Ann Davison

The British Ann Davison (* 1912 , † 1992 ) is the first woman to sail one-handed across an ocean - the Atlantic. A previous attempt to go on a long-haul voyage with her husband Frank Davison had resulted in the ship's sinking and the death of Frank Davison.

Life

youth

Ann Davison (not her maiden name) grew up on the northeast coast of England and spent time as a child in the resort of Seaton Carew (near Hartlepool ). In her youth, she began to be enthusiastic about horses and riding. In her studies, she said she would later be more concerned with horses and giving riding lessons than with her actual subject.

21 birthday her father and a friend gave a trip to an experimental farm in the province of Entre Rios in Argentina . There the young woman was initially primarily interested in horses. The farm also had an airplane, a Curtiss JN, in which Ann Davison was once taken and given a "flying lesson".

On her return to Great Britain, she then undertook training to become a pilot with a B license, which, according to her own estimates, probably only had a dozen women in Great Britain at that time. She initially freelanced on charter, commercial and other flights near London.

The years with Frank Davison

In 1937 the young woman found a job at the private airfield Hooton Park on the River Mersey (near the Manchester Ship Canal ) in Cheshire , England , which was operated by Frank Davison (approx. * 1899). Frank Davison was originally from the same area as Ann, even spending days on the beach in the same place as a child. At the age of a little over 20, Frank Davison went to Canada, worked in a logging camp and as a gold panner, invested in the grain market and in an oil company, paddled through little-explored areas of the Peace River area and went dog sledding on at least one occasion. When he gave a lecture by Dr. When Grenfell met, he took him to Labrador to fix an X-ray machine. He returned from Labrador on a cutter (sailing boat) shortly before the watercourses freeze over and sailed up the Saint Lawrence River . In the early 1920s, Frank Davison returned from Canada and worked for his father, a dealer in railroad freight cars and, more rarely, steam cranes and other products. Frank Davison later set up the sailing area in Hooton, which offered flights for the British Air Force ("cooperation flights "), for press photographers, aerial photography and other target groups. Due to a visual defect in one eye, Davison could not acquire a B-flight license himself and took care of the administration of the airfield. He also had an amateur (A) license and had flown over and over again for the twenty years before Ann met him.

When Ann came to Hooton, Frank Davison was married to pilot Joy Davison. When Ann and Frank Davison fell in love with Hooton during Ann's first winter, Joy Davison agreed to divorce. Shortly after the consensual divorce, Ann and Frank Davison married. Joy Davison died a year later in an aircraft accident.

During World War II , the airfield was seized by the British Air Force and the Davisons had to give up their home at the airfield and moved to two acres of leased land, called Merebrook , in the heart of Wirral , about ten kilometers from Birkenhead . Since Frank Davison had inherited the mining rights for two gravel quarries from his father , he set up the mining of the two quarries. During this time, Ann Davison was working on the leased land, on which she also kept two ponies, which she used, among other things, as carriage ponies for shopping and selling the cultivated fruits and vegetables. In addition, the Davisons bought the first chickens and geese as well as goats during this time, the latter initially as a milk supplier, since the land would not have been enough as pasture for a cow. However, after less than three years in Merebrook , a harsh winter ensued , after which gravel demolition temporarily halted and mortgage payments (on the gravel quarries) became overdue. When the temperatures rose and gravel production resumed, the mortgages had already been declared forfeit. Since the leased land was unsuitable for intensive cultivation, the Davisons - initiated by the book Dream Island Days by RM Lockley about life on a small island off the Welsh coast - moved to an island of Inchmurrin in the Scottish lake Loch Lomond , where they found geese and raised goats. They maintained their connection with the mainland by means of a sailing boat, a small, open keel boat , which was mainly operated by Frank Davison, who was a fan of sailing . After a few months, the Davisons bought the smaller island of Inchfad , located in the same lake, and in September 1944 they were the only residents to move to the 50-hectare island. After the one-year lease for the sailboat expired, they bought the hull of a 30- foot (9-meter) long boat, which they converted into a pure motorboat. Ann Davison gained almost no sailing experience during her time on the islands.

In search of adventure, the Davisons planned a circumnavigation of the world in the rugged but derelict ketch (two-master) Reliance , a 70-foot (21.3-meter) long fishing trawler. They wanted to earn their living by writing about their experiences. But the ship's fixture at Fleetwood , Lancashire, took longer and cost more than the couple could raise, and the Davisons had to take on debt as a result. When the lenders wanted to claim the mortgage on the Reliance in 1949 , the couple unceremoniously set off on their long journey to Havana .

The company ended in disaster, however, as the Reliance got caught in a belated spring storm right at the start of the voyage . In order not to run the risk of being stopped in an Irish port because of their debts, the Davisons tried to weather the storm on the open sea. But the ship's engine failed and the stove overturned and started a fire. In an attempt to save themselves and the ship, the Davisons worked to the point of exhaustion. As a result, Frank Davison was temporarily out of his mind and Ann Davison had to take care of her husband and the Reliance alone . When other ships offered to help, the Davisons declined and preferred to try to call at a small port that they could leave unnoticed when the weather improved. But the Reliance sank. For a whole night the Davisons managed to hold on to a small cork raft at sea. Eventually Ann Davison was washed ashore, while Frank Davison was killed. - Ann Davison recorded the events in her 1952 book Last Voyage. An Autobiographical Account of All that Led Up to an Illicit Voyage and the Outcome Thereof (for example: "Last Journey. An autobiographical account of everything that led to an unauthorized journey and its outcome").

The Atlantic crossing

But Ann Davison never let go of the idea of ​​a long sailing trip. In 1952, she bought the 23-foot (7-meter) long, 4.5-ton Bermuda sloop Felicity Ann . Construction of the yacht had already started in 1939 (then under the name Peter Piper ), but was delayed until 1949 due to the Second World War. 1949-built timber ship eventually ran as Felicity Ann from the stack . So when Davison bought it, it was just three years old.

After a few test drives, Davison ran out of Plymouth on May 18, 1952 with the Felicity Ann , whose sails were colored dark blue through a process to increase the resistance. Until then, despite the short voyage on the Reliance , the British woman said she had hardly any sailing experience. After a stage to Las Palmas on Gran Canaria ( Canary Islands ), Davison sailed 3300 miles from December 1, 1952, at an average speed of 2.3 knots , across the Atlantic to Portsmouth on the Caribbean island of Dominica ( Lesser Antilles ), which she reached on January 18, 1953. Then she went to Miami (Florida) until August 13, 1953 . She later put the experiences of her Atlantic crossing on paper in her book My Ship is So Small (1956).

The ships: Reliance and Felicity Ann

Felicity Ann's whereabouts

The Felicity Ann was used for sailing trips for several years. It was eventually acquired by an American named Shannon. In 1964 or 1965, he sold the ship to the Vallejo Yacht Club in California for a Pacific crossing. After a few years in which her owners are unknown, the Felicity Ann had been docked since around 1980 and at least in later years belonged to a lover who repaired the wooden ship in Moose Pass ( Kenai Peninsula Borough , Alaska). Around 2000 it was bought by Cheri and John Hutchins. In 2002/03 the new owners moved from Seward to Haines (both in Alaska), where Hutchins took up a position as magistrate .

Ship data

The ship details of the Reliance and the Felicity Ann :

Surname	Reliance	originally Peter Piper , from launch Felicity Ann
construction time		1939-1949
Launch	1903	1949
Design and construction	Scoba, Fleetwood	Mashford Brothers, Cremyll Shipyard, Plymouth
hull	Pitchpine on oak	Wood
Length over all (Lüa)	70 feet (21.3 meters)	23 feet (7 meters)
Length between poles (Lpp)	64 feet (19.5 meters)
Length water length		19 feet (5.8 meters)
width	18.1 feet (5.5 meters)	7.5 feet (2.3 meters)
Draft	9.5 feet (2.9 meters)	4.5 feet (1.4 meters)
Sail area		237 square feet (22 square meters)
sail	Mainsail, mizzen , 2 headsails; a balloon sail	Mainsail and headsail (spinnaker?)
machine	Gardner 2-cylinder 48/60 hp semi-diesel	Coventry Victor Diesel (5 HP)

further reading

• Ann Davison: Last Voyage. An Autobiographical Account of All that Led Up to an Illicit Voyage and the Outcome Thereof. William Sloane, New York 1952.
• Ann Davison, Gertrud Grell: ... and my ship is so small. Delius Klasing, 1962.

English Original Edition: Ann Davison: My Ship is So Small. Peter Davies Limited Press, 1956.

Web links

• Ann Davison on the website of the Museum of Yachting, Newport RI (English); with two photos by Ann Davison; the information regarding a flight instructor does not match Davison's own information

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ann Davison: Last Voyage. An Autobiographical Account of All that Led Up to an Illicit Voyage and the Outcome Thereof. William Sloane, New York 1952, p. 76
2. ↑ Ann Davison: Last Voyage. An Autobiographical Account of All that Led Up to an Illicit Voyage and the Outcome Thereof. William Sloane, New York 1952, p. 44
3. ^ ^{A b} Time Magazine : March 24, 1952: Two in a Boat. Book review of Davison's Last Voyage . time.com (English) accessed February 4, 2007
4. ^ "Atlantic crossings in small ships are commonplace today, but I do not suppose many singlehanders have set out with the notion of learning the know-how on the way. For let me make it plain at the outset, I make no claim to being a sailor or yachtswoman. My sailing experience before leaving Plymouth was virtually nil, and I still have to express myself on nautical matters in pretty basic English. " Quoted as "This excerpt is taken from an article on her 65-day passage from Las Palmas to Dominica, in Felicity Ann , her 23ft Bermudan sloop." in Yachting Monthly (May 2006) ( Memento of November 10, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF) accessed February 4, 2007
5. ↑ Wooden Boat: The Felicity Ann from linnetwoods.com. Retrieved February 5, 2007
6. ↑ Felicity Ann on www.seapainting.com ( Memento of September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed February 4, 2007)
7. ↑ Wooden Boat: Rebecca at linnetwoods.com, accessed February 5, 2007
8. ^ New magistrate starts job in local court . ( Memento of October 23, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) In: Chilkat Valley News , Haines AK, April 16, 2003, Volume XXXIII, Number 16 (English), accessed February 4, 2007
9. ↑ various pages from Ann Davison: Last Voyage. An Autobiographical Account of All that Led Up to an Illicit Voyage and the Outcome Thereof. William Sloane, New York 1952.
10. ^ A beam of 18 • 1 feet and draft of 9 feet 6 inches - Ann Davison: Last Voyage. An Autobiographical Account of All that Led Up to an Illicit Voyage and the Outcome Thereof . William Sloane, New York 1952, p. 118
11. ↑ a silk balloon jib - Ann Davison (1952): Last Voyage. An Autobiographical Account of All that Led Up to an Illicit Voyage and the Outcome Thereof . William Sloane, New York 1952, p. 119