Historical

by Richard Crockett As seafaring people we all know the NSRI and what they do, yet how many today know that they started in a very low key manner and have expanded exponentially to be the formidable organisation they are today, doing excellent rescue work all along our Eastern, Southern and Western sea borders. I am not going to wax lyrical about them as they have a track record that speaks for itself, other than to share the opening paragraph …

by Richard Crockett Ever since doing my very first Vasco da Gama ocean race from Durban to East London in 1977 I have been fascinated by the Agulhas Current. And having competed in the 1984 Vasco da Gama Race, I have experienced it at its most angry too! The random nature of the current, it’s brute force and the speed at which it flows are individually fascinating subjects. For yachties traversing the Agulhas Current there are several “rules of thumb” …

by Richard Crockett Remember “Camp Staaldraad”? It’s probably best forgotten as it was not the Springbok rugby teams finest hour, yet sailing, and specifically team building aboard yachts brought some perspective to the subject. Chris Bonnet pioneered corporate team building aboard yachts, and ran that aspect of his business along sailtraining. A newspaper feature article said this: Training experts in Durban, who do team-building in a wide variety of ways – through ocean sailing, bush adventures, games and lectures – …

By Richard Crockett I have always enjoyed following the Whitbread Round the World race, and later the Volvo Ocean Race, for no other reason than each event was enthralling, tough and relentlessly sailed by top-flight crew who always pushed barriers. This 1995 report from the New York Times makes good reading, and not just because of the eye-catching headline. The opening paragraph set the tone and read as follows: “On Sept. 28, 15 well-appointed ocean-racing yachts ranging in size from …

By Richard Crockett It was 31 years ago today that Ant Steward and his trusty steed ‘NCS Challenger’ were lowered over the side of an MSC vessel off Cerf Island, in the Seychelles archipelago. Having been wrecked on the island, his vessel was salvaged and returned to Durban where it was repaired and put back into a seaworthy condition. Once back at the spot where he was wrecked he continued his solo circumnavigation in an open on his final leg …

by Richard Crockett To a large degree the Buccaneer is a scaled down version of the Royal Cape One Design, with the Van der Stadt designed Buccaneer arriving in this country in the mid-sixties although it was then known as the Primaat. Yachting World magazine adopted the Primaat design and renamed it the Buccaneer. Interestingly I have the minutes of the first Buccaneer Class Association meeting to formalise the class and also to adopt the Class Constitution. That was on …

By Richard Crockett As I recently scanned some fascinating old photos of America’s Cup yachts, I knew that I needed to share them. The featured image featured ‘Endeavour II’ caught my eye for several reasons, one being the lengthy caption which reads as follows, and which was dated 1958: The ‘Sceptre’, the 70 000 Pound yacht which Britain has pinned all hopes on for the race against American Yachts at Newport next September for the elusive America’s Cup, is expected …

By Richard Crockett I feel that the best way to comment on this event, which was 28 years ago now, is to reproduce verbatim the Log Entry I wrote in SAILING Magazine at the time as it’s still relevant. “An interesting situation arose with the dissemination of results during the recent Admiral’s Cup regatta off Cowes. “All results went out stating the name of the owner, or charterer, of each boat, and not the name of the skipper. This is …

By Richard Crockett It appears from editorials that the SA Teams were all far better organised this time round, probably being the third consecutive time that the country had competed in the event. However there do appear to have been some cracks which were quickly plastered over thanks to sponsorship. South Africa did not have a competitive third boat – that was until Ian Haggie stepped in as follows: Mr. Ian Haggie, Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive of Haggie Rand …

by Richard Crockett Today we continue with the Admiral’s Cup thread by covering the 1973 event where our South African team finished 12th out of 16 teams. The yachts used were Hans Berker’s ‘Omuramba’, ‘Jakaranda’ skippered by Bobby Bongers, and ‘Outburst’ skippered by Bill O’Reilly. The team were as follows: 1973 TEAM MANAGER: Pim Penso Omuramba H. Berker (Owner/Skipper) Team Captain. Lt.-Cdr. D. Joyce (Navigator) P. Muzik . P. Cardwell (from Durban ). J. Kipps. Gotz Klohn (from Windhoek). Jakaranda …

By Richard Crockett I do enjoy capturing some real gems when scanning and digitising old archive material as I come across some treasures like the four Admiral’s Cup competitions South African teams competed in. Today I will concentrate on the 1971 team, but sadly do not have a full team list available, so followers of this blog will have to glean that info from the photos used. 1971 was our first foray into the Admiral’s Cup, and a real eye-opener …

By Richard Crockett While scanning and archiving recently I stumbled across a series of photos ‘Datsun Skyline’ – a yacht being built by Richard Glanville for the 1982 – 83 BOC Race. She was dubbed as “innovative and space-age” and was to be skippered by Greg ‘Maori’ Coles, a New Zealander, despite being built in Cape Town. Besides a big pre-launch hype, there is little else to glean about her performance in the race other than she started some 12 …

By Richard Crockett As promised, another selection of photos that have not been seen before. This is purely a random selection of images I have recently scanned so include dinghies and keelboats. Please COMMENT, SHARE and LIKE.            

by Richard Crockett Maybe this should be “Seeing Sailing” rather than “Talking Sailing” as there is another batch of pics from yesteryear to share! And here’s a promise, there will be no L26s tomorrow as I have unearthed more gems from the old days. Please remember to COMMENT, SHARE and LIKE as these images have never been seen before. Back in the day when one shot on slide film, it was a case of looking at each sheet with a …

by Richard Crockett I have spent an inordinate amount of time recently scanning a box full of slides. It’s something I have been meaning to do for several years, and once I put my head down and got into the task, I uncovered some real gems – most of which have never been seen by anyone other than myself. So today enjoy this small and random selection of photos which will hopefully bring back some good memories. More will follow …