Schooner Russamee - sleeps 6 - Virgin Islands - Outer Banks

In 1972 the keels were laid for two nearly identical schooners in the yard of Oriental Marine in Chun Buri, Thailand just outside of Bangkok.

One was to be named “Russamee” which, although Anglicized, means “Aura of a Celestial [website address hidden]a beautiful woman” The other was named “Kynaree”. The designer, Leonard Hedges of New South Wales, Australia had very meticulously specified the materials and techniques for construction. The keelson, sawn frames, floors, planks deck beams and much of the interior joinery was to be a tropical hardwood called Mai Takien Thong, a very dense and rot resistant wood. All the rest, decks, houses cabinets specified the use of Burmese Teak. The fastening of the planks to the frames, butt blocks, keelson, stem, horn timber and other critical areas were to use trunnels(wooden pegs), a time proven but labor intensive method of fastening. All the timber was to be first choice and is massive, many of the planks being full length of the hull without butt blocks.

“Russamee” is a stout and properly built vessel from a bygone era.

Her maiden voyage in 1974 from Bangkok to Hong Kong was made under the command of a British Army Major and 12 “volunteers” across the South China Sea as a training mission.
Under the Majors persevering command, she survived two typhoons, unfriendly gunboats, cold, fatigue and made the 2700 nautical mile passage in 27 days arriving on reduced rations and empty fuel tanks.

Much later, after the end of the Vietnam War, the voyage was “declassified” and rather than being a “training mission” was an intelligence gathering foray. Her sister ship, “Kynaree” was disabled on the same mission and made it to port and the crew saved, but the vessel lost in the fall of South Vietnam.

“Russamee” then spent some years wandering across the South Pacific, chartering, logging some 40,000 nautical miles and eventually ended up in Washington state. For the next ten years, under new ownership,she was engaged in scientific whale tracking expeditions along the Pacific Coast and Central America, some expeditions sponsored by National Geographic.

After transiting the Panama Canal she found herself in Beaufort, NC where she now has started a new life.