Nevil Shute-ing the Breeze - The SAONA connection
It was very special to receive this history from Ben Marris, Custodian of SAONA
SAONA roars down the Derwent.
Hi Sal,
I was good to meet you aboard the lovely HOLGA DANSKE at the Kettering Wooden Boat Rally. I enjoyed our connection as fellow custodians of Philip Rhodes boats, amongst other topics.
We noted that in your February newsletter you had included an item on the sad loss of Nevil Shute’s yacht RUNAGATE.
My 40ft centreboard ketch SAONA has a connection with Nevil Shute.
After the second world war many people chose to leave gloomy, battered England and move to the farthest corner of the globe. Two such voluntary refugees were Nevil Shute and Vice Admiral Sir Guy Wyatt. They came to start new lives in the peace and sun of Australia.
Nevill Shute and his family moved to Mt Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula in 1950. At this time he was writing A Town Like Alice, Round the Bend, The Far Country and In the Wet.
Sir Guy Wyatt had been the Royal Navy Hydrographer. He migrated to Tasmania in 1950. The following year he bought SAONA. She had been built at Battery Point by Charles Lucas and launched in 1936.
Over the next 15 years Sir Guy cruised Tasmanian waters in SAONA and prepared many beautiful charts of lesser known corners of our island state. A number of those charts are of Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour including Melaluka Inlet where he formed a friendship with Deny King and his family. Deny, another refugee from war, was mining tin in this isolated but hauntingly beautiful place.
I don’t know how Nevil Shute and Sir Guy became connected but in 1953 they sailed together on SAONA to Bathurst Harbour and spent time with the King family. This experience laid the foundations for Shute's novel The Rainbow and the Rose which was published in 1958.
The Nevil Shute Foundation is an international group who celebrate the author’s work and hold biennial meetings in various relevant locations. In 2013 twenty seven members met in Hobart over six days, touching on all things Shute. My wife and I were happy to host their visit to SAONA.
On reflection I see that, at the time when Shute and Wyatt were packing up to leave England I was growing up in Birmingham but being fed a healthy diet of Arthur Ransom. Shute’s books followed and, no doubt with many other influences, I came to understand that life is best to be lived with many adventures, preferably enjoyed on or by the water.
I was sad to learn of the loss of RUNAGATE but happily the spirit lives on in various ways.
Cheers,
Ben
To learn more about Ben and SAONA have a watch of this short film by the AWBF