Goodbye to our Fastnet clasic
It was a sad day for Miranda DelmarMorgan when the time came to sell her beloved wooden Polar Bear
W hen Edward and I found Polar Bear in 1998, I fell in love with her because she was timber, (I was brought up in a wooden boat) and Edward thought she was a lot of boat for the money (£24,500). Neither he nor my daughters sailed until we bought her, by which time Rachael and Arabella were 11 and 9. I worried that they might hate sailing, but they loved it and felt safe in Polar Bear. She sails beautifully and never made them seasick. Edward, a landscape gardener, enjoys it but wants more space. He fancies a centre cockpit motor-sailer, and while I’m not so sure about that, the time has come for us to part with our beloved boat. It made a good opportunity to delve into her history.
Polar Bear was skippered by Major John Moreton during the infamous Fastnet race of 1979 with his wife, Biddy (Bridgid) and four crew, mostly from his regiment, 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards. The boat’s first owner, Jonny Clothier and his wife, Jane, were expecting a baby and so had remained ashore. When the storm decimated the fleet, Polar Bear’s crew were searching for Trophy’s liferaft, whose distress flare they had seen. In the process, they were knocked down
and then pitch-poled by a huge wave, which stove in the port side of the coachhouse. The mast broke above deck and all the crew, tethered by harnesses, were swept overboard. The next wave washed them back on board again. They launched the liferaft. In the liferaft they agreed to cut the tether for fear that if Polar Bear went down she would take them with her.
They had issued a Mayday and an RAF Nimrod, having sighted them, directed the Dutch destroyer, HNLMS Overijssel, to them. The ship let down scramble nets and put divers in the sea to hold the liferaft against the destroyer. The officers gave the orders to jump and caught them one at a time as the ship rolled downwards. One diver went missing, feared dead. When he reappeared he caused amazement. The rescue had been conducted on the lower deck and he had been washed onto the upper deck, so his return had gone unnoticed. The crew clothed Biddy and washed her hair for her. The men were taken to watch a blue movie in the mess. Survivors from Trophy and Callirhoe III were also on board.
An experienced yachtsman, Bert Smith, was in the area working on his coaster, Pirola. He found Polar Bear and one of his crew managed to get aboard, but then Bert Smith couldn’t retrieve him owing to the seas. He spent the night on her and the next day they towed her to Plymouth. Bert Smith then returned to the scene and salvaged two more vessels. Polar Bear was taken to Brixham and restored by Uphams. The Moretons then bought her from Jonny Clothier and the next year, with the same crew, were second in class in a race around Britain.
Since being in our hands, Polar Bear has safely carried us thousands of miles from St Kilda to Gdansk to Baiona. It has been an honour and a pleasure to have had her in my life for 19 years. Parting from her will be painful, but I hope she goes on to give the same pride and pleasure to her new owner, whomever that may be.