Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
The newspapers loved our sport back in the day as there were always varied and interesting things happening in the sport, plus many a good pic to be had too. With newspapers so thin these days there is little space left for the so-called non-glamour sports – and too much space give to the “hit it or kick it sports”.
So back in 1986 there were plenty of column centimetres given to sailing, and specifically the BOC round-the-world race. Today’s headline, which says it all, put into pictures and words all the preparations going on before the start of the second leg through the roaring forties.
This is the introduction from the Cape Argus: “Down at Royal Cape Yacht club, temporary home for almost two dozen yachties preparing to face the roaring forties of the southern Atlantic as they make their way singlehanded round the world in the BOC challenge, there is much talk of local heroes John Martin and Biltong Bertie Reed.
“”Well, I guess· they’re the most important chaps here,” says one of the unsung others, Canadian John Hughes, 25. He was working hard to prepare his small sloop, the 12-m ‘Joseph Young’, for the next leg of the race. Damp woollen jumpers, socks and jellybag hats were festooned in the rigging. “It got. a bit moist out there,” he says, waving at the open sea. He completed the first leg in 55 days.
In this report is an interesting photo of John Martin captioned as follows: “Helmeted and strapped into the cockpit of an Impala jet, yachtsman John Martin prepares to experience life in another dimension, far above the element he knows so well”.
READ IT ALL HERE: 1986 11 01 – stitched final – S&A – OCR
