The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

On the flight from Nassau to New Jersey a couple of weeks ago I read the interesting and entertaining letter from Bruce Raine about the rich history of ship building and sailing in The Bahamas. Not only did it make the flight seem shorter, but it also brought up vivid memories of some of my experiences at sea while growing up as a young boy in Nassau during the war years.

In the 1940s, the largest and most important shipyard was owned by “RT” (later Sir Roland) Symonette, also the first Prime Minister of the Bahamas.

Along with building original boat designs from the keel up, they specialised in modernising old wooden hulled sailboats such as ketches, yawls and schooners and retrofitting them with diesel engines. Indeed so good were they at this that they landed contracts from the US and UK defense departments to supply wooden hulled (non metallic) mine sweepers to the allied navies.

One of the largest ships built at the Symonette Yards at that time, was the “Jenkins Roberts”, named after a long time associate of RT’s and manager of the Yard. She was once a two-masted schooner now converted to diesel power and fitted with the latest navigation and communications systems. The Jenkins Roberts plied routes between Nassau, Andros and even Florida carrying assorted freight and the occasional passenger.

In 1943, my close friend Martin Dyer, eldest son of the Rev RP Dyer, the headmaster of Queen’s College, and I were offered summer jobs by Mr. Symonette as deck hands on the Jenkins Roberts. The trip we were to go on was to Jamaica where we would pick up a load of bagged sugar and take it to Miami and then return to Nassau. This involved threading the Windward passage between Cuba and Haiti. This narrow waterway was considered very dangerous during the war because German Uboats would lie at the eastern end in large “wolf packs” and attack the many freighters sailing in convoys from South America carrying vital war supplies to Britain and the allies in Europe.

Other than the Captain and Mate, we had about six other crew mates. These men were much better informed about the hazards ahead than Martin and I and they became increasingly nervous as we approached the strait. The Captain sensing the increasingly tense atmosphere on board, assembled us on deck and addressed us more or less as follows – “I’m well aware that you’re concerned about U boat attacks in the Windward Passage and so I want to reassure you that you’ve nothing to worry about – a German submarine would never waste a torpedo on an old tub such as ours. No, although they might surface and just take pot shots at us with their deck gun. So relax!” Martin looked at me and barely hiding the sarcasm said: “Whew, good news, I was really worried there for a minute!”

As it turned out we saw no U boats and made safe passage to Jamaica, picked up the sugar and on to Miami and back to Nassau without incident and only good memories of a great adventurous summer job chipping rust off the anchors.

Bruce also wrote about Star sailboat racing in his article and it may be of further interest to your readers to learn that the Star class boat was introduced to the Bahamas by a Freddy de Marigny in about 1940.

Unfortunately, however, this was not his main claim to fame. Freddy was from Mauritius and had a somewhat notorious reputation for his international playboy lifestyle and as a serial pursuer of rich young ladies. His latest conquest after he came to Nassau was Nancy Oakes, eldest daughter of Sir Harry Oakes. Sir Harry was, at the time, considered to be one of the richest men in the world. He strongly disapproved of de Marigny, but failed to prevent Nancy from marrying Freddy. Shortly afterwards he was brutally murdered at his Cable Beach home and, predictably, de Marigny was accused of the crime and tried. He was acquitted, but deported. To this day, the murder of Sir Harry Oakes remains an unsolved mystery. However, Freddy’s legacy in the Bahamas is the Star class sailboat in one of which Sir Durward Knowles with crew Cecil Cooke captured Gold at the Tokyo Olympics. The beautiful, classic Star also remains as one of the longest surviving Olympic sailboat classes.

HUBERT HAUCK

Lake Mohawk Country Club,

Sparta NJ 07871, USA.