A sprightly “old man of the sea” breezed into Suva to meet the yachts from Auckland.
He was Robert Hall Wood, 83-years-old, and for more than 70 years, a member of the Royal Akarana Yacht Club (RAYC), organiser of the Auckland-Suva race.
His visit to Fiji was published in this newspaper on Tuesday May 10, 1966.
Mr Wood’s association with the sea began before he was 10.
At 12 he was an RAYC member and in the 70 years since he had owned more than 30 boats – 18 of them racing yachts.
Several visits
He visited Fiji several times – twice in the Niagara, once in the Mariposa.
Wood was once a crew member in a 26ft boat, the Calypso, when she voyaged from New Zealand to Fiji “just out of curiosity”.
“It took us 17 days,” Wood said.
“For two days we were becalmed down by those islands over there,” he said pointing to the South.
“Kadavu”, was suggested and his eyes lit up as memories and names flooded back.
Boat trip
When reporters went to the Royal Suva Yacht Club to see him, he was about to take a power-boat trip out to the reef passage.
His leg, he said was not what it used to be, so he got rid of his boat.
However, Wood’s companion on his Fiji visit, Joe Bosanquet, said that age and a week knee did not stop him from making an occasional sortie in Auckland yachts.
Mr Bosanquet was a member of the executive committee of the RAYC and the executive committee of the New Zealand Volunteers Coastguards.
A picture of the leading yacht, Fidelis in the Auckland-Suva yacht race. Picture: FILE
