Stormvogel in New Zealand

Graeme Henry       May 04, 2020

STORMVOGEL REFITS IN NEW ZEALAND 1965 Sea Spray Article February 1966 Three New Zealanders who joined Stormvogel\\\\\\\'s crew are Don Hargrave of Auckland, and Hamish Riddock and James Elliott of Welling-ton On her way to Australia to compete in the Sydney-Hobart ocean race, which started last Boxing Day, the 73ft Dutch ketch Stormvogel, one of the largest ocean racers in the world, called at Auckland for a five weeks refit which was undertaken by M. C. Carter Ltd. and various sub-contractors. This was the biggest refit Storm­vogel has had since she was launched in South Africa in 1961, and she has logged 130,000 nautical miles in that time. Biggest single job in the refit was cleaning out her water an d fuel tanks, which are internal sections of her hollow steel fin keel partitioned off. They had no access holes or inspection plates, and thirteen holes had to be cut into the !in, steel plating to allow cleaning and rust-proofing of the inside of the tanks. Flush cover plates were then fitted, and the whole of the steel fin cleaned off outside down to bare metal and covered with an epoxy surfacing compound. When sanded and repainted, it was impossible to tell where the plates were. A persistent leak she has had under the mast-step was fixed by chiselling out and re packing and re-caulking a section between the fin keel and the wooden hull. A new 58 hp Perk ins diesel main engine and an Overhill 24-volt gener­ating plant were fitted and the boat was rewired and all plumbing renewed. Stormvogel has a balanced rudder on a fixed skeg well aft of the tin keel Below decks she was steam-cleaned before being sanded down and repainted and re-varnished inside and out. All chrome fittings below decks were replated, and a new saloon table and settees were made, and a Carter type deep-freeze was fitted. Both the main and aft cockpits were fibreglassed and a complete set of new navigation instruments was installed in the chart room. This included a Harrier electronic log and speedo­meter, a Hecta depth-meter, a Heron DF aerial and a Homer receiver, and a Hengist/ Horsa combined wind direction indicator and anemometer, all made by Brookes and Gatehouse. She also carries a Bendix Skipper radio-telephone. Another job that was done in Auck­land was to add a little balance on the for\\\\\\\'ard edge of the rudder. She was originally designed with an independently hung spade rudder, but it was later changed to a balanced rudder on a fixed skeg. It was reported in the December January SEA SPRAY that her owner, the Dutch plywood and timber millionaire Cornelius Bruynzeel, would join her in Sydney, but he surprised the crew by arriving in Auckland a few days before she was due to leave, and he sailed her in the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron\\\\\\\'s outer harbour race on December 4. Unfortunately the wind was very light with many calm patches, and Aucklanders did not see her really performing, but at the finish of the race, when the breeze had got up to about 12 knots and it was a slog home, she was moving beautifully. Her size made it hard to judge her speed, but she came down to the line behind several first division keelers and she was sailing faster than any of them. In the race she was carrying what are called her old cruising sails ­ a brand new set of Hoods was being flown out from America to Sydney for the Hobart race. According to her skipper Peter Lindeberg, she can set as many as eight sails at one time, with a total area of 7,500 sq. ft. The proposed itinerary was: Leave Hobart after the race on January 1, leave Sydney for Port Moresby on January 20, leave Port Moresby for Manila on February 15, Manila for Hong Kong on March 10, Hong Kong to Manila in the China Sea race on April 2, and then on to Taiwan, Japan and the U.S.A. While in Auckland Mr Bruynzeel showed great interest in the new plywood A class keeler Infidel, as he was the pioneer of light displacement plywood fin keelers in Europe, the most famous being the 46ft. Zeevalk, which was second in the Fastnet not long after the war. Like Stormvogel, she was designed by Van de Stadt of Holland. The main details of Stormvogel were given in the last issue of SEA SPRAY, but here they are again. LOA : 73ft. LWL: 60ft. Beam: 16ft. Draught : 10ft. Displacement: 30 tons Ballast keel: I3 tons Designers- Lines and Arrangement: E. G. van de Stadt Construction: J. Laurent Giles Sails and Rigging: Captain John Illingworth Builder: Lamtico, Stellenbosch, S. Africa. Hull construction: Four skins glued and fastened, total thickness 1 1/ Sin., covered in fiberglass. Deck construction: A sandwich of two layers of ply with polystyrene foam be-tween, rein-forced in way of fit-tings. Spars: Alloy, by Sparlight; the mainmast stands 76ft above the deck. Cruising speed under power is 7-½ knots, but she has often aver-aged better than this under sail alone on long ocean cruises.