I came over to the USA in 1966 to look for work in Detroit in the Auto Industry. As an automobile engineer, I had worked for Ford in England, and brought with me a home made GT car. I found work at Ford in Dearborn, MI and stayed there for 6 years. I'd never owned a boat in England though I had rented many and cruised around the English coast, in Denmark and the South of France. I had my first taste of single handing on the East coast when a crewing companion couldn't make it. A good learning experience.

In America my wages were higher and I found I could afford to buy a boat of my own. After a rugby game in Detroit I found myself talking about sailing to Hugh Rugeroni, who had played on the wing for Windsor. He had just become a Hinterhoeller dealer for Detroit and I became his first customer in spring of '68, buying Shark #480. The factory put it in the water in Port Colbourne and Hugh, Dennis Carroll and I sailed it back to Detroit. For the next four years I raced and cruised out of the Detroit River, joining La Salle Mariners YC for racing Shark Class in Lake St Clair and MORC elsewhere. La Salle was run by Curley Ellis and Juergen Hendel at that time out of Metro Motors in Windsor.

Eos racing, in Detroit Downriver race

By 1972 I was getting itchy feet again and still single so I quit Ford to go cruising. But first I had to see the US and so I did a 6000 mile tour of the western US (in my home-made car). I got back to Detroit and started preparing the boat for offshore sailing. Hinterhoeller advised me to beef up the rigging and sold me a bigger section mast, without upper stays. (probably a HR 25 or Viking 28 section). I had built a hydrostatic wind vane self-steering system to drive a trim tab on the back of the rudder. I had a 4hp Johnson outboard and a 9'Avon Redcrest inflatable. The 4hp was to drive the Shark or the dinghy. In those days a Ballhead thru-hull toilet was the favored item for a Shark, even in the Great Lakes. A gimballed Primus stove and a 2 burner camping propane stove made up the galley and I was ready to go - down Lake Erie, across New York and down the Hudson.

Eos leaving Detroit ahead of winter, November 1972

It was October by the time I was ready but that year October had the first snowfall on Lake Erie! I changed my plans and borrowed Curley's 3 axle Shark delivery trailer, rented a pick-up truck and headed for the Chesapeake at 60mph. I slept one night by the roadside very comfortably in the Shark. 

Yorktown, Virginia on Chesapeake Bay.

I found a friendly marina in Yorktown, left the boat propped up on land and headed back to Detroit with the towing rig. I got back to Yorktown just after Christmas and there was snow everywhere. 

Oops, winter caught up!

The marina owner would not hazard the traveling hoist and boat sliding into the water together so I had to wait a week or so, sleeping in the Shark on land. Because it went down to 10degrees F at night I used my primus stove to heat the boat with all hatches tight shut. I learned that you can remove a lot of oxygen from inside a tightly shut boat. The Primus started to go out after a while until I cracked a hatch!

Home for a week, on land, waiting for a thaw.
 (Homemade car in background)

Finally in early January I got the boat in the water and sailed down Chesapeake Bay to Norfolk and the Dismal Swamp canal. Just as it was getting dark the boat and I rose in the lock to the canal level to find its fresh water covered in ice a half inch thick as far as I could see. I slept the night with creaking ice around me, Shackleton style, and next morning tried the boat on ice-breaker duties. Except for lumps of ice occasionally catching in the outboard propeller, we motored along fine. I worried that I was slowly cutting off the hull at the waterline but did no damage at all. The ice only lasted a mile or so, anyway.

Ice-breaking duty on the Dismal Swamp Canal,Virginia, January '73

That was the beginning of a pleasant but hurried trip (with Winter just behind) through American coastal history on the Intra-Coastal Waterway. I sailed or motored all the way to Miami, meeting some very nice folks along the way who had come down from Vermont. It turned out that Marcia's mother had a house on a canal in Coral Gables with an empty dock, and I was invited to use it as a base of operations. A few weeks after arriving in Miami, Peter and Marcia in their classic old wooden boat and I in the Shark crossed over to the Bahamas where we cruised around for a couple of months. I took the opportunity to practice using my new sextant and the self-steering gear and was happy with both.

Stocking Island, Bahamas, the way cruising should be.

I finally decided to sail to England when I returned to Miami after that very pleasant two-month cruise in the Bahamas. It had been in the back of my mind for some time. That cruise had reinforced my confidence in the boat, provided I could keep the water out of it, and experiments with my home-made wind-vane self-steering gear (SSG) had proved successful.

I spent the next two months docked behind the very hospitable home of Harriet Mitchell in Coral Gables, working on waterproofing the boat and improving the SSG. (Work included building a locker/ bridge deck in the cockpit, which was to hold the Avon dinghy and would halve cockpit volume. Waterproofing the lazaret, main and forward hatches, modifying the backstay to clear the SSG vane and become an antenna, building a new, thicker and balanced rudder and rebuilding the SSG units with new internals). Finally by the end of July I was ready to go, a month later than I hoped for and two months later than ideal from the weather point of view. Chances of hurricanes were increasing all the time, and weather at the other end of the trip would get slowly worse as fall progressed.

Oceanising Eos in Coral Gables. June/July 1973

I loaded up the bilges under the bunks with canned foods and gallon plastic bottles of water (14 gallons), and said au revoir to the red waterline stripe as it sank beneath the water. I spent about $120 on canned food and was given almost that again by my kind hosts. (They gave me a couple of surprise parcels to be opened 'somewhere in the North Atlantic',.. which turned out to be great morale boosters later on). I had a further 16 gallons of water in loose plastic containers, making 30 gallons in all.

Early on the morning of 1st August, 1973 I headed out across Biscayne Bay and was dismayed by the sluggish way the boat rose to the waves. She felt more like a heavily laden barge than the lively Shark I had got used to. Inside, the bunks were piled with boxes and bags yet to be stowed. Surprisingly I was able to keep 11/2 bunks clear most of the time once I had packed everything away. One advantage I soon discovered of having all that extra weight on board was that it was all stowed low down and made the boat considerably more stiff in a blow. As I set out, my feelings were a mixture of apprehension at the unknown, as well as relief to be finally under way. I was also already looking forward to arriving in Bermuda!

The next eight days provided near perfect sailing (through the Devil's Triangle!). With a steady S.E. breeze on the starboard beam I covered 142, 132 and 140 miles in the first three days, the self-steering being in charge all the time, blue skies and sunshine by day, and cool nights. After the first night, when I rounded the Bahamas and headed N.E, I slept well at night. I found it was disconcerting at first to wake from a stationary dream and find oneself traveling at 6 knots with no look-out ahead. I had a home-made mast-head radar reflector and relied on that. On this section of the trip I had my first experience of the fellowship of the sea. The 'Ore Jupiter', a freighter of about 10,000 tons, turned a full circle to come back and check that I was all right-very reassuring.

This was my first serious navigation. I had played around in the Bahamas but found that with relatively smooth seas repeatable sun sights were easy to take, and with daily practice working out became quicker and quicker. I took a morning sight to establish longitude and a noon sight for latitude. Although I didn't bother to check my accuracy with star sights, the free wind enabled me to stay within 20 miles or so of the rhumb line all the way to Argos Island just south of Bermuda. The whole 900+ miles was on starboard tack, which ensured that the cans in the starboard bilge did not get rusty in spite of an occasional leak from my modified fore-stay deck fitting. The slowest day's run covered 80 miles. 

As I approached Bermuda I had to harden up to keep my course until the boat was almost close-hauled. Like this she would jump off waves and land with a crash so at night I would ease sheets and head off slightly to got some peace. The Argus Island light appeared when and where it should have, and on the 9th August I coasted along the south shore of Bermuda with the sun shining feeling pretty good as I ate a large breakfast. If I could sail like this I would be in England by the middle of September.

Ordnance Island, Georgetown, Bermuda August '73

As I entered the Narrows leading into the harbour of St. George's, a large cruise ship was leaving. I tied up at Ordnance Island in downtown St. George's and set about inspecting the boat and gear for troubles. I couldn't find anything wrong, and the bottom was still clean so I tried to seal the fore-stay fitting and finish my 'hurricane proofing'. I fitted nets inside to catch loose articles from shelves; screws to hold down the under-bunk hatch covers and provided tie-downs for everything that was loose and couldn't be wedged in somewhere. I wanted to provide for a capsize without the gear and ballast falling about inside.

Ordnance Island and Eos from hill

Before leaving I wished to see something of Bermuda, so I took a bus ride down to Hamilton, the capital, at the other end of the island. Bermuda is a series of islands joined together by bridges, and blue water is always to be seen somewhere. Every square inch seems to have a house on it except for two or three rugby-pitch sized cultivated patches. Everybody was very friendly-black and white- to me, if not apparently to each other. I saw among the older whites social customs and dress that belonged to an England of 50 years ago. While there I met an American who had taken 65 days to get to Bermuda from England, having started in June, and had light head-winds all the way. He gave me a pile of paperbacks in case I had the same problem.

Early on 13th August I topped up my water supply and left St George's with 2,000 miles to go to England. As I was going out of the Narrows, the same cruise ship was coming in- in four days it had been to New York and back!