From the Quarterdeck by DYC President David Stone
/The People you Meet
A while ago I saw a photograph taken during the first Two Man Round North Island Race. In the middle of the photo was the yacht Castanet, then owned by Rudi Schuler and sailed out of Wellington. The reason this boat was so familiar was that the crew for that race was my flatmate and regular crewmate, Athol. Athol had grown up in Deep Bay in Tory Channel from where his father ran an in-shore fishing enterprise. Athol worked as a linesman for the local electricity company in Blenheim and would catch the ferry from Picton on a Friday afternoon in order to go sailing in Wellington on Saturday. Eventually the weekly commute from Picton became too much and he moved into my spare room.
Athol was a natural seafarer and despite many rough edges, was a natural gentleman. He also knew absolutely no fear. On one occasion we were sailing a Reactor in a harbour race when we had a gear failure at the top of the mast. We were doing quite well so were reluctant .to drop sail. Athol came to the rescue. He ripped off his sea boots, grasped the shrouds and ran like a monkey up the well- heeled mast. A couple of minutes of fiddling and the issue was resolved and Athol returned in the same manner as he had left. This was without any safety gear or restraints. Add to this the fact that Athol couldn’t swim. One shudders when considering this from the perspective of increased age and caution.
Athol’s greatest feat of seamanship during the period we flatted together came on the return voyage after the Wellington/Lyttleton race. Athol had agreed to bring back a boat belonging to an Air New Zealand captain who was rostered back at work. Athol and two crew left port ahead of a forecast southerly blow. However they got their timing wrong and they got hit by a southerly buster. This is an appropriately named phenomena as the first thing to give was the mast. The crew managed to secure the rigging and battened down the hatches. They went below and took to their bunks to ride out the blow.
This was back in the days before the wide availability of VHF. They did have an SSB set but this, as was the practice at the time used an insulated back stay to provide the aerial. With the rig down they had no comms. When the storm abated somewhat Athol went on deck and rigged a jury aerial and commenced sending out a Mayday call. Remember this was long before GPS. Their position given was based on transits from major peaks in the Kaikoura ranges. The only problem was he misidentified the peaks and this put them many miles from their actual position. Their distress call was picked up by one vessel, the coastal tanker Kotuku but was garbled and there were question marks over the given position. While Kotuku acknowledged the distress message the acknowledgement was not received by the boys. An air and sea search was immediately commenced and continued for a number of days without any trace being found.
Then about five days after they went missing, early in the morning, they sail through Wellington heads under jury rig. They became becalmed and had to hail a passing fishing boat to alert the Police launch that they needed to be towed in. Athol was always very low key about this event but I was always impressed that he was able to bring his crew home without assistance.