[Ning Webmaster]

John wrote this reminiscence of his times aboard Atalantas when they were very new:

“After the Oxford Sailing club week at Bosham, I  helped an elderly gentleman sail one from Chichester to Dartmouth in 1956. I was very frightened as he had a TERRIBLE cough in which he went an unhealthy shade of blue! and as a second year pre-clinical medical student at Oxford University, still doing anatomy, in the Gothic department behind the museum I feared he would die in one of these dreadful coughing fits!!  I had sailed in the Solent twice but this was my first time properly out to sea and I knew nought about navigation. I had sailed for Oxford in dinghies and in Dragons. But I did not want to be on my own out to sea if he succumbed!!”

“When I applied for the job as GP in Bembridge in 1967, my interview was held by Dr Kaula on his Atlanta 31 as he took me back to Southsea!!  It had two drop-keels and two Heads, hence the name “Toulouse”.

(I think this second boat was A31-4 then owned by “a doctor in Swansea”, which became Mike Dixon’s “Gellie” and now owned by Bill Johnston in Lanarkshire).

Topic