Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific , Thor Heyerdahl's, Kon-Tiki expedition and the well reported stories of yachtsman, Vic Meyer who sailed the Pacific with his all-female crews, were all stories that were part of an adventure-genre which captured the hearts and minds of young men who lived around Sydney Harbour in t he nineteen-sixties and seventies. This is a story about one of those young men, who having never sailed before, bought a battered 60ft pedigree Ketch, a proven passage maker, restored her and set off on the adventure of his life with a bunch of mates Valhalla a classic ketch , a racing splinter of a yacht was launched in 1952. She was built for racing for the millionaire cornflower-baron, Nigel Love, who named her South Winds and raced her successfully on the NSW coast, winning many races and honours. She was one of the last of her kind, built in Sydney from Tasmanian Huon-pine, now a protected species. Sixty-one feet in length, laid up on spotted gum frames,