Boat Polar for Steinlager II

[michael pierzga]

The South African Kuttle family are still associated with great ocean adventures

[Vince Nel]

Yes, so too the Martin family (John Martin) and of course Bertie Reed very few South African don't know of Bertie Reed

[Gary Baigent]

Coming back from Australia to Auckland (where the 60 foot tri took some hard blows in the Round Australia in Bass Straight) Steinlager 1 lost the bow section of one of the floats but was saved because of crash bulkheads. After reparation here, the tri was sold to France and Loic Peyron entered it in one of the single handed Atlantic races where, even he, of great experience and exceptional talent, found the large chord (2 metre) wing mast too difficult to control during very high winds and, I'm a bit vague here, either the rig came down or something else broke and the boat was lost. Peyron said afterwards that he thought the big wing was a big mistake. A similar thing occurred to him in the 2002 Route du Rhum where his beautiful ORMA Fujifilm, dropped the rig and smashed the beams, and was also lost. Now, of course, he and crew have just sailed Banque Populaire V around the world in 45 days, on a maxi tri - but one with a much larger area wing mast than S1.

[Gary Baigent]

Correction: Steinlager 1's wing mast had a 1.5 metre chord, not 2m.

[Vince Nel]

Crikey... some legendary names...

[Bounty Hunter]

we saw Steinie 1 in the Bay of Islands when i was about 10 years old - early 1990s. we were on our annual summer holiday up there on our beale38. the boat was just new. peter and mike were on board and anchored in the bay at Roberton Is. - well sort of, the mast was making it sail all over the place on the anchor. later that night we again ended up anchored with then - in orokawa bay i think - Steinie didnt have a dinghy, and my dad went over in ours and helped peter//mike run a couple of shorelines out to make the thing stay put so everyone could get some sleep without it trying to sail off.

i never knew what became of the boat - shame to hear it was lost - was a beast in its day...

[Vince Nel]

Blimey! It's stories and info like such that you don't get unless you somehow get lucky... must have been thrilling days indeed

[Vince Nel]

Does anyone here have an idea where I might find the actual course sailed by Steinlager II in that Whitbread race?

Now have the Polar (supplied by Ian Gordon from Farr) and the course is the next item to gather up.

Thanks for all the help so far

Vince Nel