Ocean Race Is Family Affair

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31319, 15 March 1967, Page 11

Ocean Race Is Family Affair

'THE 45ft auxiliary ketch Ngatahi, shown here on the slipway at Sinclair Melbourne’s Lyttelton shipyard, will take part in the 1000mile ocean yacht race between Whangarei and Noumea, starting on April 15. Ngatahi, according to the owner, Mr J. R. Parkhouse, of Christchurch, is the Maori word for “together.” It was chosen by his Australianborn wife, Mrs Helen Parkhouse, and will be most appropriate during the race, for Mrs Parkhouse and three of their four children will be on board. Two young Lyttelton shipwrights, Messrs O. D. Souter and B. Hart, and a third young member from Christchurch, Mr C. L. Turrall, will also be aboard on the trip.

The ketch, wnich has been undergoing routine cleaning, painting and overhaul on .the slipway, will leave for Whangarei today, if the weather is favourable.

Mr Parkhouse, a New Zealander who hails from Westport, is an experienced deep sea yachtsman. During a period of about 11 years in Australia he took up ocean yachting, and while on Thursday Island, where he was an hotelkeeper, he built the Ngatahi and cruised in the Torres Strait and off the New Guinea coast. His four children have taken part in family ocean cruising. Susan, who is nearly 17, has been a pupil of St. Mary’s College, Christchurch, and will take up nursing after the race.

Twelve-year-old Caroline and 10-year-old Thomas, also pupils at St. Mary’s, will be on board too. According to Mr Parkhouse, the children have grown up to this kind of life and think nothing of it.

The eldest daughter, Mary, aged 18, is employed in a government office and unable to make this voyage. A competent navigator, Mr Parkhouse brought the Ngatahi from Thursday Island to Westport in 1964, making a most accurate landfall off his native town. He competed in the Wellington to Akaroa yacht race last year and has done local cruising, but on a smaller scale. Until recently, he has been working as a shipwright.