Bruce Dalling

Last updated March 16, 2019

Bruce Dalling (16 August 1938 – 7 July 2008) was a Springbok South African yachtsman, also advocate and farmer, best known for taking second place on elapsed time and first on corrected time for the monohull award in the 1968 Observer Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race.

The Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race (STAR) is an east-to-west yacht race across the North Atlantic. When inaugurated in 1960, it was the first single-handed ocean yacht race; it is run from Plymouth to the United States, and is held every four years.

Biography

Dalling was born in Johannesburg to Kathleen and William Dalling, a mining captain. He matriculated at St. John's College in Johannesburg, after which he went to sea and then joined the Hong Kong Police for two years. While living in Hong Kong, he took up yachting and participated in major races including the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. After returning to South Africa he was a crew member on the South African yacht Stormvogel.

Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa and one of the 50 largest urban areas in the world. It is the provincial capital and largest city of Gauteng, which is the wealthiest province in South Africa. While Johannesburg is not one of South Africa's three capital cities, it is the seat of the Constitutional Court. The city is located in the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills and is the centre of large-scale gold and diamond trade.

The Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is an annual event hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, starting in Sydney, New South Wales on Boxing Day and finishing in Hobart, Tasmania. The race distance is approximately 630 nautical miles (1,170 km). The race is run in conjunction with the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, and is widely considered to be one of the most difficult yacht races in the world.

He studied for an agricultural degree at the University of Natal and became a lecturer in agriculture. He then studied law and became an advocate during the mid-1970s, practising mainly in Pietermaritzburg and Durban. He gave up due to ill health in 1982 and then turned to lecturing at the University of Natal. He went farming in Howick, KwaZulu-Natal, but still served as an assessor in high court cases.

University of Natal university in South Africa

The University of Natal was a university in Natal and later became KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. The University of Natal no longer exists as a distinct legal entity, as it was incorporated into the University of KwaZulu-Natal on 1 January 2004. It was founded in 1910 as the Natal University College in Pietermaritzburg and expanded to include a campus in Durban in 1931. In 1947, the university opened a medical school for non-white students in Durban. The Pietermaritzburg campus was known for its agricultural engineering programmes, hence the nickname "the farmers" whilst the Durban campus was known as "the engineers," as it concentrated on other engineering programmes.

Pietermaritzburg is the capital and second-largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838 and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its Zulu name umGungundlovu is the name used for the district municipality. Pietermaritzburg is popularly called Maritzburg in English and Zulu alike, and often informally abbreviated to PMB. It is a regionally important industrial hub, producing aluminium, timber and dairy products, as well as the main economic hub of Umgungundlovu District Municipality. The public sector is a major employer in the city due to the local, district and provincial governments being located here. It is home to many schools and tertiary education institutions, including a campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It had a population of 228,549 in 1991; the current population is estimated at over 600,000 residents and has one of the largest populations of Indian South Africans in South Africa.

Durban Place in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Durban is the third most populous city in South Africa—after Johannesburg and Cape Town—and the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. Located on the east coast of South Africa, Durban is famous for being the busiest port in the country. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism because of the city's warm subtropical climate and extensive beaches. Durban forms part of the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality, which includes neighboring towns and has a population of about 3.44 million, making the combined municipality one of the biggest cities on the Indian Ocean coast of the African continent. It is also the second most important manufacturing hub in South Africa after Johannesburg. In 2015, Durban was recognised as one of the New7Wonders Cities.

He owned his own aircraft, a Cessna 210 Centurion named "Charlie" and participated in sky-diving and was instrumental in establishing the Pietermaritzburg Parachute Club.

Cessna 210 general aviation aircraft family

The Cessna 210 Centurion is a six-seat, high-performance, retractable-gear, single-engine, high-wing general aviation aircraft which was first flown in January 1957 and produced by Cessna until 1986.

He was married to Carol and had three children, a son, William, who is a pilot for Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong and two daughters, Kerry and Cathy.

The Yacht Voortrekker

For the 1968 Observer Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race, Dalling was selected out of 40 applicants to skipper the yacht Voortrekker , a 50 ft ketch designed by the naval architect, Ricus van de Stadt, and built of wood-composite construction by Thesens of Knysna for the Springbok Ocean Racing Trust and sponsored by the Rembrandt Group of Companies.

Voortrekker is a 50-foot (15 m) racing yacht that became famous for placing first on handicap in the 1968 Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race and for placing second in the 1982/83 BOC Challenge despite being 14 years old and considered obsolete.

The Rembrandt Group, officially known as Rembrandt Trust (Proprietary) Limited, is a South African tobacco and industrial conglomerate founded by Afrikaner tycoon Dr Anton Rupert who oversaw its eventual transition to the industrial and luxury branded goods sectors. Rembrandt was split into Remgro and Richemont.

Voortrekker's strength lay in her planking, consisting of three layers of Malaysian Meranti glued together with a fibreglass coat for binding and waterproofing and weighed 6½ tons, including the keel. She was half the weight of any equivalent-sized racing yacht. She was equipped with a sparsely designed two bunk cabin. Perhaps the only aspect where the minimalist approach was not adopted was to the range and ability of the navigational equipment. She turned out to be one of the fastest racing yachts in her class.

Sea trials were conducted in Table Bay and False Bay before she was sailed from Cape Town to Plymouth for the 1968 OSTAR.

After the race Voortrekker returned from the USA to South Africa on board the Safmarine freighter SA Weltevreden. She was hoisted by crane off the special cradle that had been assembled for her transportation across the Atlantic and lowered into the water at Cape Town docks. After the mast had been stepped, Bruce sailed her along the Atlantic seaboard for ninety minutes where many fans had assembled to welcome the sailor home. Voortrekker then docked at Granger Bay, where Vice-Admiral Hugo Biermann, Dr Anton Rupert – head of the Rembrandt Group that underwrote the venture and Cape Town mayor, Mr G.E. Ferry along with other dignitaries gave him a hero's welcome.

Admiral Hugo Hendrik Biermann, was a senior officer in the South African Navy. He served as Chief of the Navy from 1952 to 1972 and Chief of the South African Defence Force from 1972 until 1976, the only Naval officer to have served in the post.

Anthony Edward Rupert was a South African well-respected Afrikaner billionaire businessman, philanthropist, and conservationist. He was born and raised in the small town of Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape. He studied in Pretoria and ultimately moved to Stellenbosch, where he established the Rembrandt Group and where it still has its headquarters. He died in his sleep at his home in Thibault Street, Stellenbosch at the age of 89, and is survived by a son Johann, a daughter Hanneli and five grandchildren. His wife and his youngest son, Anthonij, pre-deceased him.

The 1968 OSTAR

Thirty five yachts entered the race of which thirteen were multihulls. The race started on 1 June departing from Plymouth England for Newport, Rhode Island.

The race was by now acquiring a reputation for pushing forward the technology of ocean sailing, and the 1968 edition featured the first ever use of computer-based weather routing. A far cry from today's laptop-laden yachts, this consisted of a land-based mainframe computer, the English Electric KDF9, linked by radio to 25-year-old school teacher Geoffrey Williams in his boat Sir Thomas Lipton. Although outside private routing advice of this kind is no longer permitted in most "unassisted" races, it is now routine for ocean sailors to do similar analyses using their on-board computers to process public weather information.

Williams created another story by his use of the "shortcut" through the Nantucket Shoal. This dangerous route was supposed to be illegal, but due to an error the race instructions required skippers only to keep south of Nantucket, instead of Nantucket Light. Williams successfully navigated the treacherous route in a gale. Gales were a major feature of the race, with a large storm on the 11th – 12 June, and Hurricane Brenda, both contributing to the large number of retired and abandoned boats; Dalling described this storm as one of the worst he had ever encountered and one that he would remember for a long time. Water 4 ft deep washed over the deck and flooded his electric generator, when it came into the ketch through an exhaust pipe on the deck. As a result he was without power, explaining his radio absence during a large part of the race. Voortrekker was driven back 60 miles during the storm and broke her main boom, necessitating a jury rig. One casualty was Éric Tabarly, aboard his new trimaran Pen Duick IV .

Although won by a monohull, this race saw the multihulls firmly established on the scene. The multihulls were led by the controversial proa Cheers; many observers felt that a proa was entirely unsuitable for ocean sailing, but she made a fast time along the Azores route

The race was won by Williams on Sir Thomas Lipton in 25 days 20 hours 33 min. However he had a 12-hour penalty for incorrect procedure at the start. Dalling completed the race in 26 days 13 hours 42 min, earning himself a place in yachting history.

Notes

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References

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