'The Felicity Ann'

In the Illustrated London News of 22nd May 1953 it was reported that: Mrs Ann Davison, the 39 year old English woman from Gloucestershire arrived in Nassau after sailing the Atlantic alone from Plymouth England to Portsmouth, Dominica in her ketch Felicity Ann in 254 days

In the first issue of MarineZine, on a page called Wooden Boat Restoration, we published John Hutchins' lovely piece about the purchase of the 'Felicity Ann', the vessel in which Ann Davison became the first woman to cross the Atlantic single-handed and his plans to restore her and sail her, together with his wife Cheri.

Subsequently, we received a couple of e-mails from a gentleman by the name of Jim Shannon who said:

Jim Shannon continued:

 

		Could you put me in touch with John and Cheri Hutchins? I'm presently dickering on a sixty-foot steel motor-sailor with intentions of returning to Alaska to troll for salmon and follow the albacore offshore down to Mexico each year until I die. What would we do without the Internet? I stumbled upon your site at 2 o'clock this morning. Now I can't go to sleep. Kind of funny when I recall helping Dad remove the last of his belongings off the Felicity Ann when he sold her in 1964, or five, at Vallejo Yacht Club in California. He then sailed across the Pacific with Sterling Hayden. Had his choice for morning beverage been OJ instead of Old Crow, he might not have been thrown off the boat by Sterling in Waikiki . . . halfway through their Sausalito/Honolulu/Mazatlan cruise. Now, there was a great writer - Sterling Hayden. Read Wanderer. You'll be amazed at the creative skill and poetic prose penned by this so-so Hollywood actor."
Again, we could hardly ignore such an endorsement - so here is a link to the book at Amazon.com!

We immediately e-mailed John and Cheri Hutchins to tell them about the e-mail and ask if we might pass it on to them but perhaps they didn't receive our e-mail. We left an appeal on the page but nobody managed to help us put Jim Shannon in contact with John and Cheri Hutchins and we did not hear again from either him or them, to our sorrow, possibly because we changed email addresses.

On the 15th of November 2005 we received another extraordinary e-mail on the subject of the 'Felicity Ann'
 

"It was quite amazing when my husband insisted that I come and read what he had just brought up on the computer. I was born Felicity Ann Hutchins in Devon England. My father named me after the boat The Felicity Ann sailed by Ann Davison. I now find, through your page, that it is owned by John and Cheri Hutchins. All seems very strange. I have recently purchased Ann Davison's account of the voyage and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it." Felicity Ann Dunaway

It would be so nice to be able to introduce all these people to one another - they have something very special in common, the historical yacht 'Felicity Ann'. Do, if you see the boat or meet John and Cheri Hutchins (of Skagway, Alaska at the time of purchasing Felicity Ann), please remember to tell them the news, won't you and ask them to contact us and add to the story that is so important to us and some of our readers?. Meanwhile, on the 30th of November 2005, Felicity Ann Dunaway was kind enough to respond to our request for an insight into how it feels to be named after this special yacht...

From the time I can remember, my father had always wanted to build a sail boat and go off sailing around the world. Looking at it now, this may have all started from Ann Davison's trip. My father passed away 24 years ago but my Mom believes that he had read the paper that was wrapped around the fish and chips, with news of Ann Davison's voyage, while we were still living in North Devon. He was born and raised in Plymouth and returned after the war to farm not far from Barnstaple. He had sailed a lot as a young man and would have read avidly of her approaching voyage and success. It really has been a joy of my life to be named Felicity Ann. I have had many, many compliments over the years on my name and I have often told the story of being named after a boat. I advised my grade nine science teacher of the history of my name and said I was named after a boat and he came back "A tugboat?". After we had emigrated to Canada and finally moved down to Vancouver Island, my father started on his dream of building a boat. Raising nine children had put a bit of cog in his dream and now he was able to start the long process. He laid out the plans on the floor of the 60 ft barn that we had built with a loft. He had the keel poured and the hull built before he became too ill to continue on with it. It was eventually sold and finished and now is found sailing around the waters of Vancouver Island. His love of boats has passed on to his children and five of his nine children have owned, or do own, boats. With interest Felicity

Reference to the Felicity Ann is also made on the following pages on the Internet:  http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/ships/html/sh_033800_felicityann.htm http://www.seapainting.com/ptg_felicity_ann.php http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/ocean_planet_book_davison.html http://dept.physics.upenn.edu/~heiney/harris/sailed.html