“Everybody loves the sixties, especially those who weren’t there”
SANDEFJORD sailing off Durban in February 1966 before departing on her world voyage
The SANDEFJORD story.
There’s something seductively charming about accounts of world cruising in the 1960’s and 1970’s. This time period seems to be recent enough to evoke tangible memories for many and yet different enough from our current, technology obsessed, risk adverse era to seem exotic and uninhibited.
At a time when personal liberation and rebellion against authority were prevalent many expressed their individualism through new outlooks on religion, popular culture, and sexuality, and a handful through making slow and mindful voyages around the world in under prepared small boats. They weren’t the first to do so. The lineage from Slocum onwards is continuous, but perhaps they were the first generation to cruise with an empathy for the places they visited rather than an assumed superiority.
SWS has published a plethora of accounts reflecting the attitude of the adventuring with open minds. Its exemplified in the work and journeys of James Wharram, the circuit of Australia by Nacy Gibb Veda in CORNELIUS, the circumnavigation of MAORI LASS by Jan Tabler, and the adventures of Chris Bowman’s WATER PEARL.
Although these stories come from different corners of the world there seems to be a unifying factor that goes beyond the Kodachrome colour tones and sunbrowned bodies of the protagonists.
This week we came across the this gem of a film about the circumnavigation of the SANDEFJORD.
Its too long, the music is annoying, the narration is occasionally pompous, but the story as a whole unrelentingly charming.
Here’s some background…
SANDEFJORD was first launched in Risör, Norway in 1913 as a gaff ketch, a quintessential Colin Archer design, for the Norwegian Lifeboat Society. These sturdy wooden sailing craft, designed by the legendary Colin Archer, were built to put to sea at the first sign of a storm and to assist vessels in distress. During her 22 years' service, Sandefjord was attributed with saving 117 lives and assisting 258 vessels through fog and storm to safety.
After being sold out of the lifeboat service in 1935 she was owned and sailed, first by Norwegian Erling Tambs (“The Cruise of the Teddy”) who completed three Transatlantic passages in her and later, in the care of Tilly Penso, she sailed under the burgee of the Royal Cape Yacht Club for almost 25 years. Sold out of his estate in 1961, the ketch passed through a quick succession of owners, the last of whom all but abandoned her as a rotting hulk in Durban. It was a desperately sad shadow of the once proud SANDEFJORD that was found, half sunk at her moorings by the Durban brothers Barry and Patrick Cullen in 1963.
Here’s where the film begins…
The task of refitting her required almost two years of hard work before she was ready for sea. She was taken from the water, stripped of all doubtful planks and timbers and slowly restored to a state of complete seaworthiness. Finally, in February 1965, she was ready. She was provisioned for 400 days and with her complement of five young men and a girl, she sailed from Durban on what proved to be her greatest adventure yet.
Through the West Indies, Panama Canal...and on into the mighty Pacific. SANDEFJORD made her landfalls in the exotic South Seas in much the same way as Cook and other early navigators. Without exception, she was well met at all her ports of call. She made friends easily...for herself and her crew...as loyal and devoted a crew as any ship could ever wish to have.
SANDEFJORD sailed 30,279 nautical miles in 21 months in this memorable circumnavigation, receiving a thrilling homecoming welcome in Durban, Tuesday, 8th November 1966.
Perhaps it’s a film that some watchers will skim through, finger hovering over the fast forward button, itching to skip. But try to go with the flow, let it wash over you, and in the immortal words of Jimi Hendrix…