“In 1953 I did the relay mother ship job in the Sydney-Hobart race. I had at that time a big motor sailer, Lauriana. I was so impressed with sailing that when I came back I got the idea I would build a boat. I didn’t know anything about wood but I had a foundry and all the equipment so it had to be in steel.
So I got Alan Payne, the naval architect, to design me a boat – a cruising boat for V Meyer. It wasn’t a racing boat. I had the idea of cruising in the Pacific, from all the stories I had heard about coloured girls in Tahiti and what not. So we built a boat. The reason why I started racing was that I didn’t know much about sailing. That was my apprenticeship to go cruising.” – Vic Meyer – owner/skipper of Solo (1985)
(Meyer’s “apprenticeship”
