RNZYS authors in print

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The mid-winter New Members’ night saw 85 new members welcomed to the club. Hosted by Commodore Aaron Young, Squadron Flags and members of the General Committee, the ‘newbies’ were joined by family and friends and Past Commodores and partners. Among those who celebrated the occasion were: 1/ From left, Nathan Williams, new junior family member Paige Williams (12) and Rear Commodore Gillian Williams. 2/ From left, new country and associate members David Bassett and Helen MacDonald with Erin Clatworthy. 3/ From left, Committee member Mike Malcolm, new family member Terence Stevens-Prior and Committee members Sheryl Lanigan and Mike Leyland. 4/ Marion Stock and new full member Paul Stock. 5/ From left, Lana Morrison, Jill Hanlyn and new country member Graeme Crawshaw. 6/ New family members Serena and Dwayne Boyes. 7/ From left, Russ Rutan, new associate member Dawn Baca, Karen Vause and new full member Peter Vause. 8/ New associate member Anne-Constance-Palmeri and Laki Dometakis. 9/ New country member Andrew Taylor and associate member Anita Taylor. 10/ New crew member Peter Rose and Adrianne Cranshaw Pictures by Debra Douglas

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Harold George, who was one of only four two-term Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron Commodores (1937-39 and 1946-47), is the subject of a new book by Noel Vautier, who frequently sailed aboard George’s yacht Victory when Vaiutier was a young law student in Auckland.

Harold: A Nautical Life (Self-published, 2021) is an affectionate and insightful record of an accomplished RNZYS Commodore, military man and lawyer, as well as a charming portrait of racing and cruising in Auckland and much further afield during the inter-war and post war years.

Harold George was born into a sailing family. His father, Hector, managed the marine chandlery business of John Burns & Co (later Burnsco). His mother, Florence, was one of the Couldrey clan of designers and boatbuilders.

In 1929, Harold, his brother Geoffrey and a friend, embarked on a remarkable voyage aboard Victory to Norfolk Island. “Victory’s arrival at Norfolk Island was unexpected and caused quite a sensation,” Vautier records. “Never before had a small yacht come to the island from so far away.”

Victory’s return to New Zealand was less auspicious. Instead of being met with acclaim for such an audacious achievement, George was hauled before the courts for failing to observe proper health and quarantine protocols.

His defence for going ashore without clearance was that the crew were short of fresh water, but the court dismissed this as not sufficiently urgent to warrant breaking the law. He was convicted and ordered to pay costs of £3.13s.

One of Victory’s many racing achievements was winning the first Balokovic race, organised by Royal Akarana Yacht Club. The 180-mile course from Judge’s Bay to Sail Rock then around Little and Great Barrier, the Cuvier Islands and back to Auckland, saw the small fleet encountering weather ranging from complete calms to full-out gales, causing considerable damage and even injuries.

Between taking shelter in various anchorages to make repairs, it took Victory from 8pm on the Friday night to 9.17am on the Monday to claim a hard-won win.

Another well-known claim to fame was during a 1938 RNZYS weekend cruise for members of the Officers’ Club. With all the participants at anchor, Commodore George issued an open invitation to come aboard Victory, which nearly sank at anchor under the weight of bodies. The log later recorded 90 guest signatures.

Harold served in both world wars. During World War Two, he and Bunty Palmer helped set up a commando training base at Mallaig, a remote fishing village in Scotland. George participated in the famous commando raid on the Lofoten Islands in the far north of Norway.

He served under Lord Mountbatten, both in the commandos and later in the South East Asia Command, where he was appointed Naval Planning Officer Combined Operations.

Harold married a wealthy American heiress, Edith, and some of Vautier’s recollections of post-war cruising include delightful vignettes of the parade of socialites and war heroes who came aboard.

“If we tacked into the wind Edith could get quite upset as the boat leaned over and would tell Harold quite abruptly to stop it …”

“Yes, dear,” he would respond.

The trials and tribulations of sailing without an engine are also well described, as are the efforts of having to ferry guests to and from the yacht at its Okahu Bay moorings in a dinghy with no outboard.

“Unfortunately, there was no pontoon or jetty and the ramp at low tide was covered with slime and could be quite treacherous. Sometimes two of us had to lift Edith into the dinghy – not very dignified!” • Harold: A Nautical Life is available in the RNZYS Cornes Library and from the RNZYS Retail Store.

Australia-based Squadron member John Burgess was born into a sea-faring family just before World War Two and, after a childhood that included living on farms in Northland and the Waikato, quickly searched and found adventure at sea as a young man.

He has recounted these experiences in a rollicking book called Life, Luck and Liaisons (Xlibris, 2020).

His antecedents had close ties with the sea. His great grandfather, Captain I.J. Burgess, was born in London, but joined the merchant marine and voyaged to New Zealand under sail in 1846, later to become Auckland harbourmaster, a position which then encompassed the Waitemata, Manukau, Kaipara, Hokianga, Thames, Tauranga and other harbours.

His father, also a long-standing Squadron member and one of the founding members of Cobweb Corner, sailed mullet boats and later crewed on Ariki in Auckland and tried, with limited success, to teach his children to sail a Z-class dinghy on Lake Taupo.

Burgess’s book provides an entertaining account of growing up in post-war New Zealand amidst eccentric but accomplished relatives including strong-willed and frequently hard-drinking women with a powerful streak of Irish in them.

His first sailing adventures were on an American ketch called Monsoon. He joined a motley crew, which included a talking mynah bird and the skipper’s not very hygienic Australian girlfriend, who made it clear her favours were not exclusive.

After sailing to Fiji, where he jumped ship after being beaten up at a local wedding, he was taken on as crew by former US submariner Buck Taylor and his wife Dorie, who were on a world cruise with their homebuilt 28ft ketch, Koae.

Together they voyaged for two years in Australia, New Guinea, Timor, and finally wound up in Singapore, where Burgess used his RNZYS reciprocal privileges to make full use of the Royal Singapore Yacht Club’s facilities.

Life, Luck and Liaisons is a charming account of a young man’s adventures travelling to exotic destinations by sea at a time when cruising of this sort was still relatively rare. He encountered life in all its forms, including rising political tensions in Timor. He took advantage of luck along the way, both to seize opportunities and get out of various scrapes.

And in the process, liaisons, or “misunderstandings” over women, meant he became familiar with black eyes and local jail cells.

Following Life, Luck and Liaisons, Burgess wrote a second book, What’s the Story, recounting his life in London in the swinging sixties, where he began a successful career in the international meat trade. During his sojourn in Europe, he continued sailing, racing on the Solent and in the Fastnet, met and married his New Zealand wife, Jenny, in London and finally settled in Australia.

This second book includes accounts of extensive land and sea travels, including crewing aboard an Australian yacht with a young family. Burgess was in his mid-60s and just recovering from serious brain surgery, when he received an out-of-the-blue invitation to join the 12.5m sloop Blown Away Too in the Maldives.

Despite the effects of his recent surgery, his instincts for adventure remained undimmed and he leaped at the chance, sailing with the family – not without its tensions and challenges – up the Red Sea to Egypt at a time of pirate activity.

Now in his 80s, Burgess reports he is busy writing a third book. • Copies of his books are available in the RNZYS Cornes Library and can also be purchased online at www.johnburgessauthor.com, or www. xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/818605-whats-the-story.