Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
Following the report I shared yesterday, and the robust responses it solicited, it’s as if by magic there is another sea rescue in the waiting. This one though is from 57 years ago in the OSTAR race in which Bruce Dalling was competing aboard ‘Voortrekker’.
Joan De Kat, 27, was forced to abandon his self-designed yacht, the 50-ft. ‘Yaksha’. Rough seas had destroyed his rudder and mast and he had abandoned his vessel.
In the build-up to the race ‘Yaksha” was described as “hideously ugly”.
Aircraft and ships combed the Atlantic last night for the lone French yachtsman adrift in a rubber lifeboat. A Royal Air Force spokesman said that three RAF Shackletons and two U.S. Army aircraft from Iceland we·searching the rescue area in widening sweeps. The RAF spokesman said that weather conditions were good for a search – but cautioned: “It’s like looking for that needle in a haystack – only three times harder.”
READ MORE HERE: 1968 06 19 – Voortrekker 1 & Dalling – OSTAR – 776 – OCR copy
