In late August sailing legend John Guzzwell passed away at age 94. He died peacefully at his home near Seattle, Washington, with his wife Dorothy by his side.
I am lucky enough to have met John on several occasions and count him as a friend. When I was a boy, he was one of my sailing heroes and his book Trekka Round the World was dog-eared from multiple readings by the time I was 15.
In 1955, when John was 25, he set off from British Columbia aboard a 21-foot yawl designed by Laurent Giles that he had built himself. The boat was way ahead of its time, with a light, shallow hull, reverse sheer and an early cruising fin keel and semi-spade rudder.
Many veteran sailors at the time considered the design too small, too light and too unseaworthy for John’s intended plan. He was going to sail Trekka singlehanded around the world. Four years later, John sailed into Victoria Harbour, BC, having circled the planet.
(Trekka arriving in Victoria, BC)
It is important to remember that this amazing voyage took place before there were marine electronics, before self-steering devices had been invented, before there were oceanic weather forecasts and before many areas of the world had been accurately charted.
On that voyage and soon after leaving Canada, John met Miles and Beryl Smeeton and their daughter Chloe who were in Hawaii aboard their ketch Tzu Hang. The Smeetons had taken to the cruising life in the 50s after their mountaineering days were behind them and over the next decade cruised far and wide around the world. They were truly early cruising pioneers.
John sailed in company with Tzu Hang to Australia, in no small part due to his interest in Chloe. Once in Sydney, the Smeetons shipped Chloe home to attend an English boarding school. Their plan was to sail back to England themselves via Cape Horn and needing another pair of hands asked John to come along as crew.
He accepted and the three of them sailed across the South Pacific to Chile before turning south for the Horn. Not far from the cape, Tzu Hang encountered a major storm with enormous seas and was pitchpoled and dismasted. Without an HF radio or any other way to signal for help, Miles, Beryl and John had to rescue themselves.
Being an experienced boatwright, John got to work to repair the broken hatches, the damaged cockpit and build a replacement jury rig mast. Much to Miles’ frustration, John spent a whole day sharpening tools before he could get started on the repairs.
A month later, Tzu Hang limped into Valparaiso, Chile with all hands safe and sound, apart from Beryl’s separated shoulder.
John found his way back to Australia and continued his trip around the world.
A soft spoken, mild-mannered man, John never crowed about his voyage and seemed to think that sailing a home-built, 21-foot yawl singled handed around the world in the 1950s was a perfectly normal thing for a young man to do. He led a good life and certainly left a legacy of seamanship and adventure that will long outlast him.
