Spencer (above) was an enthusiastic model yacht designer/racer who even played a role as technical officer to the 1-Metre class. His impact on the New Zealand small boat scene was both broad and in some cases brutal. His Cherubs (top) took apart the competitive 12ft fleet and started an international class that remains popular today (two of the most recent Cherub recruits are Volvo winner Mike ‘Moose’ Sanderson and America’s Cup skipper Dean Barker). Spencer’s hard chine Firebug (right) was co-designed with Peter Tait in 1995 for solo and two-up use by adults as well as youngsters. It carries a reefable mainsail 50 per cent larger than an Optimist rig and a competitive example can today be home-built for a fraction of the cost of any comparable off-the-shelf design. Imagine that?


Stagg recalls. ‘When I went up to Auckland for regattas I would stay with him. He was the kindest, nicest man. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body. I wanted to work for him, but my father would have none of that. ‘In those days you did what your parents


told you, so at 16 I went to work for the Ford Motor Company. I worked my way through most departments until I left to do the Whit- bread Race (on Ceramco New Zealand). I learned a lot at Ford and had every intention of going back but I got sidetracked into sailing.’ At the age of 18, still working at Ford,


Stagg told Spencer he wanted to build a smaller version of Infidel. It might have been a precocious notion for an 18-year-old to contemplate building and campaigning a 45ft racing yacht but neither Stagg nor Spencer saw any reason not to proceed. ‘Spencer drew up a custom design for me.


I worked on building that boat every night after work and every weekend in the back- yard at home. It drove the neighbours mad. They tried to get the city council to stop me, but the whole of the Eastbourn sailing com- munity was on my side so they didn’t have a chance. People thought I was crazy and would never get it finished, but I did. When I needed advice I would write letters to John and he answered every one.’ The result was Whispers II, which indeed


bears a strong resemblance to Infidel, 45ft with a beam of just over 10ft. Launched in December 1970, Whispers II went on to carve out impressive results, including two Sydney Hobart races in 1971 and 1994 (by 1994 Stagg had sold the boat to a close friend: it cleaned up the veteran division in


46 SEAHORSE


that 50th anniversary race). In 1973 it also won the Auckland-Suva


race and scored a memorable win in the Wellington to Gisborne race, averaging over 9kt and setting a record that still stands. This race involved negotiating Cook Strait and the southeast coast of New Zealand’s North Island, areas notorious for heavy winds. Spencer joined the crew and stepped off the boat shaken by the hair-raising experience. ‘We scared the hell out of him,’ Stagg


laughs. ‘It blew like stink, most of it over 40kt. I was super-competitive. I just wanted to push hard all the time so I always gave it everything, particularly during the night. ‘I would get some rest up to about 9pm


and then take over through to 6am. That was when I pushed hardest because I was a strong believer that was when other people got tired and lost concentration. So we were flying up the coast in the dark with the log pegged at 20kt. Spencer was sleeping below, but there must have been a huge racket down there. About 3am he came up the companionway, all bleary-eyed and yelling, “What the fxxx are you doing, you guys are crazy.” ‘He was raving,’ Stagg continues. ‘Then


he turned to look at the instruments and saw 45kt and said we were all going to die. He was looking at the windspeed, but in his befuddled state he thought that’s how fast we were going. I think he was expecting sheets of plywood to start peeling off.’ Stagg and Tom Clark both subsequently


turned to Spencer for IOR designs, but with less success. Stagg asked for a 40-footer, called Whispers of Wellington, with a view to an Admiral’s Cup campaign. ‘I went to


John out of loyalty. It was perhaps a tactical error. It did not perform well to its rating. We won an Auckland to Nouméa race with it and then I sold it to a guy in Auckland, who loved it.’ However, following the 1969 debacle,


Clark had still been determined to win the Sydney Hobart race. Right after selling Infidel he asked for a 73-footer that would also rate under IOR; Buccaneer was the largest race yacht built in New Zealand and the largest plywood boat in the world at the time (the Australian ‘plywood ban’ of 1969 was quietly dropped). In the 1970 Sydney Hobart Clark


achieved his ambition, taking line honours with Buccaneer. In 1971 Buccaneer finished second on line to Kialoa II and 65th on handicap. Whispers IIwas 10th over the line and 21st on handicap, in what was a mile- stone race for New Zealand with three One Tonners, Pathfinder, Runaway and Wai- Aniwa, claiming first, second and third, a never-repeated achievement for a Southern Cross Cup team. Clark then entered the 1973 Transpac


race with Buccaneer. Dick Neville was part of the crew and recalls that Clark was still ‘cranky’ about the Infidel Hobart ban and having to build a ‘heavy’ boat like Bucca- neer to meet the scantling requirements. ‘He predicted Infidel/Ragtime would sail right past us on the Transpac… which she duly did,’ says Neville. The following year Bucca- neer made another Sydney Hobart bid, crossing the line third. Reflecting on Spencer’s keelboat legacy Farr notes that his early long, slender,


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