 Meet circumnavigators Peter and Maureen Pope
of Melbourne, Australia.
Peter and Maureen Pope met, in Melbourne, when she was running her own travel agency and he was representative for a stationery company.
Maureen had been married before and had spent five and a half years traveling and working around the world, on ships, with her husband, starting when she was nineteen. Their first daughter, Kim, was born in London and their younger daughter, Simone, in Melbourne.
Peter's father was Greek, his mother Indian African. Born in Malawi, Peter was raised in Greece. When his mother remarried and moved to Australia, Peter decided to join her there and became a naturalised Australian. He is fiercely patriotic, more so, says Maureen, than she, who was born there.
They were married in 1984 and, by 1992, had decided that it was time to get out of the rat race and do something completely different.
They had, by then, owned two powerboats, first a fifteen-footer and then an eighteen foot boat and spent happy times, nearly every weekend, on the water in Sydney
Harbour.
Neither of them had ever sailed, but the cruising life sounded good to them both and they decided to look for a boat.
Initially, they intended to live aboard the boat and just cruise around the Barrier Reef. Then they thought it would be nice to visit Peter's relatives in Greece.
This, they realized, would mean having to use the trade winds to get back to Australia and, therefore, a circumnavigation.
Undaunted by their lack of sailing experience, they decided this was exactly what they would do. Set off on a Great Adventure. They took a course in navigation and set about making the dream a reality.
The couple had 30,000 Australian dollars saved up and, after a few months of searching, they found an advertisement, in Trade A Boat magazine, for a hull and deck, one of 105 Martzcraft 35's designed and built by Brent Martz. They bought it in July 1992, for 21,000 A$ and then consulted a New Zealand shipwright to ascertain the likely cost of fitting the vessel out for cruising. Naturally, the final figure turned out to be easily twice the estimated cost. Doesn't it always?!
Peter and Maureen didn't have a fixed interior design in mind. They knew there were certain features they wanted included but the designing was done as work progressed, in consultation with the shipwright.
Since they were living in rented accommodation, the Popes decided they would save money by moving onto their boat as soon as possible. The shipwright did the construction work and Maureen and Peter did everything else.
The aft cabin, a spacious and comfortable bedroom, with a wardrobe and dressing table, was completed and they moved aboard in January 1993.
Since they were both still working, ploughing every available cent into their project, the couple had to commute 40 kilometres every day.
They were also looking after Maureen's mother, (seen here,
with Maureen, in the unfinished saloon)
who was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, so they were pretty busy all round.
A single visit to the movies was the extent of their frivolous expenditure of time and money during that period.
Maureen was in charge of financial management and Peter was in charge of buying. He has a real flair for getting a good deal, which was important to them both, as they had agreed that they would not go into any debt but save up their earnings and spend them as they accumulated enough for the next item on the list.
Aboard the boat, which was rapidly taking shape, Peter dealt with all things mechanical and electrical.
Maureen took instruction from the shipwright on the art of varnishing and was thrilled when, after three coats of varnish had duly been applied to the interior woodwork, he said " You're a bloody good
varnisher"!
Jobs like fixing on the toe-rails, Peter and Maureen tackled together. Peter installed winches and other deck tackle, but a professional rigger was commissioned to build the aluminium mast, rigging and furling gear, although the couple helped with the installation.
In April 1994, a group of about fifty friends and employees of the Yaringa Marina in Western Port Bay, Victoria, about forty kilometres from Melbourne, where all this work had been undertaken, gathered there for a chicken and champagne launch party and
'Mahe' was duly christened.
Maureen and Peter used her as a motor boat for the next couple of months until, at last, they took delivery of her new sails and a book on how to sail.
Maureen will never forget seeing their friend, the proprietor of their favourite restaurant, in Hastings Marina, where the couple were studying the book over their bacon and egg breakfast, doubled up with hysterical laughter when shown the cover of the book.
The moment of truth arrived and Peter busied himself with the sails while Maureen took the helm.
"Follow those people" cried Peter, waving in the direction of another yacht already under sail, and off they went, whooping like cowboys, "Yahoo! We've done it!"
They got 'Mahe' up to five knots and it was totally exhilarating.
During the next eighteen months, they sailed some weekends in the Bass Strait. They didn't, as yet, have an autopilot and they would career along, Peter swinging from the mast and Maureen gripping the helm.
Maureen says " I didn't know those were horrendous sea and weather conditions, I just thought 'this is
sailing!' and I loved it".
In retrospect, both felt that the storm they encountered off New South Wales, where the Sydney-Hobart racers also pass through, was the worst they have ever endured but
said that it may just be because it was their first storm under sail.
When they reached Sydney, they gave away the charts covering the waters between Melbourne and Sydney, saying they would never sail that stretch again. Once was enough!
Mind you, that was before they lived through a hurricane in the Caribbean, but
that's another story!
You can read the story of their 'Great Adventure', as recounted in a series of newsletters
and other letters, sent home to family and friends, which will be reproduced on our
pages, with their kind permission.
We do hope you will enjoy reading all about the voyage of a lifetime which this courageous and absolutely charming couple embarked upon on 24th October 1995 (United Nations Day, coincidentally) and which finds them presently sailing
off the East coast of the United States of America.
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