History Section 6

Erhic Gutierrez         October 29, 2016

The project became even more complicated when no suitable shipyard could be found to build such a yacht. Bruynzeel then decided to have the yacht built by his own company, Lamtico, in Stellenbosch, South Africa, where he had moved by then. That also had the advantage that he could supervise the building himself on a daily basis. Despite the complicated start-up phase, the actual building process went smoothly.  Much credit also reflects on the personnel charged with the building of Stormvogel at Table Bay, South Africa. To build such a vessel and launch her on time in a yard unaccustomed to large yacht construction was indeed a great achievement.

After the briefest of trials off Cape Town, Stormvogel sailed for England on the 3rd May, 1961 with a ships company of fourteen. She called at Saint Helena, Ascension Island and the Azores and arrived at Dartmouth, England, on the 22nd June. In spite of predominately light winds, the 7,660 mile voyage was completed in a good time averaging a speed of 7.6 knots.

Her high basic speed was proven time and time again, particularly by her records in the Fastnet and Dinard races.

Over a period of more than ten years Bruynzeel competed in virtually all the major races in all parts of the world. Particularly well known were the personal duels with the famous American ‘maximum raters’. In this way he promoted boat-for-boat racing on these big yachts. Stormvogel was the predecessor of the modern, lightweight Maxis.