Ever since our Shipping Reporter , the only one north of Lady Macquarie's Chair, Sydney Harbour , recently found a collection of yachting books on Magnetic Island , he has been talking about sailing into the sunset to escape the irritating , paltry coverage of North Queensland maritime matters by those on the burning decks of the mainland media.
He dropped a few salty oaths when outlining the failure of the media to properly cover and follow up the sinking of the above schooner at Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island , plus the episode of another yacht which was destroyed by fire on the island .
His sources have informed him a Cairns salvage team looked at the three-master , but decided it did not want the job. Another salvage team was said to be coming from Brisbane.
The waterfront roundsman said one of the yachting books he found on the island is the 1966 Manual of Yacht Navigation , by J.E.Toghill, published by K.G.Murray ,Sydney and Melbourne, bearing the trade sticker of J. Donne and Son , Admiralty chart agents and Melbourne booksellers .
A manual on basic reporting was badly needed on the mainland, he added, sighing as he leafed through a 1975 book on Cruising by Time-Life , a well- illustrated chapter dealing with the luxury yachts of the "merchant princes"during America's Gilded Age .
He particularly liked the 287-foot steam yacht Cassandra ,built in 1908 for Paul and Roy Rainey from a fortune made in manufacturing coke. It had a regular crew of 42, 22 seamen , ladies' maids and valets. She went on runs to Africa for big-game hunting.
Described as eccentric and crotchety, Cornelius Vanderbuilt lll had a series of steam yachts, the last one, to which he retreated to get away from his family, the destroyer-like Winchester ,capable of 32knots .
