent a self-conscious half hour looking at a perfectly beautiful and blemish free underbody. The seams were even with no bulging planks. The entire below waterline metal work was in excellent condition with no pitting and the antifouling and topside paint were absolutely as new. The trial sail didn’t quite go as well! I took along some friends with whom I was staying in Melbourne and a chap I had brought over from home to help me sail the 6000 miles back. The day was one of those clear, cold ones you get anywhere there is a winter. Clear, cold and not one vesper of wind! We got the sails up, huddled in the cockpit drinking warm brandies exclaiming to ourselves ‘Ah, this is the life! A life on the ocean wave is the life for me!’ There wasn’t even a ripple from the big ships passing further out in Port Phillip Bay!

Still, I was sold on the boat anyway and there was nothing I wouldn’t put up with on this classic beauty. I couldn’t believe that she would be anything but a lovely sailer, too, when there was a breeze with which to work.

We all retired to a local pub to warm ourselves before the roaring log fire. The brandies were welcome to ward off the chill, but I was glowing inwardly without them and as the party got louder, my heart was singing with the joy of being the almost owner of this fine craft.

The sale went through within a couple of days, during which time David went through all the systems he had on board. From the electrics to the plumbing to the fuel system to the service record of the Perkins. In the evenings we would return to their home and he would ask me if I wanted this piece of gear or that spare part. After 22 years of ownership he had a formidable range of things which included an almost complete motor for spares. After accepting so many bits I came to be a little embarrassed by the volume, especially as I felt that I had got by far the better part of the deal.

I had brought over with me from Perth all the gear I thought I would need to get whichever boat I purchased, back home. This included charts, compass, sextant and tables, foul weather gear and also a friend, Kevin Williamson, with whom I used to race in Division 1 around the West Australian coast.

Within a week of the sale having gone through, Kevin and I said our goodbyes and slipped the lines from the pen at the Brighton Yacht Club. Years previously, I had left on a yacht race and we took our pen lines with us thinking we would need them at the end of the race and during the week long regatta there. A passerby commented to us that it was bad luck to take your pen lines as it signified in some mystical way that you weren’t coming back! Of course being the thoroughly modern sailors we were we poo-pooed the idea and went on our merry way. We should have listened. During the race we were dismasted and subsequently the boat was sold to a new owner in a different city, so the warning had some validity. Still I didn’t anticipate returning to Melbourne for a long time and felt that Bikini heading for a new home port had usurped the superstition.

It was May when we left Melbourne, it was the middle of winter and though it was barely half the distance to sail to Fremantle via the Great Australian Bight and the south, I didn’t relish the prospect of beating into a cold and stormy prevailing westerly the 2000 miles to Cape Leeuwin before getting the dubious pleasure of sliding down wind the final three hundred miles. The only alternative was to go around the top of Australia, a passage I had done west to east before and one which promised far better sailing conditions. After all that’s where all the tourists went- Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef, the Gulf of Carpentaria, Darwin, the Kimberley. Never mind that the passage was 6000 miles long, just a little shake down!

A pleasant though bitterly cold northerly carried us down the Bay and out the narrow entrance known as the Rip and just before the Port Phillip Monster reared up its ugly head and devoured us. The Port Phillip Monster is the name given to the terrible maelstrom that occurs when the incoming tide meets the rush of water exiting from the 110 square mile Bay. The resulting over falls and whirlpools when combined with strong wind conditions have sunk many ships and is one of the few places in the world that ships’ masters have not just a healthy respect for but also a rational fear. We avoided the outlying rock of Point Nepean and sailed eastwards in the shelter of Cape Schanck towards Phillip Island, home of one of the few remaining natural colonies of Koala Bear and also the Motor Race Track now used for motor bikes, but in my father’s day was the top Australian auto track. On the south western corner is a protected area where each year the fairy penguins come in their thousands to lay their eggs.

I was hoping to be around Wilson’s Promontory, the South Eastern corner of continental Australia by midnight as the forecast was for the wind to become a South Easter of thirty knots or more and that would have meant beating against a cold wind, in cold seas, in a busy sealane with lots of cold, steel ships all about. Not one’s ideal choice to start one’s ownership of a warm, classic yacht! It was a black night and though the wind hadn’t changed, the rushing walls of ships seemed to make our passage of those particular waters most perilous, and both Kevin and I felt that we were a little out of our depth. We saw the night through, but in dawn’s light we snuck into my favourite anchorage in that whole region.

Refuge Cove is a snug double headed bay almost fully enclosed by high rocky headlands and protected from all winds, though the southeaster can push a swell in. The eastern head of the bay has a natural spring whilst the rocky wall on the western side is painted with the names of ships that have visited, some even from the 1800’s. The whole area is a National Park with no habitation for miles. There are pathways for walkers and those studying the flora and fauna of this southernmost of Australia’s rainforests. I have stopped there many times and love the solitude and otherworldliness of the place. I’ve only once ever seen another boat there and that was a fishing trawler even though it isn’t so far from the Melbourne sailing scene.

The first time I was there was a bit of a disaster. I had joined a Frenchman who had built a single chine steel ketch in Port Melbourne near the Spencer St. Bridge and railway station. I’d already spent two months with him helping put the rudimentary fit-out aboard with the idea that I crew with him up the East coast and then across to the Pacific Islands. The boat was called Joie and was painted bright yellow including the masts, booms and bowsprit!! Claude’s Belgian girlfriend arrived and we left on our adventure only to discover that no one had remembered to provision! We put into Refuge Cove and I spent a day and a half walking through the rain to the nearest town to buy enough food for the three of us to sail the four days to Twofold Bay near Eden in N.S.W. I sheltered one night semi-protected under the borrowed cape of a passing walker and returned to the boat the next day to find Claude and girl basking languorously on the white sand beach in the sun!

All I could carry or afford, as the choice was so limited, was a few pounds of rice and several packets of freeze dried peas. I became quite fond of rice, peas and soy sauce!

Aptly named this time, too, for it was a refuge for us, first, as a respite from the tumult of the shipping outside and secondly, for the safety offered against the storm that was already sending cold, annoyed blasts of wind at us. We veered more chain, stowed the sails and scurried below before the almost freezing rain made a misery of our enforced stop. Down below things were not in the perfect order they might have been, for though there were no substantial leaks, much of our bedding and gear was damp from having fallen onto the lee side of the cabin sole or having been stowed in lockers low down. On each side the sole is within a few inches of the bottom planking and when the boat rolls or heels, the bilge water rises up to dampen all that’s there. It didn’t take much water to achieve this as the boat has very slack bilges. It is a term that I always thought of as being slightly derogatory without really knowing why. Perhaps it was the association between being a little slovenly and a person’s morals! Be that as it may, slack bilges also mean easier construction, less torturing of the wood and, best of all, a wider cabin sole within. So the one small disadvantage is that of the bilgewater finding its way into lockers faster than otherwise would just mean changing the use of the lockers! Additionally it was probably some years since Bikini had done any serious sailing and we had set off with the barest of preparations. My reasoning was that I knew that the hull was sound, and anything that required doing would become evident on the voyage home. There, I would have all the facilities available to make whatever modifications I thought were needed.

When the storm had moderated three days later, Kevin and I were rested and looking forward to the long stretch across the open bay near Lake’s Entrance. The direct course from Wilson’s Promontory to Gabo Island 300 miles distant leads one right through the Bass Strait Oilfeilds, and it always seems to me that no matter what one plans, one always goes through the thick of them in the middle of the night and more often than not it’s blowing a gale. So it was with us this time, though not a full gale. The south easterly wind was favourable and, though cool with rain, we made good time through the confusing array of lights that bespeckle all such areas. Sometime during the night, though, we had a bit of drama when there was a heavy thunk from down below and suddenly we couldn’t turn the rudder. I thought perhaps we had hit something and it had jammed the rudder in some way. Partly right. When we shone the torch over the stern we saw the propeller fouled against the side of the rudder. I looked into the engine compartment and sure enough the propeller shaft had come away from its flange, just slid out. I crawled into the tiny space and by twisting with my hands on the shaft was able to work it back to where it allowed the rudder free movement. The trouble was that as soon as we got sailing once more the drag on the blades drew the prop and shaft out again until it fouled the rudder. So with a long length of 1/4 inch rope I tied a series of rolling hitches above a hose clamp fastened onto the shaft clear of the flange coupling. The other end of the rope I led forward around the mast and with a series of tightening truckies’ hitches, was able to exert enough pressure forward to oppose the drag induced by sailing. To stop the shaft from turning, I put a block of wood between the hose clamp and the inside of the sternpost. There was a shaft brake but it wasn’t man enough to oppose speeds of more than five knots. My little jury repair was ample for the moment but if we needed the use of the motor in a hurry it was going to be a panic to get it all out.

Fifty five hours after leaving from Refuge Cove we were turning into Twofold Bay on the New South Wales south coast. The town of Eden is the centre of an extensive fishery and also for the huge timber forests of the area, so it’s a bustling, industrious place peopled with hard working, hard playing folk. It’s a little frontier-like, not in appearance but more in attitude; the kind of feeling that no matter what the pollies (politicians) say, they were going to do their job how they reckoned and anyone who reckoned different better come and tell them to their face. I can understand why the pollies seldom visited, the men and the women are equally as big and campaign and policy speeches would be given short shrift.

Still, I enjoyed the place; a no nonsense people who appreciated others who were doing a job, who didn’t waste time. Kevin decided to return to Western Australia here as he felt that this long term sailing wasn’t for him. I guess he found it tiresome compared to the moments of action that is found aboard the sort of racing boats that we were familiar with together. That left me in a bit of a quandary. I had arranged for an old friend of mine to visit from South Africa and join in Sydney to sail as far as possible before her return, however, she was not due into Australia for another two weeks. So rather than wait for those two weeks to pass whilst sitting idly in Eden, I decided to have a go at sailing quietly by myself up the coast.

After seeing Kevin off on the bus and buying a few provisions I went back aboard Bikini and spent the rest of the day considering how I was going to organise these next few hops. Though the wind was favourable, an easterly, I hadn’t done very much solo sailing except of course in dinghies, and I didn’t know how hard or easy it was going to be, so I figured on just a few quite short hops with little or nothing overnight.

The first jump was 50 miles north to Bermagui and I left around dawn to make as much use of the light as possible. The weather was cool and sunny with a lovely 20 knot easterly and with main and jib set we (we- that is the boat and I) close reached out of the Bay before bearing off to the north. As with the oilfields portion, I struggled with the prop shaft that insisted on parting company with the gearbox coupling and jamming against the rudder. I used the device we had developed earlier and continued sailing. I arrived outside Bermagui Heads about three in the afternoon, after a lovely sail along the coast watching the headlands slip by. I lowered sails outside, folded them away, then untied the prop shaft ropes and removed the block of wood. I motored slowly into the tiny port which is known for its game fishing tournaments each year and as a beach shack community for the holiday crowd who throng from Sydney in the summer. There was a concrete pier jutting into the harbour so figuring that I would lay alongside that, I put the motor in neutral and made a slow, lazy swing to port to give me time to set up some fenders and lines and to lose a bit of speed before making my final approach. I was about to congratulate myself on an excellent approach when a bloke came around the corner of the shed and said, You can’t stop there, mate, the fishing boats live there and they’ll be back in an hour or two. He must have seen the pleading/exasperated/angry look on my face for then he suggested I move alongside the other yacht up there and pointed. The other yacht was a beautiful 120 foot luxury motor yacht, varnished trim and topsides so smooth and bright one would think one’s vision would sully it. It was the classic gem you would find in those coffee table publications that shouted in technicolour the images of rich men’s toys. I gave a short burst ahead on the motor to give enough motion to steer, then coasted gently up to this floating bit of furniture. I was going a little faster this time and so just before getting alongside put the motor gently astern to take the way off. Imagine my horror then when that familiar heavy thunk came up! The stern slewed to starboard and I scampered forward to fend off my nine tons of inertia from a future of work to pay off the damage I could see about to happen. No matter that I was a shipwright; I could envision every wood fibre tearing, splitting, bursting; planks snapping; plumbing and wiring rupturing, oh, what calamity my mind saw! After heaving mightily, I opened my eyes to assess the number of years I would have to work to repay the damage I had caused. Not a day! Nor an hour, not even a moment. Fortune smiled, I was saved. I tied up, readjusted the fenders and sauntered back to the cabin as if I normally pull such spectacularly ambitious manoeuvres. Below, I shakily opened a bottle of brandy and gave myself a generous reward.

Not wanting to tempt providence by being around the floating furniture longer than I needed, I left early next morning for Jervis Bay another 50 miles north. Most of it belongs to the Australian Navy as a sea base, though some of it is gunnery range, I don’t think they get the two confused! On the trip with the French boat Joie, we called in there just anchoring in behind the headland to get some rest, for on that trip we had come direct from Eden bypassing Bermagui and we had had a stiff gale coming through the Bass Strait Oilfields. In the morning, I had gone ashore to stretch my legs and leave the love-birds their privacy. At the time I didn’t know anything about the land’s usage, so I was quite surprised to see splintered trees, earth pushed up in ways I thought quite unnatural, and on the other side of the point a group of half demolished and burnt buildings. There were several vehicles too that were far worse than merely burnt. If they had been painted pink they could have won awards for their artistry. Thoughtfully, I walked back to the boat, this time along the beach rather than straight across as first off. I was most of the way back when I saw the back of a sign fastened to a stanchion pushed into the sand and facing towards the water. I thought that was a stupid place to put a sign- who was going to read it from seawards? I walked around and read it.

WARNING                    DANGER

-This is a Naval and Air Gunnery Range-

This Range is in constant use Day and Night

Trespassers are warned that no warning will be

given at the Range at the time of Practice and

that both live and dummy ammunition is used.

Trespassers are also reminded that there exists

the possibility of unexploded ordnance.

By Order of the Commonwealth of Australia

I began walking very quickly back to the beach, watching out all the while for anything remotely rusty or had the green verdigris of corroded munitions. As I walked along I passed several more of these signs and I wondered how I could have missed seeing them before. The answer showed itself beside a large depression in the ground that I now recognised as a bomb crater. It was the top right corner of one of the signs lying face down and partly covered in the sand! Twenty feet away the dinghy awaited me, and I didn’t keep it waiting a moment longer! I tumbled in rowed back to Joie, not caring if I interrupted their fun, reported my discovery and we nervously weighed anchor and headed off north further into the