 . The Most
Bods Aboard
and the Least
The vessel with the most people aboard arrived from the Canary Islands in
1949. This was the 36 ft. trading sloop RUEBEN that had 56 people stuffed
aboard in all stages of life, old, mature, children and pregnant women. One
lady gave birth in the Dockyard's Pay Office amongst the goat excrement
soon after arrival. Other lovely senoritas joyously danced flamencos
accompanied by guitar music. These people were refugees from Franco's
Spanish regime, and were bound for Venezuela. For their last four days
there had been no food or water left. English Harbour villagers, so
impoverished at the time, showed great sympathy and brought fruits and
vegetables upon their heads for them. Syrians also brought clothes from
their St. John's dry goods stores. Yachtsmen gave charts, but the captain
couldn't navigate so he just ticked off the islands as he sailed south!
Now for the yacht that arrived in Antigua without ANYBODY ABOARD AT ALL!
That was the 25 ft. STELLA MARIS. In 1966 she sailed from Bermuda with
John Pflieger, aged 68, ex-President of the Slocum Society aboard. He was
bound, single-handed, for retirement in St. Maarten. "Stellar Maris" had
hit tropical storm 'Celia' according to our calculations from the positions
we saw marked on a wind chart found aboard. The staysail alone was set,
with a trysail bent over the main. A guard rail that had been originally
fixed to the smashed gallows was found trailing overboard, so the theory
was that he may have lurched for a non-existent line, and fallen overboard.
The spooky thing is that the yacht fetched up on a reef off a house of
that same name, "Stella Maris", at Hodges Bay! Later I sailed the ship
round to English Harbour. The owner's son soon arrived and sold her to a
yachtsman in St. Kitts. 
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