Sailing Magazine
Since last week I have posted several pictures requesting help identifying a boat or people.
Reader response has been really good, so now it’s time to share the results and take the mystery out of those images. Today I will start with the SAA pic with four people.
In the early 1970s 6 German yachtsmen came to South Africa to compete in the Agulhas Race. They were well looked after and enjoyed the race enough to propose a reciprocal arrangement for South African yachties. CASA (Cruising Association of South Africa) threw the German offer open to CASA members and finally selected four relatively young yet experienced yachties to compete in the Kiele Woche and Kiel Week events, which included ocean races.
The picture I published was printed in the June 1972 issue of SA Yachting, with the following caption:
To Hamburg by SAA. Here are four of the South Africans, who are sailing hard in German waters at the moment. Before boarding their South African Airways plane at Jan Smuts Airport – from left to right: T. J. Pickthall (Tim?), Cape Town; R. Edwards, Algoa Bay; B. Mc Turk, Transvaal Yacht Club and Billy Leisegang, False Bay Yacht Club.
Billy Leisegang, one of the four, responded to my request for help as follows:
After 51 years I cannot recall the names of the others. We were chosen, one from each province, by CASA (Cruising Association of SA) to represent SA in the 1972 North Sea Series and Kiel Week, crewing on various yachts. From your pic, you will see that I was wearing my WP Colours blazer after a run of good placings. Memories of this event are the kindness of our hosts, the Domislav Family, overnighting during Kiel Week in the Leisegang home town of Eckernförde, Dieter’s snoring, burning my bum on the boat heater chimney and my friend from another province spilling his wine onto my lap during the flight to Germany.
Our ever knowledgeable Frans Loots also shared this info about Richard Edwards. Back then he was from Port Elizabeth and Algoa Bay Yacht Club. He was the skipper of ‘Albatros’ in the second Rio Race in 1973 and made the newspapers when he “discovered” a stowaway, his girlfriend, onboard soon after the start.
Thanks to all who contributed to solving the mystery.
