RTW 40th Anniversary

THE NEXT STAGE -- RTW

by Penny Haycraft

The business had been running for a year or so, we were making ends meet (barely), but there was the constant frustration of getting our cargo from
the West India dock in St. Thomas to Tortola. Local sloops were running to and fro all the time, but either they were fully loaded “sorry Captain
Haycraft, I’ll bring it next time” or they didn’t sail on the day they said they were going to, and it became evident that in order for the business to
progress we needed our own vessel.

It was time to visit family in England, we now had a daughter, Susan, so plans were made to spend a month or so during which time Peter would look for a suitable cargo vessel. As it happened this was accomplished without too much trouble, but little did we realize how much worry and heartache it would cost to get her to Tortola. The MV Kilros was a motor fishing vessel built in Belfast in 1939, of wooden construction and 60ft in length. She had a National engine which was a problem in itself as spare parts were virtually impossible to locate. The reason for this was that the factory where these engines were made had been bombed during the war and plans were destroyed. Peter quickly changed the engine to a Gardner which had a very distinctive beat and became known all over Road Town when she was setting off early morning or returning late at night. When Peter first saw her she was berthed at Chichester Harbour in the south of England, and he moved her to a yard in Shoreham to prepare her for the 4,185 mile journey to the BVI. Who could help him bring her across?

As it happened Charles Roy (who built and owned Treasure Isle Hotel) was in England at the time and very keen to help, but two would not be
enough. Peter placed an advert in a sailing magazine, and soon had enough people. He also made sure that the hold was filled with cargo (some 300
cases) for Roadtown Wholesale, and in that way saved shipping costs on a consignment of food.

By the end of July preparations were complete, family and friends shopped, did laundry and generally helped prepare them for the voyage, and they
finally left from Shoreham 27th July. It seemed as though every evening I would get a call from Peter to tell me of the latest problem with the boat, and on August 17th (I had returned to Tortola) I received a cable to say that the trip had been abandoned and the boat would be laid up in Jersey Channel Islands, where Peter’s parents lived. The final straw was the big-end bearings which went about a hundred miles off Lands End. Peter left one crew member with the vessel and came home to Tortola.

Two months later he returned to the U.K. to finish what was becoming a marathon task. New crew to find, more stores, and now it was winter. We
were hopeful that he would be here by Christmas, but it soon became apparent that this was not to be. The engine needed a complete overhaul and they eventually set sail on the last day of December 1962.

With typical understatement his Log Book reads “Win N.E. 6/7 increasing to N. 8. Frequent rain’. And a few days later ‘vessel rolling & pitching - set
square sail’. A week later and it was still rolling & pitching. It was necessary to call in at Madeira for repairs. On January 26th they set sail for the Atlantic crossing - no more ports they could use in emergency. The cooking gas ran out soon after they left, so they constructed a wood fire on the
fore-deck. Remember the vessel was made of wood and the cargo had plenty of wood too. For bread they made an oven out of biscuit tins, insulated with blankets and this was set on top of the exhaust where they also heated tins of food. Smedleys pies were a mainstay of their diet, but while Peter had estimated that 11/2 pies would feed the 5 of them they were actually getting through a whole pie each! Talk about eating into your profits.
Another ongoing problem was the oil temperature on the gear box which was too high. To keep it cool they used wet sand bags which constantly had to be changed. Nobody wanted the job of pumping up the fuel to the header tank and so they positioned the porta-potty next to the handle, and
everyone took a turn at pumping………….

30th January: Cloudy & clear. Mod/heavy w’ly swell. Vessel pitching heavily and rolling. Shipping heavy spray at times. 9th February: half-way stage - party held. Then two days later ‘Large shark cruising round the vessel’
14th February: Spoke by lamp and R/T with Swedish M/V Bacherole. ETA Tortola transmitted.

This conversation was picked up by radio hams in Tortola, although they didn’t hear the name Kilros, but we assumed it was them. In those days very few vessels came to Tortola. The following day they received help from another vessel as the gear box was slipping and over-heating. They received
10 gal. oil plus cigarettes and some bread. By this time their diet was reduced to tinned fruit and beets, about all that was left of the cargo.

Excitement was high, and that night some friends joined me on Road Town jetty, and eventually the lights of the Land Rover picked out Kilros
approaching land. They docked at 1 a.m. amid great joy and relief. I barely recognized my husband; he was very dirty, had a beard, and was thin and
exhausted, having spent much of his time perched on a stool in the wheel house checking that his inexperienced crew were keeping on course.

It wasn’t long before the Kilros was put to work, and for the next 15 years she was a work-horse, initially bringing cargo from St. Thomas, and then
working as a traveling shop to Virgin Gorda. Antigua had just opened a deep water harbour and had no further use for the lighters which had been used for off-loading cargo ships, so Peter took Kilros to Antigua, purchased the lighters and towed them back to Tortola to cope with the ever increasing amount of cargo coming in, not only for Roadtown Wholesale, but general cargo also. In 1968 Booker Line and Atlantic Line started calling at Tortola, and the Kilros towed the lighters/barges with cargo from the ships to the dock. No containers, no Port Purcell.

We used her occasionally at the weekend to take a group of friends to Peter Island for a picnic and we had a memorable trip to Antigua when she was
chartered by the Baptist Church to carry the Minister’s furniture and personal effects, but that’s another story.

Certainly her contribution to the success of RTW in those days was invaluable, but eventually, like all old ladies who have worked too hard she had to be laid to rest. It had reached the point where the Fire Truck had to be standing by in Virgin Gorda when she made her weekly visit, in order to pump out the water before she sank alongside the jetty, and there were constant repairs to be made, so a date was fixed, and it was decided to give her a Nordic funeral, i.e. remove the engine and tow her out to the south side of Dead Chest, set her on fire and sink her. An emotional day, and among those present were Sam James and John Wong, and also our son Christopher who was about 8 years old, and I have to say the only one who came back sober!