Geoff Tayler
I’ve just purchased a Sonata named Paloma, which is now moored once more at Hebe Haven Yacht Club in Hong Kong. I would be grateful to hear from anyone who knows anything about the history of this boat, which I believe orginally came to Hong Kong from Burnhan on Crouch in the late 70s. I’ve been able to trace back ownership to 2002 and an entry on this forum by Arni. Before than the trail goes cold.
Any previous owners still out there ?
Nielsen
Do you know of any Sonatas in Denmark? I own one by the name of “søs”
Geoff Tayler
Disappointing that no other members have any recolections of Paloma, but it was a long shot. Thanks to Chris for filling in one of the gaps and extending my history for Paloma a little.
Meanwhile progress on restoring Paloma to her former glory is slow but steady. We have recently completed a major refit over the winter and I thought other members might be interested in some of the issues we’ve faced. Some of the problems have been covered in this forum, others are new, and some of my solutions are unconventional.
Anyone interested can find a record of the work done on my website http://www.tayler.jp/sailing and your comments are welcome. There are a number of Sonata’s going to rot on their moorings here in Hong Kong and since I’ve been writing about my experiences there’s a flutter of interest in restoring a few more. There’s even some interest in re-establishing a Sonata one design class at HHYC if we can draft in some more boats.
One thing of note – since we no longer have a class association here in Hong Kong, I’ve not constrained myself too rigorously to stay within class rules as I’ve refitted the boat. I’m quite aware of this – so spare me the flame messages if you read my site.
Chris Bentley
Hi Geoff,
Paloma was the boat I sailed in the 1990 “Sonata World Champs” in Hong Kong. At that time there were 24 Sonatas at RHKYC which were raced and one which had sunk and been recovered to house a local family of 15 in the Typhoon Harbour! The basis of the Champs were that, if you could get yourself to HK that October the local fleet would offer one of 12 boats, the bottom half of the fleet, to visitors for a week of racing. Hence the ” ” around World Champs. We didn’t do terribly well on the race course with Paloma, for reasons that I won’t go into here, but we had an unforgettable time with RHKYC and sailing off the South side of the island.
At that time the owner of Paloma was the manager of the Excelsior hotel. His name escapes me but I might be able to dig it out. 12 crews went out from UK, quite a few from our area, South East England and particularly Burnham on Crouch. Again, I might be able to search out some names for you to contact.
It’s great to get your post. One of my ambitions, still a long way off fulfilment, is to try and trace all the Sonatas ever built. We also have a plan to try to document their history as far as we can. Keep watching here and I will post more when I can. Welcome to the Sonata Association!