Jzerro in Breakwater Marina, Townsville, Australia, 2002.

 

One of the greatest pleasures of cruising under sail, for me, is the other voyagers you meet, and their boats.  I consider it to be just as rewarding as making passages and exploring new landfalls.  Back in the 1960 and 70s, when I became involved, almost every boat was unique, a reflection of the owner’s personality or circumstances, whether they were old boats repurposed for the task or new builds.  While this is still true to some extent, it is becoming rarer.

One boat that really stood out as a unique expression of its creator’s imagination and vision was Russell Brown’s Pacific proa, Jzerro, which I crossed paths with in Townsville, FNQ, Australia, in 2002, as detailed in Volume Two of my sailing memoir, Last Days of the Slocum Era.  I’d read about Russell and his proas occasionally in yachting journals, though they all said he liked to keep a low profile, and he has never sold plans for his designs or written about his passages.

 

Above two photos:  Jzerro in Breakwater Marina, Townsville, 2002.

He is the son of trimaran pioneer, Jim Brown, whose most famous designs were the Searunner range; sensible, attractive, and seaworthy trimarans that came to the attention of mainstream yachting, and did much to advance the acceptance of multihulls.  One of his designs was featured in the Time Life Library of Boating.  His Searunner 34, the distillation of his work on that series, has been described as the safest ocean-cruising trimaran ever designed.  It has enough reserve buoyancy built into its decks that, in the unlikely event of a capsize, the crew can comfortably live inside the boat until rescued.

 

Searunner 34

 

Jim, in his heyday, became more than just a yacht designer.  Even though it was never his intention, he became something akin to a cultural icon, a symbol of the alternative way of doing things and living, which was so popular in the 1960-70s.  His boat designs and writings appeared in places like The Whole Earth Catalogue.  People, often counterculture types, began to seek him out, beating a path to his door to hear the words of wisdom from the master himself.  One stranger, I heard, even turned up at the family homestead on Christmas Day.  Jim’s book, The Case for the Cruising Trimaran, became a best-seller and remains in print.  His design catalogues were treasured.  I had a set myself.

I am not sure if observing all this influenced Russell, but he has steadfastly avoided the cult of celebrity throughout a long and creative life spent designing and building boats.  He is now considered a master craftsman in timber-epoxy-composite construction, working out of a workshop in Port Townsend, alongside his wife, Ashlyn, called Port Townsend Watercraft.  They have also written a number of technical books to help others develop their boatbuilding skills.  Their website, detailing their publications, and the work of friends, is shown below, and also has a link to their blog.  For people outside of the USA, the print versions of their books are available on Amazon and elsewhere.

http://ptwatercraft.com/ptwatercraft/E-Books.html

When Russell was in early adolescence, he and his brother, Steve, set sail from California with their parents on the trimaran, Scrimshaw, a Searunner 31, bound for Mexico, South America and the Caribbean, ending up on Chesapeake Bay after three years.  Along the way, a family friend, the trimaran designer, Dick Newick, sent them a copy of the book, Project Cheers, an account of Tom Follet’s triumph in the 1968 OSTAR (singlehanded transatlantic race), with the Atlantic proa, Cheers, which lit a fire in 13-year-old Russell’s mind.

 

Scrimshaw.  Photo: courtesy Russell Brown.

He was soon out sailing on an improvised proa, created with the imagination and energy that came to characterise his later creations.  Rather than just mimic Cheers, despite being enthralled with the boat, Russell chose to configure his makeshift craft as a Pacific proa, like the traditional Polynesian boats, which always keep the ama to windward.

The Pacific proa configuration has many advantages, including considerably less load on the beams, and thus the rig.  Having the ama to windward, although seemingly counterintuitive, is actually safer, as its weight, combined with reserve buoyancy in the main hull’s leeward pod, makes the boat much more resistant to capsize.  The ama could also be filled with water via a hand pump, and emptied the same way, though Russell rarely utilised that option.

Returning to the conformity of school in the USA wasn’t easy for Russell.  At the age of 17, he built a 30ft sheet-plywood Pacific proa, Jzero, named after a Cat Stevens song, for US$400, and took off back to the tropics.  In 2002, he told me that in some ways he considered this to be his best design, so simple and pure in concept.

 

Jzero sailing off Martinique, in the Caribbean.  Photo: courtesy Russell Brown.

Jzero came apart in the ugly seas of the Gulf Stream off Florida, but he clung to the wreckage, refusing rescue until someone came along who was willing to take the boat as well as himself.  He rebuilt it on a beach in Florida and, with a new friend, Mark Balough, sailed for the Caribbean.  Mark remembers the trip as terrifying, but Russell was in his element.  Like a Polynesian navigator, he had learned to live with the sea, not fight or fear it.

 

Jzero on the beach in St Croix, Virgin Islands.  Russell is touching up the paintwork while Cynthia Hatfield, wife of multihull designer, Roger Hatfield, works at the bow.  Photo: Roger Hatfield.

The experience could also be seen as a practical course in multihull design and construction, as Jzero went on to have a successful career, cruising and racing in the Caribbean, after which Russell built the cold-moulded timber proa, Kauri, in which he cruised for many years between the Caribbean and the east coast of the USA, carrying his tools and working in boatyards along the way.  He also built another proa, Cimba, for a close friend, before moving to Port Townsend and building the 36’ Jzerro, also cold-moulded.

In Jzerro, he sailed across the Pacific Ocean to Australia and New Zealand, before taking the boat apart and shipping it back to Port Townsend in a container.  The well-known American sailor and writer, Steve Callahan, sailed with him as far as Tahiti, from where he carried on singlehanded.  In the region of the Cook Islands, Jzerro weathered a 60-knot storm, lying safely hove-to, with the pod, which sits to leeward, occasionally smacking the water and bringing the boat back onto its feet.

 

Jzerro sailing in the lagoon at Bora Bora, Society Islands, photographer unknown.

These leeward pods have been a feature of all of Russell’s designs, influenced by the pod on Cheers, that was added after it capsized during a trial sail before the OSTAR.  The OSTAR committee initially refused Cheers entry after this incident, but reversed their decision after Tom Follet and Dick Newick demonstrated the efficacy of the pod.  It may well be that the pod, combined with the weight of the ama to windward, makes a Pacific proa the most capsize-resistant of all multihull configurations.

In a sweet incident of serendipity, Russell met David Lewis, author of We the Navigators, the revered text about traditional Polynesian navigators and their methodology, at Great Keppel Island, on the central coast of Queensland.  Having sailed on a number of indigenous Polynesian proas, David, who, at 85, was in the last months of his life, was delighted with the opportunity to inspect Jzerro.

 

David Lewis on the beach at Great Keppel Island.  Photo Russell Brown.

Even though David had written to me about the encounter, I was still astonished to stick my head out of Arion’s hatch one glorious tropical winter morning in Townsville, and find Jzerro moored opposite.  Russell was a bit reserved initially, but once he realised I was enthralled with the boat, and understood the history and characteristics of proas, we became good friends.  He gave me a picture of David he’d taken on the beach at Great Keppel Island that I still cherish.

He drew a sketch of a 30ft proa for me, on a page torn out of his notebook, that looks remarkably like the proa Madness that Chesapeake Light Craft developed a few years later in consultation with Russell.  I often look at Madness and dream about zipping around the islands of Queensland on it.  I’d have to have a storage unit ashore for all my books and large tools, however!

 

Proa Madness.  Photo: Chesapeake Light Craft.

Jzerro has gone on to have an even more remarkable history than it had with Russell.  After cruising Jzerro in the Pacific Northwest for many years, Russell sold the proa to Ryan Finn, who used it to challenge the non-stop New York to San Francisco sailing record, via Cape Horn.  Despite having to stop for repairs, Ryan completed the passage in 93 days, with a sailing time of only 73 days, which is the fastest time ever recorded for this famed and feared passage.  Undoubtedly, Ryan Finn is an exceptional sailor, but it also says something about the capabilities of a well-designed and built Pacific proa.

 

Above: Sandefjord in the Caribbean in 1972.

On a bitterly-cold, midwinter day in early June 1966, the 46’ gaff-rigged ketch, Sandefjord, an ex-Norwegian Rescue Vessel designed by Colin Archer (RS 28), built in Risör, Norway, in 1913, and registered in Durban, South Africa, limped into Sydney Harbour with a broken mizzen mast lashed to the deck, 50 days out of Bora Bora in French Polynesia.  The crew of five young men were not only shivering, but they were hungry, as all that was left of their provisions were a few cans of baked beans.

Above: The passage from Bora Bora to Sydney took 50 days, beating against strong SW winds

 

They were also exhausted.  Instead of the expected SE tradewinds after leaving French Polynesia, Sandefjord had battled a series of SW gales, requiring the old ship to beat to windward for weeks on end, which had strained the seams, forcing the crew to spend endless hours manning the pumps, in between wrestling with the ship’s heavy, wet, canvas sails.

Above: wrestling with the heavy, wet, canvas sails, in a gale north of Sydney.

 

The final blow came in a storm while running down the NSW coast to Sydney, when an accidental gybe resulted in the mizzen mast breaking off just above deck level in the middle of the night.  As Bary Cullen said afterwards, it was a miracle that nobody was lost overboard that night, as the entire crew battled to lower the spar safely to the deck and lash it in place.

Above: Repairing damaged head-sails after the gale on the NSW coast. 

Sydney offered a welcome respite.  In Rushcutters Bay, the mizzen mast was repaired and re-stepped, the ship slipped, re-caulked and antifouled, with the willing assistance of a gang of admirers.  Several weeks later, Sandefjord sailed merrily on its way, after a series of boisterous parties that were still being talked about when I arrived in Rushcutters Bay from Durban in 1972.

Above: In between raucous parties, the  ship was given a thorough refit in Rushcutters Bay, Sydney. 

Sandefjord was already a legendary boat.  It was the 28^th rescue vessel built for the Norwegian Lifeboat Institution, designed by Colin Archer, and served in that capacity for 22 years, during which time three vessels with seven people aboard were saved from sure death, and 258 vessels with 1100 people aboard were rendered assistance, without which many of them may not have survived.

I am a little uncertain about Sandefjord's displacement.  I remembered that it was 50 tons, but that has been questioned.  I believe it may have 'only' been 35 tons.  Eric Hiscock, in Voyaging Under Sail, records the boat as being 43 tons Thames Measurement, and he is a very reliable source.  What is indisputable is its massive construction.  The sawn oak frames were 10 inches square, and the planking is recorded as three inches, but that may include its inner ceiling, which was also caulked, and provided a watertight inner skin.  The sawn frames were on two-foot centres, with a steamed rib between each pair, and the ballast was between 12-13 tons, half of it inside.  The deck beams were 10 inches deep by eight inches, also on two-foot centres.

Sandefjord was bought out of service in 1935 by Norwegian yachtsman, Erling Tambs, who was already famous internationally for his 1928 voyage to New Zealand on a smaller Colin Archer double-ender, Teddy, with his wife, young son, and a dog called Spare Provisions, and for his book, The Cruise of the Teddy, in which it was plainly evident that Spare Provisions was at no time in danger of finding himself on the menu!  They loved him without reservation.

After winning the inaugural Trans-Tasman Race from Auckland to Sydney in 1931, Teddy was unfortunately wrecked in New Zealand waters.  After purchasing Sandefjord in Norway, Tambs set out for New York, to compete in a proposed transatlantic race back to Europe.  SE of Bermuda, the ship was overtaken by what was almost certainly an early-season hurricane.  In those days, there was no long-range forecasting, and little was known of these storms unless they came ashore, or were reported post-event by passing ships.  Sandefjord ran off before the storm under bare poles, but was eventually overwhelmed by the sea, pitchpoling, with the loss of one man, the mizzen mast, and a plank out of the topsides.  Having almost been pitchpoled myself, aboard the 60’, 32-ton, gaff-rigged schooner, Ishmael, in the Southern Ocean in 1980, I can imagine the scenario.

Ishmael was driven down the face of an unbelievably steep sea, almost twice the height of the surrounding waves, which were big enough to make you quake in your boots.  I was on the helm, and lost my footing due to the steepness of the deck, as we careened down the wave, only saving myself from falling forward by clinging to the wheel.  Our 22’-long bowsprit (including jibboom), buried itself into the trough, along with the entire foredeck up to the foremast, before the ship’s reserve buoyancy asserted itself and thrust Ishmael back to the surface, putting the vessel on it’s beam ends while doing so.  Looking at Sandefjord’s bluff bows makes me realise that the sea which overwhelmed the ship must have been incomparably higher and steeper than the +/- 50’ monster that struck Ishmael.

Above: Repairing the bowsprit in Thursday Island, after an argument with a wharf.  Note the bluff bows.

When Tambs arrived in New York, he learned that the race he had come for had been cancelled.  Undeterred, he then sailed Sandefjord back across the Atlantic, and on to Cape Town in 1939, via Tristan de Cunha in the Southern Ocean.  He would undoubtedly have gone on to greater adventures if World War Two had not intervened.  Sandefjord then spent many years in Cape Town.  Bernard Moitessier, aboard Marie Therese 11, saw the ship there in 1955, and called Sandefjord ‘a great big bull of a boat’.

 Above: Launch day in Durban, October 1964, after a thorough refit.

By this time, neglect was taking its toll, and in the early 1960s, Sandefjord had been semi-abandoned in Durban Harbour, lying half-sunk at an outer mooring, where it would have remained had not two young dreamers, Barry and Patrick Cullen, not come along, bought it for next to nothing, then spent two years rebuilding the ship.

Above: Sailing into Cape Town after a rough passage from Durban at the start of the circumnavigation.

This was followed by a faultless, two-year, tradewind circumnavigation between 1965-6.  From Durban they sailed to Cape Town, Saint Helena Island, the Caribbean, Panama, Galapagos, Tahiti, Sydney, the Great Barrier Reef islands, Mauritius and back home in 22 months.  The old ship was at its best in fresh trade winds, romping along at five to six knots, though overall its average speed for the circumnavigation was 4.18 knots.  Unusually, the crew of five men and one woman stayed together, with just a change in the female crewmember  after the first fell in love along the way.

Their mother mortgaged her house to finance the rebuild of the boat and the film they made, Sandefjord around the World, which was released in 1968 to great acclaim in South Africa, and eventually elsewhere.  Enthralled, I went to see it at least twice a week for six months.  There is no limit to passion when you are 16!  The narration appears a little dated today, and some feel that the film would benefit from being edited, but I must have watched this film thirty or more times now, and still lap up every minute of it.  It could never be too long for me.

Above:  Anchored in the roadstead at Saint Helena Island, South Atlantic.

Above: Anchored in Grenada, West Indies.  Note the old trading schooners, now a relic of history.

Above:  Becalmed in the South Pacific Ocean between Panama and the Galapagos Archipelago.

Above:  Moored in Robinson's Cove, Moorea, Society Islands, February 1966.

Above: Sailing through the islands inside Australia's Great Barrier Reefs, August 1966.

Of course, Sandefjord holds a special place in my heart.  It was the first yacht, if you can call Sandefjord a yacht, that I laid eyes upon as a 14-year-old in Durban in 1966.  Until a local newspaper ran a two-page special feature about Sandefjord’s circumnavigation, after the ship returned to Durban, I had never even heard of people living aboard yachts and sailing the world.  My dream was to be a professional ballet dancer, but some idle curiosity took me down to the yacht basin the next Saturday, which was near my usual weekend haunt, the Durban Central Library, to have a look.

Above:  Return to the International Jetty, Durban, November 1966.  Note David Lewis's catamaran, Rehu Moana, ahead of Sandefjord's bowsprit.

While doing so, I was approached by a man from a catamaran, Rehu Moana, which was moored alongside Sandefjord.  Introducing himself as David Lewis (the name meant nothing to me), he asked me to help him carry a box down from the yacht club.  That led to a lifelong friendship with David, who profoundly influenced my life, though it was not until the following year, when 18-year-old Robin Lee Graham sailed into Durban aboard his 24’ sloop, Dove, that something clicked in my brain, and I decided that ocean cruising was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  By then, I’d worked out I was never going to get into ballet school.  Just the merest hint of the idea was enough to make my father’s face go purple…

After Sandefjord’s circumnavigation, the boat lay in Durban for a few years while the Cullen brothers finished editing their film and promoting it, but in 1971, Patrick Cullen, accompanied this time by his wife and children, sailed the boat in the inaugural Cape to Rio yacht race, before going on to the Caribbean and eventually the east coast of the USA.  He made another film of that voyage, but I have never been able to locate a copy.

Above:  Sandefjord today, fully restored to its original specifications and sailing in Norway.

The thing about old, iron-fastened, softwood timber boats like this, built in cold climates, is that once you take them into warmer waters it becomes an endless struggle to maintain them.  Patrick found it a losing battle, and the poor ship was starting to deteriorate again rapidly.  But Sandefjord has always been a lucky ship, and once again a saviour appeared, in the form of a Norwegian sailor, Gunn von Trepka, who sailed the ailing vessel back to Norway, where it has undergone an extensive rebuild, taking it back to its original form, with bulwarks and oiled spars.

Sandefjord today.  Look at those bluff bows and imagine the sea that pitchpoled the boat in 1935.

For many years, Gunn sailed the boat with her partner, taking young people to sea, but the ship is now maintained by the Colin Archer Society.  In 2013, a grand party was held aboard to celebrate the ship's 100th birthday, with most of the surviving crew members in attendance.  Sandefjord will always hold a special place in my imagination, and has profoundly influenced my aesthetic and practical approach to cruising under sail.

The film, Sandefjord, Her Voyage Around the World, by Patrick and Barry Cullen, can be viewed on YouTube.