Cythera (yacht)
Sydney Harbour, 1962
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| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Cythera |
| Owner: | Peter A. Fenton |
| Port of registry: | Sydney. Lloyds Yacht Register VJZP 316113 |
| Builder: | Peter A. Fenton |
| Launched: | 17 March 1962 |
| Maiden voyage: | 31 March 1963 |
| Status: | Lost |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Ketch |
| Tonnage: | 31.29 tons gross, 24.18 tons net and 26 tons Thames Measurement |
| Length: | 43.2 ft (13.17 m) |
| Beam: | 12.5 ft (3.81 m) |
| Draught: | 7 ft (2.13 m) |
Cythera (pronounced /ˈsaɪθərə/ SY-thər-ə), a 50-foot (15 m) steel ketch, designed and built single-handedly by Peter A. Fenton, was the first subject of modern-day piracy, in Australian history, setting legal precedent to laws in effect from 1858.
After being discharged from the Royal Navy and spending one cold winter back in England, Peter Fenton left for warmer climates, joined a group and arrived in Epo, Indonesia to run a tin mine, until the 1945 revolution broke out. Ordered to leave by the Army, Peter arrived in Sydney in 1947.
In 1961, aged 37, married with one child, he decided he would build a boat and go sailing. He spent a year teaching himself about yacht design and started night school to learn welding, since he had decided to build his boat of steel, for strength, instead of wood as previously planned. (It would have been a schooner named Misty Isles). The renowned yacht designer, Alan Payne commented that it was a "very hazardous undertaking to build of steel". On 23 January 1961 construction began in a rented lot in Paddington, below Sutherland Road, which threatened to collapse on the almost finished yacht, during torrential flooding in November 1961.
17 March 1962 saw Cythera launched between Timber Wharves 1 & 2 at Walsh Bay (The Rocks), and the next year was spent building steel masts for the ketch (experts from the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, where the Fentons became members in 1959, predicted the masts would fall down in the first storm), and on 31 March 1963, Peter and his family, with two crew members, Daniel Barrie, Derrick (Ricky) Brewin and a journalist friend, Charlie Schriber, departed on the maiden voyage to Lord Howe Island en route to New Zealand.
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Wikipedia