By Richard Crockett
Once again I have hit a deviation while bringing news on Arthur Holgate, this time as he is mentioned in dispatches along with several others who are mentioned in this feature article on South African yachties in the charter game in the West Indies.
Bianca Lavies, a Durban based photographer, visited the area and caught up with these people. While I personally know very little about the author, I do know that at one time she was a Durban newspaper photographer who moved on and did a stint with National Geographic magazine.
She wrote as follows: “Cruising men who leave South Africa for the Spanish Mainland do not, like old soldiers simply fade away. Many of them stay in the idyllic West Indian islands and enter the charter game. Some make big money, some just scrape along, but the interesting fact is that they are all highly popular members of a community”.
Arthur Holgate and ‘Lorraine’ are first up in the interviews, with Holgate revealing that the Mayor of New York and his wife were charter guests, as was Walt Disney.
“Walt Disney chartered ‘Lorraine’ last year for three months. They were making “Windward Road”, a film about turtles in St. Kitts. St. Barts, Nevis etc.”.
This is a wonderful feature which give sone a glimpse of the lives of cruises who have made the break for living on land to living aboard their boats wherever they desire.
READ IT HERE: Pages from 1969 09 – SA Yachting -000274 – OCR