Disabled Yacht’s Crew Seeks Work

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30776, 14 June 1965, Page 1

Disabled Yacht’s Crew Seeks Work

(N.Z. Press Association)

NELSON, June 13.

The three crew members of the disabled Australian trimaran, Dombala, are looking for jobs in Nelson—because their boat will be laid up in the port of Nelson for a month for repairs.

The Dombala reached Nelson on Friday night with her foremast shattered, after having ridden out a gale in Tasman Bay. The crewmen are a plasterer, a carpenter and an electrician.

The plasterer is the skipper, Mr E. van Bommel. He built the boat at a cost of £l5OO, discounting the labour.

The carpenter is Mr W

Tournire, navigator for the cruise.

The electrician is Mr N. Sampson, aged 21. “I had my own plastering business back home, said Mr Bommel. The 35ft trimaran took a severe pounding from high winds and rough seas.

The worst of the storm came in the middle of Tasman Bay. Mr Bommel was forced to put out a sea-anchor to save the Dombala from being driven onto the coast, and it was at this stage that the foremast snapped. The Dombala has no radio or auxiliary engine. She set out from Williamstown, Victoria, on May 25, on the first leg of a 10,000-mile cruise round the Pacific. The next landfall on the cruise itinerary is Tahiti. They plan to work their way through the Islands and return to Brisbane in December.