Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine - August 2017

— Continued from previous page
Eight Bells: Reg Potterton
Reg Potterton died on July 7th at age 81. A skipper for Stevens Yachts charter
company in St. Lucia in the 1970s who had sailed his own wooden Hillyard-designed
PRESS GAZETTE UK
the Frangipani bar. I think he retained her for a while as well!
“I am not sure, however, that he actually navigated the Gulfstar 50 from Annapolis
to St. Lucia on his own: he would have thought a sextant must have some other
function, more related to its name.”
Reg was married three times and also had a longstanding relationship with
Sigmund Freud’s great-granddaughter, Nicola Freud. His children Graham and Jane
were born to his first wife, Valerie, and Alexander Tom to his second wife, Sallie.
Another son named Tom (he once said he wanted to be the person with the most
children named Tom) was born to Nicola. His third wife, Sharron, survives him, as do
his sister and brother and eight grandchildren.
Serial Yacht Robbery Suspects at Large
In a letter from Chris and Sandra Mennem in last month’s Readers’ Forum, the Mennems
noted that the three men charged with the violent assault and robbery aboard their
yacht in the Tobago Cays in May of 2016 — Jordan Forde (age 23), Ulrick Hanson (age
26) and Joe Lewis (age unknown), all residents of the island of Mayreau in the
Grenadines — will not be prosecuted. The Mennems wrote, “The Public Prosecutor
declared that there was not enough evidence to proceed. This was down to the fact
that the Police made absolutely no effort to obtain any evidence; they did not attend
the scene of the crime and therefore did not take any photos (we did that ourselves), no
fingerprints were taken of the assault weapon and incriminating evidence that we found
on the boat was dismissed.” This despite the fact that, according to a June 3rd, 2016
report in the local newspaper The Vincentian, these “three men were remanded after
being denied bail when they appeared at the Serious Offences Court on Monday,
CHRIS DOYLE
ketch to the Caribbean from his native England, Reg was known in the wider world
as a journalist. He worked as a feature writer for Playboy magazine and for the
National Enquirer, and as a correspondent for Reuters news agency, before becoming
editor of the Florida-based magazine Yachts International. He also ghost-wrote
travel articles for novelist Len Deighton and co-wrote, with Lynda Milito, the biography
Mafia Wife: My Story of Love, Murder and Madness.
Ian Cowan, who was manager of Stevens Yachts when Reg was a skipper, recalls:
“Yes, Reg was actually a skipper — hired, I am sure, by [company owner] Bill Stevens
based entirely on the fact that Bill saw a good chance of good ‘decorations’ on
the yacht Reg was on!
“The couple of things I remember among many was the day Reg said he was having
a lot of trouble in un-furling his main. I took a look and found that the lead block
on the coach-roof was almost cut to the axle, acting like a jam cleat; Reg looked
and admitted he had never considered any oil being needed. I still have a couple
of the replacement sheaves we got from Scheafer, made in bronze to ensure they
would not be a problem again.
“Then there was a deal where Reg went off to Bequia where, he assured me, he
would find a charter cook. The single day he had there proved enough, I understand.
He managed to acquire the new wife of a honeymoon couple he ran into at
Two violent crimes against yachts in the usually peaceful Tobago Cays
are as yet unsolved
charged with the robbery of an English couple… In objecting to bail, Senior Prosecutor
Adlophus Delpleche highlighted that police are carrying out a series of investigations into
matters of a similar nature, and the three accused persons are of interest to them.”
A search by the Caribbean Safety and Security Net (CSSN) of their own records and
local press articles has established that Forde and Hanson had been charged with previous
violent crimes against yachts in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Forde and Hanson
were charged in a very similar assault and robbery of cruisers Allen and Kate Barry
aboard their yacht, Mendocino Queen, in the Tobago Cays on July 2nd, 2011, which was
reported to CSSN and Noonsite, and in the September 2011 issue of Caribbean Compass
(see www.caribbeancompass.com/online/september11compass_online.pdf, page 30).
—Continued on next page
AUGUST 2017 CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 5
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Operating Hours: Mon - Sat, from 8am to 6pm