The Crew

Harry

I have been messing around in boat almost from the day I landed in South Africa having been a passenger on the Union Castle liner from Southampton to Cape Town.

My father introduced me to boats when we built a canoe and launched it at Kommetjie in the Cape.   From there we went on to build a number of small boats.  The family's first sailing boat was a Finn - wooden mast with cotton sails.  Needless to say at 12 I was too light to sail it myself.  I graduated to a Sprog and went on to win the Junior and Senior club championships many years in a row as well as the State (Province) Championships in two consecutive years.  The National alluded me having broken my mast two weeks before it started.

At University I sailed on many cruising yachts.  The most famous is a Vertue - Speedwell of Hong Kong.  I did this while I was a professionally Abalone diver around the Cape and also a less than committed student.  I also did some salvage work but did not find a fortune.

In Australia I purchased a Bonbridge - refitted it and called it Alibi.  I sailed up and down the east coast of Australia.  It was a great experience and I got to know the Australian coast, weather systems and sea.  While coming into a harbour late at night at the height of a storm I lined up the leads and aimed for the entrance between the breakwalls.  Unfortunately the leads where in those days orange/yellow just like the street lights.  I had mistaken the aft lead with a street light.  As I came down a wave at the entrance instead of clear water ahead I saw a rock.  I was able to avert tragedy and motored off the rock back out to sea.  The Coast Guard would not come out to help because they said it was too rough!  With little steering I entered the harbour next day and fixed the bent rudder.

While making a new rudder I remembered how much I like to build boats and set about building Malua...... well the rest is history.

Southeaster in Table Table would test any yacht

While not sailing I was a management consultant initially specialising in strategic planning and change management as a result of implementing new systems.  In the latter part I concentrated on document and records management plus restructuring libraries in the digital age.