❖ BROOM'S AFRICA ❖

AFRICA
Owned and sailed by well-known master sailmaker/rigger
Rupert Broom, at helm.
Shared by history helper, Miles McCoy, Orcas Is.
Both photos collected by Joe Williamson, mid 1940s.

 AFRICA

She was designed and built by Bill Garden, for Rupert Broom, shortly after WW II. She was lightly framed and planked and proved unsound. Rupert took her to Frank Prothero who beefed her up a bit.
      Rupert commuted to Port Madison with AFRICA until AFRICAN STAR was completed at Maritime Shipyard by Ole Running, the old time Swedish master shipwright.
      About 1947, AFRICAN STAR was designed by Billy Atkin, slightly altered by Rupert and Ole Running. She was definitely heavy built, but very durable.
      Rupert commuted daily, winter and summer, hunting the tide rips and gales wherever he could find them in Admiralty Inlet and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. He found wonderful pleasure in weathering everything Point Wilson could throw at him.
      John Adams bought AFRICA from Rupert; he sailed, cruised and commuted some in her for many years.
      The barrel chested guy at the tiller, with his shirt off in both photos, is Rupert.

Text and photos submitted by life long sailor, Miles McCoy, former skipper of the beautiful SHARON L., West Sound, Orcas Island, WA. Thanks Miles.
      If you have any memories of AFRICA, comments are welcome, submitted below.
      A post on the well-known Rupert Broom can be viewed here. Broom's AFRICAN STAR visiting friends in San Juan County can be viewed here.

❖ Early Reminiscences from Miles McCoy ❖ Part I

Miles McCoy and his SHARON L.
At home, West Sound, WA.
Photo by Donna Morrison, San Francisco.

"In the early 1940s I was absorbed in rowing and sailing boats. 
      Dwight Long [1913-2001] had completed a 'round the world adventure; he had filmed portions of it and was billed to appear and narrate the movie. He was also scheduled to sell and autograph his published books at the Neptune Theater in the UW district in Seattle, not far from the house where we lived. My parents took me to see the film and purchased a copy of the book Seven Seas on a Shoestring*. With those days behind me, I never looked back. Anything to do with boats and sailing has been my consuming interest for over seventy years.
      Dwight Long joined the Navy early in WWII and became an aerial photographer. Occasionally the Seattle newspapers would have articles about Dwight; mother usually saved the clippings. As I became aware of other sailors and their published books, I was hooked. There were not a lot of books by small boat circumnavigators before WWII. During the war years there was very little boating and sailing activity around Seattle. 
      Right after the war ended my dad and I found a good 'not too old' wood catboat for sale. She was some shabby but mostly sound. My father made an offer on SHARON L. [blt 1933] and our boating and sailing experience began in earnest.

SHARON L. sailing the San Juan Islands.
Photograph by Joanne Fraser

      The next several years found us learning to sail and refurbish the big catboat. I managed to finish high school and garner some experience crewing and maintaining larger sailing vessels. 
       By 1950 Uncle Sam was looking over my shoulder. War in Korea was heating up; I joined a US Marine Corps Reserve Squadron at Sand Point Naval Air Station, Seattle. I became a weekend warrior maintaining and fueling airplanes. It turned out to be an excellent choice because it was close to home. I did not want some Navy dude from Kansas showing me how to tie a bowline. Within a year I found myself stationed at Marine Corps Air Station, Kaneohe, Hawaii. This was about half an hour out of Honolulu and the Ali Wai Yacht Harbor and Waikiki Beach. 
       On my first weekend of liberty I was dock-walking and exploring the haunts of the sailing crowd when I found an acquaintance from Seattle living on his boat, a fine 55' Alden ketch named NONAME. The couple had been living aboard for a couple of years and were preparing to sail back to Seattle. They had a car they wanted to sell; I bought it and became the best equipped PFC on Oahu.
      While wandering the docks some more, I walked right up to IDLE HOUR and touched her transom. 

Dwight Long's IDLE HOUR, home to Seattle, WA.
Original photo taken by L. Hockett, 1940.
Donated to the S. P. H. S. archives by Miles McCoy 2012.

There was Dwight Long's old vessel. Her main had been restored to gaff rig and she obviously had been ridden hard and put away wet, for a number of years. She was deteriorating under the rigors of a harsh tropical climate and minimal maintenance. I never met the owner but I saw her sailing a couple of more times around Honolulu. She seemed well suited for sailing the Hawaiian Islands. IDLE HOUR was stout, beamy, fairly deep for her size, and very heavily built with full two-inch plank on heavy double-sawn frames. 
      Well--I spent many contented hours contemplating voyages to far off places while examining IDLE HOUR with the warm Hawaiian trade wind caressing me into boundless daydreaming. I have not heard anything about IDLE HOUR for well over sixty years. I would be surprised if she or her remains exist to this day.
      The end result of years of imagining and dreaming of voyaging to far off places in my own vessel never happened. However, by staying active and elbowing among the sailing community, I was able to complete a variety of ocean racing and cruising trips on several wonderful, wooden vessels to meet and sail with some very able and experienced voyagers.
       There was a gaff rigged ketch named IDLE HOUR sailing in the San Juan Islands in the 1950s. They were employed in the charter business taking out passengers on pleasure trips in local waters. This was not the same IDLE HOUR of which I spoke earlier, owned by Dwight Long. This was larger and better suited to the charter trade. She belonged to Chris Wilkins, a longtime charter skipper. Wilkins went on to have a 45' ketch ORCAS BELLE, designed by Bill Garden and built in Deer Harbor by boatbuilder Chet North. Another Orcas Islander, Tony Lee, was skipper for several years on ORCAS BELLE. 
      In the early 1960s Wilkins' IDLE HOUR was purchased by Carl and Patty MacBrayer who ran her in the summer charter business for several years out of West Sound. MacBrayers sold IDLE HOUR and built a new boat a little larger than IDLE HOUR that had more creature comforts and luxuries for guests. They sailed BONNIE LASSIE for several years, then moved ashore.
     I hope that this is of some interest to you, I enjoyed reminiscing and recalling some of my youth."
Above text by Miles McCoy, West Sound, WA. *  Capt. Long had sailed 30,000 miles, after leaving Seattle, when he sailed up the Thames River. To have IDLE HOUR in first class condition, he decided to winter over and write his book before sailing the Atlantic, homebound. Dwight Long's book was first published in England in 1938 under the title of Sailing All Seas in the IDLE HOUR with a preface by Alan Villiers. Rupert Hart-Davis of London,  picked it up in 1950 and published it as No. 11 in his wonderful Mariners Library series. 
      In the US the book title was changed to Seven Seas on a Shoestring, published by Harper and Bros., 1938. As noted elsewhere on this site, Miles McCoy donated his special volume to the S.P.H.S. complete with notes from his mother that it was his first nautical book, gifted to him in 1941.     
In August 2012 there is another log entry to honor IDLE HOUR; she arrived home to Seattle in 1940. Click here.

     Thanks Miles-- Encore!
      
      

❖ SEATTLE SAILOR DWIGHT LONG (1913-2001) ❖ (Updated.)

Verso inscription reads, "Miles, Mother, Daddy 
saw a Dwight Long presentation 3 Oct. 1941 
when Miles bought this picture
and Long autographed it."
Miles McCoy, Orcas Island, kindly donated 
his childhood memento to the S.P.H.S., Aug. 2012 

"Some years ago a young man named Dwight Long got the idea that he would like to sail around the world. This is not an unusual idea, thousands of young men have had it before and since, but the difference was that Dwight Long, who was then 20, and in his junior year at the U. of WA, wanted to sail around the world and to sail in his own boat. Somehow, the young man raised enough money to purchase a second-hand ketch. He reconditioned her, bought provisions, and one autumn day, despite the fact that he had no sea experience, he set sail across the open Pacific bound for Hawaii.

IDLE HOUR
Dwight Long
Leaving Seattle, WA.

Dwight Long on 32' IDLE HOUR
getting advice from berthing master
Capt. Thompson at Southend-on-Sea, England.
Original photo dated 30 August 1937 
from the archives of
 the Saltwater People Historical Society.©

Dwight Long's 32-ft ketch IDLE HOUR
home safely to Seattle, WA, 1940.
Photo by Capt. Leiter Hockett
who inscribed the reverse
"Taken from my boatshop at the west side of the canal."
The original photo is a gift to the archives of 
the Saltwater People Historical Society©
from Capt. Miles McCoy, August 2012.

      For four years the IDLE HOUR with Long at the helm sailed the world's seven oceans. Some of the time he carried with him an extra passenger or crewman. One night when the IDLE HOUR was caught in a storm that carried away the mainmast and was nearly wrecked, his dog 'Hugo' was washed overboard and Long sailed on alone.
      By the time the IDLE HOUR and her captain dropped anchor in the Thames, news of Long and his incredible adventures was widespread.

      In London, he paused for a time to write a book of his adventures for Harper & Brothers Publishers. Seven Seas On a Shoestring, by Dwight Long, became one of the best sellers of seafaring stories.
      

Dwight Long, 1953.
Home after working for two years
on his film "TANGA TIKA."
The wood carving in profile was one of the
 trademarks for the film.

      Come WWII, Long found himself in a US Naval Aviation photography unit, assigned to an aircraft carrier. The pictures he took of the ship grew into the motion picture The Fighting Lady, which won the Motion Picture Academy Award in 1946. For his work in editing, photographing, and directing the film, he received the Legion of Merit award from the President of the US. When peace came to the islands of the Pacific, Long, like many a Navy man, yearned to go back. He dreamed of returning to Tahiti and making a motion picture that would show these islands and their people as they actually are. He went to Hollywood but found no picture company which could fulfill all of his wishes. With the same spirit that led him to start around the world in a 32-ft boat, Long once again sailed to Tahiti. His object was to make a feature-length motion picture to be directed, edited, and photographed by no one but himself. His bankroll was so small that the experts who knew the business said he could never do it, and some who didn't know the man they were dealing with ventured the option that his picture-making was only an excuse for a Tahitian vacation.

L-R: Dwight Long, age 21,
Hugo, and Jack Lowry.
This after their first leg, Seattle to San Francisco,
back stamped, 5 and 6 October 1934.
Original photo from the archives of Saltwater People Log©

      The difficulties that Long encountered in finding people for his cast, in shipping and processing his film, would make a book. But he persevered and finally parts of his film began to arrive in the US––some of the sequences so primitive and rare that they had never before been photographed. For two years, Long worked on his picture in Tahiti without ever seeing a foot of it, since it could only be processed in the US. But finally the job was done and Long, who had been working 18 hours a day and who had lost 30 pounds, came home jubilant. He had his movie.
      But two more years of work in cutting, scoring, and dubbing lay ahead before Tanga Tika was ready to be shown in American theaters. And because he was short of funds, Long had to do most of this himself.
      Tanga Tika, the movie that Hollywood said was 'impossible' to make is currently playing at the Blue Mouse Theatre, and is the latest in a long list of 'impossible' things that Dwight Long has done."

Endpaper art by Joyce Stephenson from 
Seven Seas on a Shoestring, 
Dwight Long, Harper & Brothers, 1938.
 Miles McCoy donated his book to
 the library of Saltwater People History Society, Aug. 2012.

Global Adventures

Above text by Bonnie Thornburg for The Seattle Times, 18 February 1954

IDLE HOUR

1922, November:  launched in Tacoma, WA., by professional boatbuilder Carl Rathfin for his own use.
IDLE HOUR was sold to two partners who used her briefly for fur trading in the Arctic.

1932: Dwight Long purchased her for $1,600.
32' L with 2" fir planking on 2" x 3" oak frames on 8" centers.

1934, 20 September: the date set by Long as the departure for his world cruise.
The tow out to the straits from Seattle, with tug ANDREW FOSS, was a gift from the Foss Tug Co.

The backside of a litho postcard published
and signed by circumnavigator Dwight Long.
From the archives of the S.P.H.S.©

1940: after 50,000 miles Long sailed IDLE HOUR home to be met by a boat full of photographers and TV cameramen.

1944:

IDLE HOUR
Maritime historian John Kelly, Seattle, reports:
"I took this photo of Lewis' boat in the Ala Moana 
Yacht Anchorage in Honolulu during 1944,
when my ship was in Pearl Harbor for repairs.
We met several times after the war when he 
was giving lectures and at his shop aboard the 
QUEEN MARY in CA. In 1972, we were 
shipmates aboard the Hudson's Bay Co 
NONSUCH along with the YANKEE CLIPPER 
Sea Scouts, out for a sail on the Sound."
J.K. Nov. 2015.

1992: The Seattle Yacht Club honored Dwight Long with a full page in their fine book.
Warren, James R. The Centennial History of the Seattle Yacht Club, 1892-1992. Published by The Seattle Yacht Club. 

❖ CAPTAIN BARNEY JOHNSON ❖ TAKES YACHT TO SEATTLE ❖ 22 June 1937

   

WESTWARD HO (ex-WHITE WINGS II)
Home waters, Vancouver, B. C.
WESTWARD HO was designed by Edson B. Schock,
and built in 1927 by George Askew, for Walter Cline.
Cline traded her to Barney Johnson for the famous ALEXANDRA in 1930.
"I suspect it was Barney who changed her gaff rig.
He added the first genoa to be seen in these waters.
 He won a lot of races with her during the years he owned her.
It seems he borrowed her on occasion; he won the Beaver Cup with her in 1939."
Photo and quote courtesy of David Williams, Vancouver, B. C.

      

"At approximately 8:30 this morning, in the swirling narrows and under an overcast sky, Captain Barney Johnson, popular skipper of the WESTWARD HO, dipped his ensign and officially said goodbye for his WESTWARD HO to the Royal Vancouver Yacht club. Ushered out by Tom Ramsey's ARMITA, carrying Skipper Ramsay, Art Jefferd, and Fred Holland, the WESTWARD HO, under power, circled around in the swirling tide, while the representatives on the ARMITA gave three hasty cheers and blew loudly on a foghorn.

      The WESTWARD HO has been sold to a girls' school outside of Seattle. Johnson was delivering her this morning. She was built in Vancouver and has been the property of Barney Johnson for the past eight years during which time she has been the commodore's ship on two occasions. She has always been regarded as the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club's number one sailing vessel, sort of one of the pillars of the sailing craft.

      'She's a beautiful boat,' sadly murmured Johnson. 'I'll hate to lose her. But I have made up my mind. Come on, boys, have another drink with the sun, you have to have a mizzen now you have your topsail set. Can't sail on one wing, you know.'

      Another toast, a few hearty choruses of 'Blow the Man Down,' and the WESTWARD HO was on her way.

      Over the weekend she sailed her last race, the Ballenas Islands race for the Beaver Cup, and was an easy win.

      'We really sailed her on her last race,' said Barney. 'I'll hate to see her go... but maybe we can get her up here for the ladies' race with some of the girls handling her.'

      According to reports Barney Johnson will not be off the sea. The famous old salt plans to get a small boat and do some racing."

News article by Hal Straight 

The Vancouver Sun

Tuesday 22 June 1937.

From the archives of the

Saltwater People Historical Society

Below notes from Miles McCoy, West Sound, Orcas Island. 

McCoy was the skipper of WESTWARD HO in the summer of 1950 when he was 19-years old. The West Sound sailing scene hooked him on settling in the area.

WESTWARD HO (O. N. 236434)
West Sound, WA., then sailing with Camp Four Winds-Westward Ho campers.
"Turtleback" land formation in background.
Undated photo courtesy of Nick Exton, Orcas Island.

 "The yawl WESTWARD HO was associated with Four Winds-Westward Ho Camps from the late 1930s through the mid 1950s. The camp being named after the vessel; Westward-Ho camp became the boy's camp when Four Winds-Westward Ho became co-ed. The yawl served the camps for many years longer than any other vessel. Hundreds of children sailed and sang camp songs aboard while learning the ropes and the ways of the sea. After WW II ended, Jack and Bill Helsell prepared WESTWARD HO for the 1949 Trans Pacific Yacht Race. The race was a windy one with above average winds over a majority of the course.  [Miles McCoy was crewing.]

      While in Hawaii WESTWARD HO was met and sailed by a bevy of senior campers from Four Winds. They sailed several day sails in Molokai channel and learned about sailing in brisk conditions.

      Later in August after a pleasant voyage from Hawaii to the coast, WESTWARD HO arrived at the Orcas Island camp to a jolly welcome by some of the Hawaii contingent and camp staff. There was much music, singing, and regaling of sea stories.

      WESTWARD HO sailed for the camps for several more years before being sold in the 1950s to sail off to Hawaii and points south. She has not been spotted in the Pacific Northwest since."

❖ Remembering Seattle Sailing Yacht ❖ ALOTOLA

ALOTOLA
226859 
The vessel owner, Charlie Frisbie, is aft.
Dated 1949, 
by mariner/photographer Dolph Zubick, Seattle.
Original from the archives of S.P.H.S©

 "The rest of the gang struggling the new mast onto the deck

for transport to a crane for stepping. 

This was early in my sailing days,

I was not acquainted with many of the adult waterfront gang.  

I recall some articles stating this was the tallest 

yacht mast in the PNW." Quote from Miles McCoy. 

Original photo by Dolph Zubick, Seattle, 1949, present this day.

From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©.

1949 at Karl Seastrom's shop.

Original photo by sailor/photographer Dolph Zubick, Seattle. 

See identification in the following text.

From the archives of the Saltwater People Historical Society©.

ALOTOLA is receiving a new mast as seen in the following photographs by Dolph Zubick.
      "This smiling bunch are the ones that got the job done. The man on the left is Anton Peier. Anton, for many years was the head machinist for the Seattle Fire Department. He had wonderful experience and skill with metal work, casting, and machining. Most of the halyard and sheet winches and sailing hardware in the Seattle area, at the time, were made by Anton Peier.
      Second from left is Charlie Frisbie, the proud and friendly, owner at this time, of ALOTOLA, home-port Seattle.
      I believe the tall man in the felt fedora is Karl Seastrom. Karl was a woodworker of the first order--the shop was a long, narrow, old building, ideal for spar-making. Karl was noted for making helms and steering wheels for all types of craft.
      The nice man in the plaid jacket is Rudy Peier, brother to Anton. The Peier brothers were icons on the Seattle sailing scene and boat building world. Rudy Peier was the head accountant for the Fischer Flour Mill family and went on to be chief accountant/purchasing agent for Vic Franck's Boat Company. Rudy was the designer and had much to do with building the new mast in the photo as well as many other spars in the Seattle area.
     I was a crew member on ALOTOLA several times with the new rig. I do not recall any big wins during my time on board, but everyone always had jolly good times and came away with fond memories sailing with Charlie and Betsie Frisbie."
 Above text:
Miles McCoy, who has been forever sailing the breezes of West Sound, WA. He found himself in the islands to skipper WESTWARD-HO in the summer of 1950 for the beautiful Four Winds-Westward Ho Camp on Orcas. 

Below text: The Adaptable Stephens Brothers,
Wooden Boat Issue #175 page 32.
Written by Barry Ward.
"The 57-ft ALOTOLA was built side-by-side with her full sister TAMALMAR for a San Francisco businessman in 1927. She went through a succession of owners before coming into the capable hands of a Seattle yachtsman [Charlie Frisbie] who bought her in 1947, recognizing the pedigree of Stephens Bros., and designer George Wayland.
      In 1949, he converted her into the largest active racing sloop in the Northwest, giving her a new 86-ft mast and a sail area of 1,552-sq. ft. She responded by winning or placing high in many of the Puget Sound racing events of the 1950s and was named boat of the year in 1950. But distant shores were to beckon, and in 1958 she departed the Northwest on a 15,000-mile world cruise down the West Coast to Panama, through the canal to Colombia, and through the Windward Passage to Jamaica. From there, her owner sailed her to Nassau, then Bermuda, and on to Nice, France, where Frisbie was born and lived until age 16. The cruise continued to Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece. There a Greek yachtsman made an irresistible offer, thus ending ALOTOLA's American registry in 1960."

Mariner memory from 1959:

"Charlie Frisbie almost postponed our wedding. We went to opening day of boating season at the Seattle Yacht Club the May before we were planning to marry (in June 1959). Charlie approached Robin and asked if he would help sail ALOTOLA from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean Sea. Robin turned him down because he was getting married the next month. I thought my future husband was crazy. You don't get that chance often in my world, and a wedding could be postponed. But Robin didn't go."

Kae Paterson, Maritime Historian.

Gig Harbor, WA.

       Mr. Norm Blanchard devoted a chapter to his close friends and mentors, Rudy & Anton Peier, as well as a chapter highlighting his "silverware collector", life-long friend, Charlie Frisbie, in his book Knee Deep in Shavings, Horsdal & Schubart, Victoria, BC, 1999.

In 1981 ALOTOLA was captured by the Danes from the north.