Quentin Tarantino was eight when this wall of New Zealand yacht design talent pre-empted Mr Black, Mr Pink and their associates. Strutting up the dock in Auckland in 1973 (left to right) are Ron Holland, Laurie Davidson, Bruce Farr and Paul Whiting, who smashed the yacht design status quo with their fabulous and fun, wild and light interpretations of the IOR rule – many of them centreboarders
determined by who was playing a continuous game of backgammon. ‘Those who were out of the game being the ones on watch…’ Despite all this Burton Cutter sailed victorious into Cape Town
at the end of the first leg, having cut some 2,000 miles off the traditional clipper ship route that others followed to skirt around the South Atlantic High. Soaking up the resulting publicity, Williams was quick to score another victory during that first night ashore, only to be woken the following morning by an irate father attempting to regain his daughter’s honour. ‘What’s your name?’ he demanded. To Williams, hurriedly pulling
on his pants, the first name to cross his mind before rushing away was ‘Chay Blyth’. Blyth himself was still some way from bringing his own Maxi,
Great Britain II, across the finish line, but when he did the father was waiting on the dockside. Perhaps the sight of Blyth’s crew of burly paratroopers put the poor man off from making an exhibition there and then. The first Blyth knew there was a problem was some hours later when the Commodore of the Royal Cape Yacht Club took him aside at the bar: ‘Excuse me, Mr Blyth, but we have received a serious complaint from one of our members…’ The rigours of the Southern Ocean soon exposed the inherent
weaknesses within Burton Cutter’s hull and shortly after the start of leg 2 to Sydney the crew were forced to retire to Port Elizabeth to make extensive repairs. Undaunted by their experiences, they then cruised across the Atlantic to rejoin the Whitbread fleet in Rio de Janeiro to compete on the final leg back to Portsmouth, finishing second on elapsed time behind Great Britain II. Another of Williams’ compatriots was Sir Robin Knox-Johnston.
They competed together in events like the Round Britain Race, which they won in 1970 with the 71ft Maxi Ocean Spirit before going on to take elapsed time honours in the first Cape-Rio Race a year later. This was also the event where a 23-year-old Kiwi by the name of Peter Blake first gained his trans-ocean spurs. Williams met him on the dockside in Malta and decided to try him out on the delivery to the Cape. ‘Peter was so good we decided to make him a watch leader – and the rest is history,’ recalls his good friend Sir Robin. After Burton Cutter Peter Blake signed up with them both when Williams and Knox-Johnston teamed up to co-skipper a second John
16 SEAHORSE
Sharp-designed Maxi, Heath’s Condor, for the second Whitbread Race in 1977/78. Sir Robin recalls: ‘Les was always unassuming and very happy to stay in the background. As a leader he generated great camaraderie onboard, and his crews adored him. An agreeable companion, good seaman and excellent sailor, he has left me with some very happy memories.’ In 1981 Williams had a third tilt at winning the Whitbread with
the 81ft Maxi FCF Challenger. The campaign was woefully under- funded and ended with the yacht being dismasted on the last leg, to finish under jury rig. Later Williams teamed up with journalist Bob Fisher in the 1982
Two-Handed Round Britain Race – aboard a heavy IOR Maxi designed to be crewed by 16 or more. Before his death in 2021 Bob reminded me of the experience. ‘As we motored out into Plymouth Sound Les ordered me to hoist the mainsail – a job normally done by four on pedestal winches. Still at the wheel, he then demanded that I do the same with the headsail. It was exhausting. ‘We started OK but shortly afterwards Les passed over the helm
to me to go down and sort out the navigation. He was still down there when we passed the Eddystone Lighthouse, and once I had reset the sails for our new course I went down below to see what was happening. There was Les, spread out on a bunk snoring away, completely oblivious to what was going on up on deck.’ But the pair were still good friends at Barra, the second stopover,
sharing a bottle of burgundy with their breakfast, and went on to finish the race in 20th place… their comradeship still intact. Les Williams ended his career skippering a survey vessel charting
the waters around Scotland. By comparison Les Powles, who recently died aged 89, was an
eccentric Corinthian, content in his own company, who never under- stood the public admiration he received for sailing solo around the world three times during the 1970s and ’80s. An engineer from Liverpool, Powles began to crave the freedom
of the sea in the 1970s and spent his life savings building his 34ft yacht Solitaire. Somewhat recklessly, he set off to cross the Atlantic in 1975 with only eight hours’ sailing experience. He was heading for the Caribbean but poor navigation led him to land in Brazil… Always sailing on a shoestring budget, he set out on his first
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