ulie Tambs must have been a remarkable woman.
She is the silent heroine of the book The
Cruise of the Teddy. A young woman who, in
1928 raised no protest when her husband
Erling Tambs spent all his meagre capital on
buying and provisioning an old Norwegian
pilot cutter. They set sail from Norway on their honeymoon
without navigation instruments and with one shilling and seven
pence jingling in the skipper’s pocket.
The author of The Cruise of the Teddy, Erling Tambs was always
the first to admit his mistakes, but it is Julie who endured them.
When she found herself at the helm of Teddy charging through
shoal water towards a lee shore and certain death because her
husband was trying to find a light ship which could tell him where
he was, she merely told him as long as they would die together she
would not worry.
She seems to have said little when they put to sea after many
weeks of hot weather in harbour, and found themselves taking
on alarming amounts of water through carvel planked seams that
opened up so much daylight was visible through them. Even more
remarkable is that she tolerated the same thing happening again
nine months later in Tahiti!
While all this calamity may not have been great seamanship,
it certainly makes for a great story. Had Erling Tambs been full of
the preparation and diligent conservatism of the modern cruiser,
the book would have been as boring as bat shit.
Indeed, the honesty of Erling in recounting his failures makes
him more endearing to the reader, and it is this that catapults the
author into the same league as Joshua Slocum or Johnny Wray.
You put the book down feeling you have found a new daggy friend
and can’t wait to relay his stories to anyone who will listen.
It was not only Julie Tambs who was remarkable. At Vigo,
Spain the crew of two was increased by the gift of a bitch.| subscribe | magstore.nz/boatingnewzealand Boating New Zealand 137
J
ABOVE The old Norwegian pilot boat Teddy.
LEFT The skipper and Spare Provisions.
BELOW The Teddy in Panama.