Miles and beryl smeeton biography sample
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A reflection bygd Nicholas Grainger, author of The Voyage of The Aegre
Miles Smeeton&#;s account of the 46ft ketch Tzu Hang somersaulting (pitch-poling)in the Southern Ocean in was a seminal text for both ocean voyagers and armchair adventurers of my generation in the s
It was mandatory reading. Published in , I&#;d read it, of course, well before setting out on The Aegre. A kopia has been on my bookshelf for years since, but inom just picked it out to refresh my memory, thinking that perhaps some of today&#;s readers may not be aware of it, and I should give it a plug.
Tzu Hang, a 46ft, H S ‘Uncle’ Rouse-designed ketch, was built in Hong Kong for Col. Denis Swinburne and shipped to the UK in , where she was laid up at Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex during World War II. After the war, Swinburne cruised her to nordlig Ireland and the West Coast of Scotland before selling her to the Smeetons in
In about , Miles and Beryl Smeeton, after just one North Sea passage to Holland
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Born in Hovingham, Yorkshire on March 5, , Miles Smeeton attended Wellington College, joined the British army and transferred to the Indian Cavalry. In he married solo explorer Beryl Boxer, born in Tolpuddle, England on September 21, They attempted to climb Tirich Mir in the Himalayas, at which time she reached the greatest height ever climbed by a woman (7, metres). After World War II they tried operating a small farm on Saltspring Island, purchasing land there sight unseen near Musgrave Landing and farming from to , then from to Unable to transfer some of their money from England, they visited Britain where they found a sailboat yacht called Tzu Hang. They taught themselves how to sail on their way to Spain, proceeding to the Canary Islands, through the Panama Canal and back to Vancouver Island. For 20 years they sailed around the world and wrote about their adventures, recalling their first maritime adventures in The Sea Was Our Village (Gray's Publis
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Miles Smeeton was born in Hovingham, Yorkshire on March 5, He attended Wellington College and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as an officer. He joined the British army with the Green Howards (a Yorkshire regiment), saw action in Africa and the Middle East where he received the Military Cross (MC) and then transferred to the Hobson's Horse regiment with the Indian Cavalry. During World War II he went to Burma with the Burma Theater and obtained the rank of brigadier. Smeeton's brigade was in contact with the Japanese when they officially surrendered and one of the General's handed him his sword. When Smeeton left Burma, the sword went along with him, rolled up in his bedding. For this campaign Smeeton was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Twenty years later while back in Tokyo, Miles found that the colonel, who was writing the history of the war in Burma and told him of his mission: to return the sword of surrender to a general whose name he could not remember, but who