Sailing Magazine
by Richard Crockett
Most bluewater yachties have a secret desire to round Cape Horn, yet few have ever fulfilled that dream just once, let alone twice!
This 3-page article is all about ‘Stormvogel’, and her rounding of Cape Horn twice under sail, with her owner Cornelis Bruynzeel aboard and fully in sync with the plan.
Bruynzeel was a racing man at heart, as this feature shows, and he pushed his boats hard to achieve good results – pocketing many fine victories.
In “Yachting in Southern Africa”, Anthony Hocking wrote: “‘Stormvogel’ went on to win other ocean classics, in particular the Sydney-Hobart of 1965. In that year too ‘Stormvogel’ raced in the TransPac from Los Angeles to Honolulu. It was a race CB will not forget. ‘Stormvogel’ was beaten to the line by the American ‘Ticonderoga’ – pipped by six minutes after racing for two weeks. The race could have gone either way, but in the end it was ‘Ticonderoga’ which found the wind.
“In the next TransPac, in 1967, CB did not waste time. ‘Stormvogel’ led from start to finish, to win the race hands down. That victory came soon after ‘Stormvogel’s’ place in the yachting hall of fame was established beyond any doubt by her victory over Jim Kilroy’s ‘Kialoa II’, known as the fastest yacht on America’s Pacific coast, with three straight wins in the five-race California Cup.
“In her racing years ‘Stormvogel’ firmly established herself as the hardest-sailed yacht ever – more than 200 000 miles in six years, the equivalent of once round the world every year. She put up the fastest time in about 30 of the 40 major races in which she was entered. Now that CB has ‘Stormy’, ‘Stormvogel’ has been put out to graze, on charter.”
The fascinating account of ‘Stormvogel’ doubling the horn is a worthwhile read.
READ THE ARTICLE HERE: 1980 01 – SA Yachting – Stormvogel
What is “From My Archives” About?
After many years, in fact decades, of collecting material on our sport and wanting to sort and organise the information into an archive that was more user-friendly, I started with many boxes of newspaper cuttings I had. This entailed digitising and scanning every single one, and saving them in a chronological date order – a daunting task as there are in excess of 20 000 cuttings.
While doing this I decided to share my material in the form of “On this Day. A Newspaper History of Sailing”. That was at the very end of September 2019, and it ran daily with several newspaper cuttings per day for an entire year.
In between archiving the newspaper cuttings I was also delving deeper into my photo and magazine archives which span a period of some 60 years from about 1957 to 2017. These too are being digitised.
So much that is interesting has caught my eye, I have decided that now is the time to start sharing this information too.
I have only just begun scratching the surface of my archives, but the joy I get from them every time I do some digging makes me determined to preserve the history of our sport and share it as far and wide as possible. It’s become a personal crusade – maybe even an obsession.
My Plea – Please Share Your Sailing History
If you are interested in preserving the rich history of sailing in RSA, my plea to you is to please assist me by sharing your personal archives, photos, press cuttings and whatever with me, committee records and more so that I can scan them and share them widely. My promise is that I will treat them with the utmost care, and get them back to you safely. So far Don Pfotenhauer; Richard Bertie; Dudley Dix; Dave Elcock; Frans Loots, Len Davies and others have shared their scrap books and files with me.
There are big gaps in my archives, so should you have material that you are willing to share please make contact (editor@sailing.co.za) and let’s chat.
What is Possible
As each newspaper cutting and article is text-searchable, I am able to create presentation packs personally tailored to a person’s exact requirements – ie. Rothman’s Week, the NCS Regatta, the Rio Race, Mauritius Race, Vasco da Gama Race and more – or simply by the name of an individual (like Ant Steward and his open boat exploits) – for those who want a record of his/her sailing career for the family archives.
I have already created a stand-alone 4000+ page PDF document of Voortrekker – from idle chatter, to concept, to the formation of what ultimately became the South African Ocean Racing Trust (SAORT), to the fruition of the 1968 OSTAR Race in which Bruce Dalling and ‘Voortrekker’ excelled – and even beyond that.
The possibilities are endless – and exciting.
Sharing From These Archives
Should you wish to copy, forward or share material from here, PLEASE acknowledge the source as: Sourced From the SAILING Mag Archives & Historical Records (www.sailing.co.za)
