please help

[Guest]

I am trying to trace a yacht that was built in Durban pre 1963. She was called Vagabond and was a 26ft sloop built for the owner to sail to New York. I have an elderly friend, Lady Christian Innes who lives here in the UK who sailed this boat for 1230 miles around the Med with her husband in 1963 and sold her in that year in Corfu to David Robertson, a veteran sailor who then sailed her across the Atlantic. The last she knew was a photo of Vagabond in the Florida Keys pictured in Yachting Monthly ( I do not even have a date for this! ).
My friend Christian has just published her memoirs and would just love to know if the boat is still afloat.
I am completely ignorant in yachting matters and would be extremely grateful if anyone could give me any advice as to how you go about tracing vessels
thank you!

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[aztec]

don't know if it'll help but i'll pass on the details to one of my mates there, he's skippering some monster yacht out there, so should have the contacts. PM your email address and if anything comes up i'll forward it to you.

regards, steve.

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[MeritaII]

When most vessels are built they are registered with local government, in our case in the UK this is at the small ships department Cardif . Tel 029-2076-8206
There the vessel is given an SSR ( Small Ships Register) number, this it retains for its entire life.
New owners would normally register the vessel in their own names when she changes hands, it may be possible to trace the boat from this , if you have a number of course!
The new owner receives a document stateing ownership, be it private or joint such as a company.
I beleive that for larger ships there is a Lloyds register in London, but I don't know much about it other than it exists.( try the internet)
It is possible in the UK to check this registration , for a fee , I believe , and it seems possible that the same may apply to your vessel and her country of origin. I do not exactly know how you go about it, but maybe someone , a lot more informed in Cardif will know.
The sad thing is that boats seem to disapear and then sudenly reapear after many years, havig lost their recent history, so don't give up just yet.
We found out a lot about our own boat purely by accident and a chance conversation. So try the small ships register and see what they can tell you .
Good luck.

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