American Marine shipyard, Sea Witch yacht construction images
Kevin McBarron has sent these images of the yacht he has owned for around two decades being built at American Marine shipyard in Junk Bay, Hong Hong in 1961.
HF: I have numbered the images in case any readers wish to comment on an individual photo.
Image 1
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Kevin has sent this biographical description of the boat: Lorraine and I have owned our teak Sea Witch, Southern Cross, for nearly 2 decades. When we purchased her, she needed almost EVERYTHING redone or replaced. SC was de-rigged for double handling with modern hardware, adjustable travelers, self-tailing winches, roller furling and the like. The old rusty fuel tank was replaced with 3 new aluminium tanks under the cabin sole. Neil Pryde made a complete new suit of sails including a very useful topsail. We wooded the entire hull and applied Petit paint and varnish inside and out. We installed a new LPG marine stove and a small refrigerator. (The original ice box was rotting away – all other original timber in the boat remains as sound as the day she was launched.)
We added modern distribution panels, electronics, radar and rewired and re-plumbed the whole vessel. We made full awnings and covers and added an extremely strong dodger with a bimini. By 1995, after countless hours (and dollars), she was a “new” boat excluding the hull, masts, water tanks, engine and generator (both of which were completely serviced and superbly maintained since.)
We sailed our Sea Witch to Mexico for a year and then across the Pacific to French Polynesia where were sojourned for 6 months. From there we sailed to Fanning Island in the Line Islands for the cyclone season and then back to Polynesia for a year and a half. We returned to Fanning for a second season and then to Hawaii.
In June 2007,SOUTHERN Cross carried us south once again to Fanning for 13 months and thence to the Northern Cooks, Samoa, Tonga, and at last to New Zealand. It had been our goal to sail our own vessel to New Zealand since 1978 and we finally made it December 1, 2008. It took 30 years to realize our goal (lots of miles and lots of smiles) and now the time has come to find a new voyager to care for, sail, and enjoy what has been our wonderful floating home for so long.
Thank you and Aloha, Robby and Lorraine Coleman.
Sea Witch class drawing Courtesy: Kevin McBarron
This article was first posted on 6th May 2021.
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hey i own Sea Quest hull 7 Sea Witch,1960 -61. you say u have more picture of them being built???