Mike Saunders - The Walkabouts - sailed from S Africa

[Carusus]

To add to this. Mike was a skilled engineer and moved to Geneva in the 1990s to set up clean rooms for the production of CDs. Here I met him when he played Henry II to my Prince John in an amateur staging of The Lion in Winter. We became close friends, and he met his second wife at my 40th birthday party. I had known her since Oxford. He was a remarkable man and wrote novels. He also performed recitals at parties, the most memorable being of Old Sir Faulk from Walton’s Façade.
He also kept a home near Chichester, where each year he took part in the barrel race: riding down the river in a barrel.
He was unique, entertaining, and brilliant. He is much missed.

I can shed some light on what happened after we arrived in England. Another voyage was planned and Walkabout II was designed by my father and Alan Buchanan. The intention was to do an "Ice to Ice" voyage, sailing from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle. Walkabout II was much larger (45') and more comfortable than Walkabout and also was a cutter rather than a ketch which made her faster and better performing to windward. She was built by my father and family (I was on boat building duty every school holiday) and was eventually launched in 1980. Sadly my parents split up and Walkabout II was sold before the voyage was started and though Walkabout II is still going strong, the sale was the death knell to our sailing interests. My father died of cancer in 1999 at the age of 59 and although I have the odd daydream of sailing again, the opportunity has never come up . . . . maybe now I've moved to Bristol the sea air will inspire me.
Mark Saunders

 

[Carusus]

PS: The Walkabout sailed from Beira, Mozambique, not South Africa.

 

[rogerthebodger]

PS: The Walkabout sailed from Beira, Mozambique, not South Africa.

Where was Walkabout built was it in Beira or somewhere close

 

[Bajansailor]

Where was Walkabout built was it in Beira or somewhere close

According to my 1975 Lloyds Register of Yachts, she was built by a Mr Driscoll in Fremantle, Australia in 1952.
She was built using jarra, an Australian hardwood which has stood up well - I last saw Walkabout 11 years ago with her previous owner, and I am pretty sure that he had mentioned that the hull planking was all original still.
And her topsides look so fair one could think that they are splined, but they are simply caulked in the traditional fashion.

 

[Kukri]

Picture in Eric Hiscock’s “Voyaging under Sail”, plate 10 opposite page 32 in the first edition.

Hiscock writes that she was built by the Driscoll brothers at Fremantle in 1952 and sailed by them to Durban in 1954x

 

[CC Rider]

I can shed some light on what happened after we arrived in England. Another voyage was planned and Walkabout II was designed by my father and Alan Buchanan. The intention was to do an "Ice to Ice" voyage, sailing from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle. Walkabout II was much larger (45') and more comfortable than Walkabout and also was a cutter rather than a ketch which made her faster and better performing to windward. She was built by my father and family (I was on boat building duty every school holiday) and was eventually launched in 1980. Sadly my parents split up and Walkabout II was sold before the voyage was started and though Walkabout II is still going strong, the sale was the death knell to our sailing interests. My father died of cancer in 1999 at the age of 59 and although I have the odd daydream of sailing again, the opportunity has never come up . . . . maybe now I've moved to Bristol the sea air will inspire me.
Mark Saunders

Am I right in assuming that you are Mike Saunders's son?
Claude