Planked in Mahogany on grown Oak frames notably her saloon wasn’t lined but instead battened, otherwise she was a standard Elkins Vertue, and with probably the most distinguished sailing history of any Vertue, as in 1963 Cardinal Vertue was the smallest yacht to have rounded Cape Horn, but she was probably most famous gaining honour in the hands of her third owner, David Lewis.
David a New Zealander living in England, sailed her single handed to Stavanger in Norway and back in 1959 to qualify himself as an entrant for the first Observer Single Handed Transatlantic Race (OSTAR) in 1960. He then sailed her from Plymouth (England) to New York for the grueling 3000 mile race.
In his book, The Ship Would Not Travel Due West, David tells of the race, in which he competed (and came third) against Francis Chichester and Herbert (Blondie) Hasler and others.
But Cardinal Vertue’s story did not end there. In September 1962 David sold her to another remarkable man, Australian Bill Nance, who in 1963 left Brixham on the first leg of his circumnavigation and reached San Fernando in Argentina in 61 days. His next leg was to Capetown and then on to Melbourne a voyage which proved to be as tough as Bill had feared, and with 2,000 miles to go he lost his mast off the Île Saint-Paul half way between Madagascar and Western Australia. Bill pressed on and made Freemantle under jury rig, and there he carried out repairs before sailing on to Auckland where Cardinal Vertue was refitted before the last leg of her circumnavigation to Buenos Aires via Cape Horn.
Nance and Cardinal Vertue gained the considerable distinction of holding the single handed speed record for a long passage: 122 miles per day for 53 days.