FIGHTING FORTY
In this, part one of a two-part series, we look at the life, times and success of the 1916-built, Nat Herreshoff-designed New York 40 Rowdy
WORDS NIGEL SHARP
PHOTOS JAMES ROBINSON TAYLOR
A PASSING
Andrew Robinson, owner of Antigua’s Woodstock Boatbuilders, knows a thing or two about saving classic boats, so it was the perfect scenario when he got his hands on Carriacou sloop Summer Cloud
WORDS JAN HEIN
CLOUD
Z DRIVE
What could the shipyard that built the liner France and the car-maker Renault have in common? Answer: the early Z-drive transmission that today powers this little Rocca-built motor dinghy
WORDS GERALD GUETAT PHOTOS HENRI THIBAULT
ALASKAN
ADVENTURE
Will Stirling narrates a voyage sailing Integrity – a wooden gaffer – from Nome in Alaska through the North West Passage
WORDS AND PHOTOS WILL STIRLING
Here was Integrity , afloat in Nome, just where I had left her. The harbour freezes over during the winter, so she had been hauled ashore to a sheltered spot and covered in snow. It wasn’t quite your average travel hoist; she came up a gravel slipway on a trailer, towed by a Caterpillar snow plough (a type of modern husky team with a horse power boost).
Given William Scoresby and crew had managed to repair the keel of a 300T ship in the Arctic by careening her between ice flows, I felt confident that extracting Integrity from the water was simple fare for the inventive men of Nome, before they returned to the more pressing and potentially lucrative task of hoovering gold nuggets off the sea bed.
In order to reach the mountains of the Kenai Peninsula and Glacier Bay, where we had identified climbing targets, we had first to double the Alaskan Peninsula, leaving the Aleutians to the west for future exploration.
After a six-day passage, sailing south in relatively clement weather and with no sightings of ice, we reached the narrow passage of False Pass in conditions propitious for a transit. Navigating our way amongst shoals, overfalls and sea otters, we soon entered the small harbour at the settlement of False Pass.
The first vessel we encountered had the name Mar Pacifico emblazoned on her high steel bows.
Entertainingly apt as five miles away through the Ikatan Narrows lay the Pacific Ocean. Now safely ensconced in a superb harbour after having completed the most exposed part of the year’s travel, we caught up on messages to friends and family by lurking outside the fish processing plant. With the fabled Pacific Ocean so close at hand, at this time we were mainly engaged in locating sun lotion and considering tactical tan lines. Negotiating False Pass without incident, we found the weather rather boisterous in the bay to the south of the narrows. However, there was no ground swell, so re-stowing all Hawaiian shirts, sombreros and tanning oil, we decided to enact a man overboard revision. All went well until impenetrable fog suddenly descended and we almost mislaid the dan buoy.
Pushing on to a secluded harbour with a promising isthmus across which we might walk the following day, we saw our first grizzly bear idling in the undergrowth. Two of us were deposited ashore the following morning and this would give our first encounter with the terrain to see how good the going was underfoot. Dave and Harrison sailed the boat around to meet us in the afternoon. Uncle Terry insisted on taking the sawn-off. Polar bears well to the north of us and having sold my rifle in Nome, the sawn off by name supposed a credible weapon but in reality was a shortened fishing rod. I remained unsure where it ranked in our bear defence armoury.
SPIRIT OF TRADITION DESIGNERS - PART TWO
Bestevaer II, Gerard Dykstra’s own boat, seen here off Greenland
Facing page, bottom right: Meteor, designed by Stephen Jones