Chapter 3

The Life and Last Voyage of Mike McMullen and
the Trimaran Three Cheers (1976)

Two virtual sister ships were involved in two tragic voyages under entirely separate circumstances, unrelated to each other or to any defects in their design or build. One voyage on the trimaran Three Cheers was made in 1976 and the other on the trimaran Bucks Fizz took place during the fateful Fastnet Race of 1979 (see Chapter 6).

*

In the late 1960s Dick Newick was a visionary yacht designer working out of St Croix in the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, beginning to make a name for himself in the then emerging world of multihulls. He began to produce a series of sleek, contoured and very fast two and three hulled yachts. They looked different from anything that had come before and took their inspiration from ancient Polynesian outrigger canoes. They were fun, delightful to sail and beautiful to look at.

In 1967 he produced a design for something quite revolutionary: a modern version of a vessel known as a proa. Like the traditional Polynesian boats, she had one hull and one outrigger or float and no bow or stern. Instead of tacking she merely reversed her direction of travel, always keeping her one float to leeward. She had a rudder at each end which could be raised when not in use and the two masts carried identical sails, the booms of which could be swung through 180 degrees. She was 40-foot-long and was christened Cheers. As Newick put it: “It sure helps if you can leave one hull at home.”

In 1968 Dick Newick entered this creation for the four-yearly Observer Single Handed Transatlantic Race from Plymouth in England to Newport on Rhode Island in the USA; the race is known to everyone as the OSTAR. Initially the race organising committee, the Royal Western Yacht Club of Plymouth, refused to accept this entry as they had never seen anything like it before and doubted its seaworthiness for a transatlantic voyage. This did not put off the team behind the project who continued with sea trials, despite the vessel capsizing in the lee of Guadeloupe (just what the organising committee feared would happen). Full of confidence Tom Follett, a very experienced American skipper who had been chosen for the job, set off to sail across the Atlantic to Plymouth. On arrival he was delighted to be told the entry would be accepted after all, so impressed were the committee by this voyage.

Heavy weather dominated the race that year and, despite this, Cheers finished in a fast time of 27 days, beaten only by two monohull yachts both over 50-foot long. Cheers was third overall and the first multihull to finish. No other proa has ever finished an OSTAR and later, after a number of accidents with them, they were banned from taking part.

Cheers made history and is now owned by a French couple who have restored her to her original condition and the French Government, where long distance yacht racing has become a major sport and a near religion, has declared the boat to be an historical monument. Richard Boehmer, a nautical historian, has written ‘I think it was not just the speed but also the beauty of Newick’s boats that so strongly stimulated the aesthetic sensibilities of the French.’

Back in St Croix, Newick turned his hand to the design of what became his most famous creation, a 46-foot trimaran to be called Three Cheers. She was beautiful to look at, with gentle curves and an exaggerated sheer to the main hull and amas (the Polynesian word used by Newick for the outriggers or floats). The three hulls were held together by a steeply curved turtle deck giving great strength and allowing spacious accommodation below. She was painted primrose yellow and was a joy to sail, seemingly skimming across the water like a large yellow bird. Three Cheers was yawl rigged and displaced only three tons, a staggeringly light weight in those days for a 46-foot yacht and she was sufficiently well balanced not to require any form of self-steering.

Years later when asked where he got the ideas for the 140 or so designs he completed Newick, who believed in reincarnation, said that he had been a Polynesian boat builder in a previous life. He described the Polynesians’ 4,000-year-old canoes as the wave of the future and said that the ancient and modern multihulled boats shared a theme – simplicity. He used to say that it took a good and creative person to do something simply and he famously remarked that one could only ever have in a boat two out of the three qualities: speed, comfort or cost. Newick died in California at the age of 87 on 28 August 2013.

Dick Newick and his colleague Jim Morris, who funded the ‘Cheers’ project, entered Three Cheers into the 1972 OSTAR. The tough American Tom Follett was again chosen as skipper to sail the trimaran across the Atlantic and then to sail her in the OSTAR. Follett sailed the 4,000 miles from the Virgin Islands to Plymouth in 24 days. In the weeks before the race the ‘Cheers’ team again made a big splash and the photogenic yellow trimaran was the centre of attraction.

One person who accepted the offer of a day sail on board Three Cheers, soon after her arrival, was a Royal Marine Captain called Michael McMullen, known to everyone as Mike. Mike who, up until then, had been extremely prejudiced against multihulls was smitten by this sail and said that he would never forget the experience. Three Cheers reached a speed of 18 knots in 15 knots of wind and he could not comprehend how a yacht could travel so fast. From that day onward his fascination with these unconventional yachts began.

*

Mike McMullen was an ebullient, larger-than-life, character: an extrovert who was instantly liked by everyone he met. He was strong, tough as nails and totally unafraid of anything. A ‘last one round the Horn’s a cissy’ type.

Mike was born in 1943, the same year as myself. We were both born into naval families and we both spent time in Malta and later in Paris, where our fathers were stationed.

Mike’s father was the renowned naval officer Colin McMullen, who died in 1991 aged 84. He was the gunnery officer on the battleship HMS Prince of Wales when the ship was engaged in the dramatic pursuit of the German battleship Bismark. Later he was probably the last man to leave the Prince of Wales, when she was sunk by the Japanese in one of the Royal Navy’s greatest disasters of the Second World War. There were 327 fatalities which included the Admiral and the Captain. He went on to captain a destroyer on several Arctic convoys (as did my father). After the war he served in the Mediterranean and in 1954 was in charge of the salvage operation to recover the wreck of the Comet airliner that crashed off Naples. I recall Commodore McMullen, as he then was, when he was stationed in Paris in 1954 living on a Dutch barge, the Bries, moored on the River Seine. I well remember dining on board the barge with my father when there was a thump and scuffle on deck and the Commodore’s steward came below to say he had rescued a body floating past the barge. “Well just throw the bloody thing back,” the Commodore roared. Coincidentally and later in her life, my aunt Monica (mentioned in Chapter 1) had a long love affair with a subsequent owner of the Bries and they spent many happy years living aboard and cruising the Mediterranean until the owner died.

Mike was educated at Marlborough College and started sailing at a young age. Mike learnt his seamanship on board his father’s and uncle’s yachts during his school holidays. Later Mike became an active member of the Royal Cruising Club: a somewhat exclusive set up whose members pride themselves on making long voyages under sail and keeping traditional seamanship alive, combined with lots of ship-visiting and socialising when in harbour. A number of the sailors mentioned in this book were members and Mike’s father was Commodore of the club from 1972 to 1977.

Mike was more an action man than an academic and, as a first job on leaving school, worked as a labourer on the construction of the road bridge high above the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Subsequently he joined the Royal Marines where he was commissioned. He later commanded a climbing wing and `was a Commando Arctic Warfare instructor in North Norway.

Mike’s first yacht was a diminutive 25-foot Contessa 26 called Binkie in which he and fellow Marine officer Martin Read took part in the second Two Handed Round Britain and Ireland Race in 1970.

This race, held every four years, had been conceived, along with the OSTAR, by the maverick inventive genius (and also ex Royal Marine officer) Blondie Hasler of ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ fame and much else beside. Blondie first had the idea for a single handed transatlantic race back in 1956 and, after several false starts, issued a press release in 1959 which said:

Described by one experienced yachtsman as ‘the most sporting event of the century’, a transatlantic race for single-handed sailing boats will start from the south coast of England on Saturday 11 June1960 and will finish in the approaches to New York at least a month later.

Blondie then set about finding a yacht club to organise the race and a newspaper to sponsor it. The Royal Western Yacht Club in Plymouth agreed to start the race and the Sunday newspaper, the Observer, agreed to sponsor it. Thus was born the sport of single- or short-handed ocean racing. This has become a worldwide sport and now involves large multi-million pound heavily sponsored boats (mainly French) racing at ever increasing speeds around the oceans of the world, often with a single person on board.

After the first two OSTARs, which were held at four yearly intervals, Blondie came up with the idea for another race: a two-handed race round the British Isles and Ireland with only four stops, each stop of exactly 48 hours. Many regard this race as a sterner test for boats and of seamanship than the OSTAR. The race, again organised by the Royal Western Yacht Club, starts from Plymouth and is divided into four legs with stops in Crosshaven in Ireland, Castle Bay in the Hebrides, Lerwick in the Shetlands and Lowestoft (the first race stopped at Harwich). No boat is allowed to leave a stop within 48 hours of its arrival. The course takes the boats outside the whole of Great Britain and Ireland and all outlying islands, including St Kilda and the Shetland Islands but excludes Rockall.

The first race was held in 1966 and was a great success. It was won by an innovative trimaran called Toria designed, built and sailed by Derek Kelsall. Of the sixteen starters, ten finished and the first six places were taken by multihulls.

For the second race, held in 1970, there were 25 starters of which 20 finished. Amongst the assembled fleet were such wellknown names as Robin Knox-Johnston, sailing a huge 71-foot monohull and the likeable American Phil Weld in a Kelsalldesigned trimaran Trumpeter. There was a strong Royal Naval and Royal Marine contingent, including Mike and Martin Read in Binkie, the smallest yacht in the fleet. They were one of the most popular crews, enjoying the hospitality at every stop and making everyone feel that there was no place in the world where they would rather be. They finished in a little over 27 days and won the race on handicap. A Contessa 26 is a tiny boat in which to circumnavigate the British Isles. They were helped on the first leg to Crosshaven by very light winds enabling Binkie to be rowed past several larger boats (this was allowed within the rules).

Writing after the race Mike said: ‘The leg from Crosshaven to Barra was for Binkie certainly alarming. Once round the south west corner of Eire a westerly gale blew up which lasted the whole way to the Hebrides. In winds gusting to Force 8 we ran up the Atlantic coast of Ireland before frighteningly large seas at a very high speed. Once we were knocked flat by a sea which gave us both unfavourable impressions of the whole proceedings and in a moment of weakness I almost (not quite) wished I was with 45 Commando over in Belfast 130 miles away.’

Off Muckle Flugga, the most northerly piece of land in the British Isles, Mike and Martin sailed Binkie close in to the rocky headland and inside a notorious tidal race. The principal lighthouse keeper, Mr Tulloch, was so impressed by this tactic that he rushed to hoist and dip his ensign in tribute, saying later that he thought it was a grand piece of sailing and he had to admire the crew for their daring.

On the last lap from Lowestoft to Plymouth, whilst the leaders faced yet another gale, Binkie had to contend with light winds and Mike and Martin rowed from the time they were off Salcombe until they reached Plymouth. They were rewarded by winning the Daily Express Trophy for the first yacht on corrected time. First boat home in the race was the huge and heavy Ocean Spirit sailed by Robin Knox-Johnston and naval officer Leslie Williams. It was quite an achievement for two people to sail a boat of that size around that course through some atrocious weather.

After the Round Britain Race Mike swapped Binkie for a larger yacht, a 32-foot Contessa 32, which Mike named Binkie II. This particular class of yacht, of which many were built, has acquired almost legendary status for its sea-keeping qualities and they have been chosen by many long distance sailors for long voyages, often to polar and high latitude regions. Mike had Binkie II built aiming to win the under 35ft prize in the 1972 OSTAR. She was launched in December 1971 and he took the sail number 45, being the number of his commando group.

The usual motley fleet began to assemble in Plymouth for the OSTAR in June 1972, ranging from the huge 128-foot staysail schooner Vendredi Treize, Eric Tabarly’s trimaran Pen Duick IV in the hands of Alain Colas, down to the diminutive 19-foot Willing Griffin. The popular Phil Weld appeared again with his trimaran Trumpeter, along with Sir Francis Chichester in his latest Gipsy Moth, Gipsy Moth V, despite having been advised by his doctors not to take part. There were 55 starters and Mike arrived in Binkie II with a fierce determination to win his class.

It is always instructive before these races to walk around the assembled fleet in Millbay Dock and watch the goings on aboard and around the boats. Some would be full of fevered activity with worried looking skippers and supporters trying to get everything ready and to get bits of equipment to work. Others would be calm and ordered, with the skippers pottering around happily chatting to friends and neighbours. From this you could glean a lot as to the boat’s likely success or otherwise.

The favourite, the trimaran Pen Duick IV, sat starkly in one corner of the dock, its aluminium structure a bit battered and bruised after Colas’ recent voyage from Tahiti to Europe, mostly single-handed. She was well prepared and ready to go, with Colas refusing to talk to well-wishers, saying he was keyed up for the race and not wanting any distractions. The Three Cheers team could hardly have been more different. Tom Follett was his usual affable self, handing out advice to first timers and speaking to anyone who approached. Dick Newick was, as ever, polite and only too pleased to show anyone over his new creation.

Over on another side of the Dock there were several boats holding never ending parties, one being Binkie II where Mike entertained his family, Royal Marine compatriots and friends from dawn to dusk.

A pre-race photograph of the OSTAR skippers shows Mike at the extreme top left corner looking confident and larger than life, shouting something at the camera with raised arms. Tom Follett, the skipper of Three Cheers, is sitting on the extreme bottom right of the same photograph looking away from the camera subdued, calm and pensive.

Up until this time Mike, like most yachtsmen, had not a good word to say about multihulls and Mike remembers pontificating at several yacht club bars to fellow sailors: “You will never get me out in one of those machines... unsafe... unstable... held together by bits of string... unfit to cross the Thames and bloody ugly!” Like thousands of others he was prepared to condemn, without trial, a type of vessel about which he knew nothing and had never sailed. However, as he joined the assembled craft at Plymouth before the race he became aware of the large multihull entry, mostly trimarans and he admitted to a latent curiosity about them. It was then that Mike enjoyed his day sail on board Three Cheers, which totally changed his attitude.

A brisk south westerly wind was blowing as the fleet sped away from the start line on Saturday 17 June 1972. Jean-Yves Terlain eased his massive 128-foot Vendredi Treize through the unruly spectator fleet with Gallic coolness. Phil Weld in this his first OSTAR (he was later to become a winner) sped past the big French boat in his trimaran Trumpeter, pursued by Mike in Binkie II. The competitors, after some initial strong winds in the Western Approaches, faced a lot of benign weather and on arrival at Newport most complained more of calms and fog than of gales and bad weather.

This was to be the year of the French. They captured the first three places, the winner being Alain Colas in the trimaran Pen Duick IV. He completed the course in 20 days. The huge threemasted schooner Vendredi Treize limped in the next day having had to put into Newfoundland for repairs. Disappointingly Three Cheers came in fifth taking 27 days.

Before the start Tom Follett had stated that he could reach Newport in 16 days but after 25 days the race organisers began to wonder what had happened; in those days there was virtually no contact with the shore, few had transmitting radios and no one had monitoring beacons. A look of concern began to appear on the faces of the waiting team. In the week before Follett arrived a heavy fog descended on the area and most thought or hoped that he was just becalmed. Eventually on day 27 Three Cheers arrived unannounced; the yellow bird looming suddenly out of the fog having been missed by the Coastguard and by the awaiting boat on the finish line.

Follett reported having had very bad winds and on one day he made only 31 miles; he had lots of poor daily runs of 60, 70 or 80 miles. This was from a boat easily capable of making 300 miles a day in the right conditions. Follett, who took the minimum of stores with him, nearly ran out of water and supplies. At the end he had a gallon of water left, two cans of soup, one can of carrots and a few crisps. He also reported that he was nearly run down by a cargo ship on the second day out from Plymouth.

Mike nearly achieved his objective of winning the under 35-foot prize, completing the course in just over 31 days. He was less than four days behind the much faster and larger Three Cheers. Mike and Binkie II were beaten in their class only by a brilliant performance from the Frenchman Alain Gliksman in his 35-foot-long Toucan who came in eighth overall in 28 days, having had an extremely wet and uncomfortable crossing. Toucan was basically an open day boat designed for sailing on the Swiss lakes. She was little more than an overgrown dinghy onto which Alain had built a deck and a small cabin. It was all he could afford.

As was to be expected, on arrival Mike was greeting everyone, sipping champagne with abandon, before the fenders were over the side. Within minutes he had a party going and this was at nine o’clock in the morning. 32 days alone at sea had not dimmed his joie de vivre.

Binkie II took thirteenth place overall. Mike took the northern route after leaving Land’s End but was frustrated by calms and fog. The only real problem he had was with a deck fitting holding the foot of the forestay, which broke in a force 7 wind. It took him several hours to repair. Before crossing the finishing line, he sailed very close in to Martha’s Vineyard, a risky venture even with good visibility. He saw nothing in the fog, save for one channel buoy, navigating on echo-soundings and rough bearings from his direction finding radio. The local Coastguard Chief, and an expert on those dangerous waters, said glumly that Mike shouldn’t boast too much about what he had done. Despite all his bonhomie, Mike was serious about the risks involved in this sort of racing and admitted to fear when amongst icebergs. He recounted how frightened he was when nearly run down in thick fog near the Brenton Tower.

The saddest story of the 1972 race was that of Sir Frances Chichester and his Gipsy Moth V. Sir Francis gave up within a week due to ill health and started to head back toward Plymouth. Confusion then arose and a message he passed back to an RAF Nimrod aircraft was misinterpreted. A full rescue operation was mounted and a French weather ship, France II, hoping to help out the old mariner, came too close and broke the yacht’s mizzen mast making it almost impossible for the yacht to be sailed home. HMS Salisbury, a Royal Navy frigate, was despatched with Sir Francis’s son Giles on board, together with a friend and a rigging expert. They were put aboard the stricken yacht which they sailed home. Sadly, France II, having disabled Gipsy Moth V, then collided with an American yacht called Lefteria, the crew of which were also trying to find and help the single-hander. The yacht sank, four of her crew were rescued and one body recovered. The other six crew members went missing. In all seven lives were lost. A sad end to a chapter of misplaced well-intentions. This turned out to be Sir Francis’s last voyage and he died in his bed before the year was out.

Mike McMullen on board Three Cheers

After the race, Mike approached Dick Newick to enquire if Three Cheers might be for sale. The answer was positive and Mike set about finding the funds to buy her. A throwaway line in Mike’s book Multihull Seamanship gave the clue as to how the purchase of Three Cheers was arranged. In the forward to his book Mike gave thanks ‘to the kindness of his father’s cousin, Paul Mellon, for buying and lending him Three Cheers.’

The family relationship between the McMullens and the immensely rich Mellon family goes back two generations. In 1900 Andrew Mellon, founder of the dynasty, married a nineteenyear- old English girl, Nora McMullen, who was Mike’s father’s aunt. The marriage was a disaster but they had two children. One, their son Paul, was born in 1907 and he inherited his father’s wealth. By 1972 he was one of the richest men in America. Mike, or his father, approached him and he agreed to buy Three Cheers and allow Mike to sail and look after her as if she was his own.

Mike sailed the boat back across the Atlantic to England and based her in Lymington in Hampshire, where he lived with his recently married wife, Lizzie. During the next few years he sailed Three Cheers long and hard around the United Kingdom, with further passages abroad. The sight of this yellow bird skimming the waters of the Solent became well known. He began to learn how to handle multihulls, which behave very differently from single-hulled yachts, and how to get the best out of Three Cheers. Mike entered her in the 1973 Crystal Trophy, the premier UK race for multihulls, with a course from the Solent to Cherbourg, then down channel to the Wolf Rock off the southern tip of Cornwall and back to Cowes. Three Cheers won.

He took the trimaran on a family cruise to Spain, despite her minimal accommodation. In Mike’s book Multihull Seamanship there are several photographs of Three Cheers on this cruise, one showing her hauled up on a Spanish beach and another motoring into a rocky bay.

In 1974 Mike and Three Cheers were joined in England by another Newick-designed trimaran, the 60-foot Gulf Streamer. She was built at great cost in America for Massachusetts newspaper proprietor Phil Weld and sailed over to England by him earlier that year. She was basically a blown up Three Cheers but with three crossbeams taking the place of the turtle deck. She was blisteringly fast, extremely comfortable, extremely well equipped and sailed hard by Weld. In later years he became a popular figure and a good friend to many people in England, including myself.

It was the intention of both skippers to enter their trimarans in the forthcoming Round Britain and Ireland Race which was due to start in June of that year. The two boats sparred with each other during the early part of the 1974 season and there is an iconic and much reproduced Beken photograph of the two Newick trimarans close reaching at speed in the Solent. Both boats took part in several short races and Gulf Streamer won the 1974 Crystal Trophy with ease.

The 1974 Round Britain Race was a glittering affair with 61 starters from six nations. Robin Knox-Johnston returned, this time at the helm of a fast 70-foot catamaran, British Oxygen. Phil Weld and Mike (crewed again by his fellow marine Martin Read) were there with their Newick boats, as was Alain Colas with the old trimaran Pen Duick IV, now named Manureva. She was looking tired, battered and bruised having recently returned from a solo round the world trip. There were some new Kelsall-designed trimarans, notably David Palmer (then the news editor of the Financial Times) with his salmon pink FT and Nick Keig, a jovial photographer from the Isle of Mann, with Three Legs of Mann, a self-built boat which proved extremely fast.

Light winds predominated during the first leg to Crosshaven and British Oxygen arrived first, followed closely by Three Cheers. Manureva could only come in tenth, a position from which Colas never recovered; from then on merely following the leaders around the course. He said afterwards that he had underestimated the quality of the opposition and that he should have removed much of the heavy equipment used in his circumnavigation. Gulf Streamer came in fourth, with another trimaran, Triple Arrow, coming in third. On the second leg to Barra, Mike and Three Cheers came in one hour behind Gulf Streamer, who was now second overall to British Oxygen. The slower boats experienced much bad weather on this leg. On the third leg to Lerwick in the Shetland Islands the leaders had favourable weather and Three Cheers came in first.

Disaster nearly struck Three Cheers on the next leg south to Lowestoft. She was powering to windward over a dull grey lumpy North Sea when Mike went forward to change a headsail in a strengthening wind. He was pitched overboard from a heaving deck. Being on the foredeck of a multihull working to windward at speed is akin to being bounced up and down on a trampoline. Gulf Streamer was in sight two miles off and British Oxygen was to seaward of them. It was the crew’s normal practice on Three Cheers, when changing a headsail going to windward (virtually no-one had furling headsails in those days), to slow the boat as much as possible by pinching her close to the wind so that movement is at a minimum. This is what they did and Mike went forward and changed the sails without a hitch. Mike hoisted the new smaller sail, whilst Martin at the helm paid the boat off and started to winch in the sheet. However, the sheets had fouled themselves into a ‘steel ball’ so Mike dropped the sail and, without thinking, rushed forward to clear the jam. By now the boat had accelerated and was charging to windward at about nine knots. Within seconds Mike was pitched overboard. Luckily, Mike still had hold of a line and only half of him was in the water. Martin, seeing what had happened, shoved the helm hard over which brought the boat into the wind and stopped her. Martin rushed forward to help Mike back aboard. But, by the time he had reached him, the pull of the water had got at Mike, he could no longer hold on and he was gone – Martin could only see a flash of yellow in the grey sea.

The next thing Mike remembers was a painful bang on his left thigh as he went underneath the boat and hit the rudder at about 5 knots. He came up on the other side to find the boat hove to on the other tack with staysail aback some 30 metres upwind. Luckily she was drifting downwind faster than Mike was, both drifting in the same direction. As Mike put it in his book, ‘like a true lady, she drifted straight back to me.’

The problem now was that although Mike was holding onto the lee float, he could not haul himself aboard and the leeway the boat was making was pushing Mike under. Mike, who was a very large man, was wearing seaboots, longjohns, trousers, shirt, two sweaters, oilskin trousers with braces and a fisherman’s smock that came down to his knees. They concluded the only way to get Mike on board was for Martin to winch him up on a halyard. Martin lowered all sails, other than the mizzen, to try to slow her down. Martin then got a rope around Mike and winched him aboard. It took them a long time to get going again. By this time British Oxygen was away and over the horizon.

Mike admitted later that he had nearly drowned and, had Martin not been so quick thinking to crash stop the boat but had adopted the more traditional procedure of sailing the boat off in a circle to bring her back alongside the casualty, Mike thinks he would have been long gone. He said, “I was swallowing water so fast in the rough sea and, weighed down by clothing, I could not get out of, I felt that drowning could not have been too many minutes away.”

One must question why Mike and Martin, both experienced sailors, were not wearing safety harnesses or life jackets. If Mike had worn a harness, he would not have been separated from the boat and Martin could have winched Mike aboard from the foredeck. A life jacket would have given Mike sufficient buoyancy to stay afloat until winched back on board. It is easy to criticise and it must be remembered that life jackets were little used in the 1970s and safety harnesses were often only donned at night or in really bad weather. We are all a little wiser nowadays and Mike admitted that he had learnt the hard way and was lucky to survive.

This accident allowed British Oxygen to get clear away and she arrived in Lowestoft first, some nine hours ahead. The final leg back to Plymouth was sailed in light conditions which slowed British Oxygen somewhat. Robin Knox-Johnston sailed her over the finishing line in first place in an elapsed time of just over 18 days. Three Cheers came in second only one and a half hours later. One speculates as to who would have been the winner had Three Cheers not lost time sorting out their problems after the man overboard incident. Whatever the position, it was a great piece of sailing by Mike and Martin in a boat much smaller than British Oxygen. Gulf Streamer, also a much larger and faster boat, came in third over two hours later.

Between 1974 and 1976, Mike continued to sail Three Cheers both in local races and on family cruises. In 1975, as part of his work up for the OSTAR, he took Three Cheers, with his wife Lizzie and a friend as crew, on a six-week cruise around the Western Isles of Scotland. They left the River Severn in May, where Mike had had much work done to ‘civilize’ Three Cheers – he widened the bunks, installed such luxuries as seats and a table and fitted a proper marine toilet (Lizzie had decided it was between her or the black bucket if she was to live on board for six weeks!). They reached St Kilda in good weather, anchoring in Village Bay, then they attempted a landing on the uninhabited Flannan Islands, scene of an unsolved tragedy in 1900 when the entire crew of three lighthouse keepers disappeared without trace. Bad weather prevented landing but they went on to visit North Rona, another uninhabited island deep into the north Atlantic. This cruise would have been an achievement for a well-equipped cruising yacht with a full crew but for a light weight racing trimaran it was outstanding.

In this period Mike also completed work on his only published book entitled Multihull Seamanship which was published in 1976 with a foreword by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. Whilst somewhat over reliant on the design and attributes of, and his experiences with, Three Cheers, the only multihull Mike had ever sailed in earnest, the book contains much of interest and much good advice. The sections on ‘Accidents and Safety’ and ‘Heavy Weather’ are of particular interest in the light of what may or may not have happened to Mike on his last trip in Three Cheers later that year.

There now occurred one of those strange coincidences that kept cropping up during my research for this book. I discovered in a discussion on an internet forum a reference to the fact that at some stage prior to the 1976 OSTAR Mike McMullen took the old irascible sea-dog H W ‘Bill’ Tilman (see the next Chapter) for a spin in Three Cheers. One can hardly think of a less likely meeting. The old mountaineer and ocean adventurer used to sailing lumbering heavy and out of date pilot cutters and the young brash ex-Marine commando showing off his almost weightless primrose yellow super-fast sailing machine. The web blog states that Mike invited Tilman and his crew out for a sail after an evening spent in a pub and on board Tilman’s last boat, the decrepit and decaying pilot cutter Baroque.

It turned out that Tilman liked Mike a lot and actually strongly approved of Three Cheers, saying that she was just what a boat should be: small, simple rig, sensible accommodation, easy to manage, fast and seaworthy. But of course, he continued, no good for what he liked to do as she was unable to carry a crew of five or to work through pack ice. He said that, if he did what Mike was doing, then Three Cheers was the boat he would have had.

So we come to the 1976 OSTAR and the tragedy that led to Mike’s final voyage. That year’s race was immersed in controversy from the outset. Following on from the 1972 race (and the 128-foot-long Vendredi Treize) there was much discussion by the organisers as to whether or how to control the size of entrants. Blondie Hasler wanted an upper size limit of 65 feet. Others wanted to impose a time penalty on boats of over 50 feet. In the event the organisers, probably mistakenly, did no such thing but, instead, divided the fleet into three classes – the Jester Class for boats less than 28 feet on the waterline, the Gipsy Moth Class for boats less than 46 feet on the waterline and the Pen Duick Class for yachts bigger than this. There was no upper size limit.

Alain Colas entered the massive 236-foot Club Mediterranee amid much controversy (as described in more detail in Chapter 5). When Club Mediterranee arrived in Plymouth she astounded all who saw her, especially when comparing her with the smallest entry, Spirit of Surprise, a 25-foot modified racing Hellcat catamaran, designed for afternoon racing on inland or inshore waters. The on-board accommodation was two slots in the hulls into which the skipper could slide into a reclining, but not lying, position! (The skipper Ambrogio Fogar, a controversial figure at the best of times, actually made it as far as the Azores before retiring.)

The pre-race jamboree in Plymouth was characterised by the usual chaos on some entries, calm on others and much partying on others. Notable amongst the latter group was, of course, Mike on Three Cheers, and a new entrant to these races, the gregarious yacht designer Angus Primrose on his own designed boat, a Moody 33, Demon Demo.

The race that year was extremely competitive and all the big names in short-handed racing turned up. Eric Tabarly was there with his Pen Duick VI, a huge and heavy 73-foot-long ketch, normally sailed by a crew of 12 or 14, and last used in a fully crewed round-the-world race. Tabarly arrived with an army (or rather French navy) of helpers and sat quietly in a corner of his cockpit saying little but occasionally issuing an order and watching it being carried out, the complete professional, unruffled, unhurried and totally self-contained.

125 yachts had been passed by the scrutineers and were readying themselves to start the race when tragedy struck. On Thursday 3 June, only 48 hours before the start, Mike had Three Cheers lifted out of the water onto the hard standing at Mashford’s Boatyard, just across the River Tamar from where the OSTAR fleet was assembled. He wanted to set off with three clean and polished bottoms. Lizzie, his wife, was helping him and was using an electric polisher plugged into the mains electricity. She dropped the polisher into a puddle of shallow water underneath the boat and without thinking stooped down to pick it up. She was electrocuted and collapsed.

Lizzie was taken to nearby Stonehouse Hospital. Richard Clifford, also a Marine and Mike’s friend and fellow OSTAR competitor, was one of the first to hear the news and sped on his bicycle to the hospital where he joined Martin Read (Mike’s co-skipper in earlier races) and some other friends in the emergency ward where they were trying to resuscitate Lizzie. This was unsuccessful and she was pronounced dead.

It is hard to get across the huge impact this tragedy had on the close knit group of sailors assembled in Plymouth, a group highly emotionally charged anyway with the start just hours away. Richard Clifford volunteered to break the news to all the others and cycled back to Millbay Dock. That evening’s entertainment was subdued and everyone was hushed and shocked.

People were devastated. Within hours it was proposed that a trophy should be created in Lizzie’s memory and donations were forthcoming from all sides. Thus the Lizzie McMullen Memorial Trophy was born, a silver plated model of Three Cheers. It has been awarded ever since to the first multihull to finish an OSTAR.

Lizzie’s funeral took place the following day. With great courage Mike decided that Lizzie would have wanted him to continue with the race, which he had a real chance of winning despite the intense competition. Everyone was sure Lizzie would have wanted him to go.

The next day Mike set off with the rest of the fleet.

The start took place in light weather, just as well with the huge Club Mediterranee threading its way amongst an armada of press and spectator boats. One competitor, Henk Jukkema, took an iconic photograph of Mike sitting calmly at the helm of Three Cheers as he made his way to the start.

Late the next day Three Cheers was sighted off Galley Head on the south west coast of Ireland. A local fisherman spoke to Mike as he sailed past in light weather. This was the last ever sighting of the trimaran.

Twenty-four days after the start, multihulls smaller and slower than Three Cheers began to cross the finishing line in Newport, led by Mike Birch in the diminutive Third Turtle. Fears began to grow for McMullen’s safety. It should be emphasised that, in those days, competitors did not have any form of tracking device and few boats were fitted with long distance radio transmitters. Once a competitor had sailed over the horizon he had to all intents and purposes disappeared until spotted by another ship or until land was reached.

After thirty-three days at sea, Richard Clifford crossed the finishing line in 30th place, to find Gill McMullen, Mike’s mother, still anxiously waiting for him. Lizzie’s mother had also made the trip to Newport. A Royal Navy ship had been diverted to search for the trimaran. Everyone in Newport remained very positive. “Oh, Mike will turn up,” they said. Projected courses for Three Cheers were drawn up and computerised models for the drift of a stricken yacht in the North Atlantic were made. An aerial search based on these was carried out but this produced no sightings.

Three Cheers at the start of the 1976 OSTAR

Most people think that Mike’s disappearance stemmed from his determination to win the event for his late wife, so he threw caution to the winds and ‘just went for it’. No one will ever know what really happened. There was gale after gale during the race. Maybe Mike flipped Three Cheers, maybe he was in a collision with another boat or with an iceberg or maybe the boat just broke up, driven too hard.

Before the race there were the inevitable discussions between competitors as to what course to take for Newport. Basically there are three available routes. The southerly route is the longest but gives one the best weather. The rhumb line route, favoured by most competitors, is shorter and should keep one south of the worst weather. The great circle route is the shortest but takes one far north into the region of storms, ice and fog and close to Newfoundland. In theory one is then north of the depressions rushing east across the Atlantic getting favourable winds for much of the time but with a greater danger from ice and fog.

I believe that Mike took a route far to the north and that somewhere up there, whilst sailing hard, he was simply overwhelmed by bad weather which flipped the multihull, which subsequently broke up.

The only evidence for this is the finding of two pieces of wreckage from Three Cheers near Iceland. The first piece was some wreckage found in July 1977, washed ashore four and a half miles west of Iceland’s Thoras River. This consisted of part of a trimaran’s ama or float together with part of a sail with the sail number 9 (Three Cheers sail number for the race was 99). The wreckage was positively identified as part of Three Cheers. This finding was not reported to the UK until three years later, in October 1980 (relations between Iceland and the UK were not good at that time with the cod wars in full spate).

Another part of Three Cheers was found in 1980. In a somewhat ironic twist this was reported to the UK just days before the start of the 1980 OSTAR. An Icelandic trawler off the south coast of Iceland had dredged up a piece of wreckage which had some electronic instruments attached. The serial numbers of these were identified by the manufacturers, Brookes & Gatehouse, as being those installed on Three Cheers.

No other trace of the boat or of Mike McMullen has ever been found.