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The Royal Yacht<br />
Squadron will host a<br />
UBS <strong>Oyster</strong> Regatta at<br />
Cowes, England, on July<br />
6-10. We’ll need<br />
volunteers at that time to<br />
help rescue Vaughan,<br />
who was still being held<br />
in The Castle’s dungeon<br />
when this went to press.<br />
34 www.oystermarine.com<br />
....of such a color and density as to fill one<br />
with considerable foreboding." They made<br />
for the cloud, rigged the sail as a water<br />
catcher, and collected 10 gallons of the<br />
precious stuff in buckets.<br />
Still hundreds of miles from Antigua, with<br />
wives having already flown out to greet their<br />
arrival, they sighted a ship. "Over the<br />
horizon came a red funnel bearing a yellow<br />
scallop shell on top of an enormous white<br />
bridge. It was an AFRAMAX (125,000dwt)<br />
owned by Y.K. Pow of Hong Kong, which I<br />
knew was on bare boat charter to Shell for<br />
five years." Amherst hailed the ship,<br />
identified himself, and arranged for calls of<br />
reassurance to Antigua.<br />
"Weeks later," Amherst says, "back in the<br />
office I received an invoice from the<br />
Shipping Manager of Shell addressed to me<br />
in my full style for L10,000 for two crates of<br />
vintage champagne, 6 kilos of caviar, two<br />
crates of 40 year old port, and so on, transshipped<br />
in mid-Atlantic, which delayed the<br />
tanker a whole day for which they also<br />
wanted payment. The whole bill was written<br />
in old English – His Lordship this and His<br />
Lordship that. They sent a copy to my<br />
OWNER PROFILE<br />
managing director and all my clients and<br />
everyone, except perhaps me, thoroughly<br />
enjoyed the joke."<br />
Hugh Amherst is a private, reserved person.<br />
Some of that might be occupational hazard<br />
leftover from 40 years in the tight-lipped<br />
shipping business. Some surely emanates<br />
from his position as one of England’s titled<br />
gentry. His peerage dates to 1892, and one<br />
of his ancestors is Jeffery Amherst, who after<br />
serving as Commander in Chief of British<br />
forces that defeated the French in America,<br />
was created "Earl Amherst of Montreal." The<br />
family lineage includes two great-great<br />
grandfathers, the 1st Baron Amherst and the<br />
Marquess of Exeter, both Squadron<br />
members. That’s a heap of maritime heritage<br />
to lug around, but Hugh Amherst seems to<br />
bear it with a light heart, and a smile. While<br />
he has strong political opinions, and while he<br />
has spoken in the House of Lords, he would<br />
much rather be running the Royal Yacht<br />
Squadron....or sailing.<br />
Amherst has sailed his Lightwave 48 for 15<br />
years from the Baltic to the Caribbean and<br />
most places in between. "They only built 18<br />
of them," Amherst says, "mostly for the US<br />
market. I have the only one rigged as a<br />
cutter." He and his wife, Elisabeth, delight in<br />
finding quiet, out of the way anchorages<br />
where they can relax unfettered. They had<br />
discovered such an idyllic Caribbean spot<br />
one balmy evening when another sail boat<br />
arrived and dropped a hook nearby. Soon,<br />
the visitors’ dinghy was launched, and the<br />
skipper came rowing alongside. "He was<br />
excited because his boat was named Pal,<br />
and my Lightwave is named Hal," Amherst<br />
says. "He said his boat name came from his<br />
and his wife’s initials, Paul and Laurie. I<br />
didn’t have the heart to tell him Hal is<br />
named after Prince Hal from Shakespeare’s<br />
Henry VIII. So I said, isn’t that a<br />
coincidence. My boat is named for my wife<br />
and me: Hugh and Lis."<br />
Roger Vaughan<br />
Photographs: by kind permission of Lord Amherst<br />
Additional photographs: Roger Vaughan