Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
Without checking, I am sure that I have shared this feature before, and bother not as it shows just what fine seamen we produced back in days of yore.
I wrote the following intro at the time: “The following arrived in an e-mail recently and caught my eye as I remembered that in my archives I had pics of this incident, and that I had read the story in a very old copy of SA Yachting, so there was some local interest, as well as loads of seamanship involved.
“Bill King, whose 42’ junk-rigged schooner, Galway Blazer II, was capsized and dismasted during the ill-fated Golden Globe solo, non-stop round the world race has died aged 102.
“Galway Blazer II, designed by Angus Primrose, after consultation with Bill’s wartime friend, legendary solo yachtsman Blondie Hasler, was hit by a hurricane 1,000 miles south-west of Cape Town. In September 1970, Bill set sail once more.”
Corsair’s Fine Tow
When I first saw Galway Blazer II – after her Roaring Forties capsize – I could not believe how trim she looked. She was forging ahead slowly in the Atlantic swell, with just a headsail set. Here was a ship that had survived the Ultimate Wave.
Her hull was quite unscathed. But the foremast was gone and her mainmast was bent to a curious angle to starboard. There was no other damage. The paintwork was hardly weathered, except for the varnish on the rubbing strake. Aft her waterline was fringed with weed and some barnacles.
She looked almost as trim and as taut as the day she had left Plymouth, nearly three months before.
On October 31, at 39 degrees south latitude, ‘Galway Blazer II’ had safely endured what Bill King described as the worst hurricane he had ever encountered at sea. There was no way of estimating wind speed, but he thought it might have reached 120 knots. The glass had started to rise, but the wind shot through 90 degrees, to create a fiendishly-confused sea.
This is another interesting and great read.
READ IT HERE: Pages from 2012 11 – SAILING Magazine – reduced – OCR
