George Millar Archives - Amokura: a classic boat archive

George Millar DSO MC (1910-2005)

webmstr — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 15:36:45 +0000

George Millar owned Amokura from 1954-60. He was well-known as an author particularly for Maquis which chronicled his exploits in WW2 behind enemy lines – he escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp and on return to London promptly enlisted with the Special Operations Executive, deployed in occupied France. His other books included Horned Pigeon, A White Boat from England, and Oyster River, which described a summer cruising the French Gulf of Morhiban with his wife Isabel aboard Amokura. Millar’s cruises aboard Amokura are described in the RCC journals of 1954 and 1956 and his life is described in colourful detail in wikipedia and obituaries in the The Daily Telegraph and The Independent. It is also worth reading George Millar’s letter to David Japp in January 1996, which describes his purchase of Amokura and refers to his friendship with later owner Richard Carr.

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Interview with George Millar

webmstr — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 12:55:11 +0000

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1970s? Flying the White Ensign

webmstr — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 06:00:34 +0000

This picture shows Amokura at anchor flying the prestigious white ensign. The white ensign is the preserve of Royal Navy ships, Trinity House vessels escorting the reigning monarch, and (in Amokura‘s case) members of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Two of her previous owners, George Millar (who owned Amokura from 1954-60) and Richard Carr (from 1969-79), had this distinction. This picture shows Amokura with the aluminium masts fitted shortly after Carr purchased her in 1969 so it likely dates from the 1970s.

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Letter from George Millar to David Japp, January 1996

webmstr — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:41:35 +0000

Dear Mr Japp It certainly was a good day’s work when you bought Amokura. She was, almost certainly is, a great boat, a joy to handle, a truly wonderful seaboat. Isabel never forgave me for selling her. She wanted me to enter her in the first single-handed transatlantic race, but I had a new job in London, and wouldn’t go. That race was won by old Francis Chichester in a much smaller boat, and had we entered we’d have won by a mile, many miles. Richard Carr was a POW with me in Italy, then Germany, and was a dear friend. I did not know the man who bought her from me, but Isabel and I, sailing up Falmouth Harbour, came upon her by happy chance. She was lying, miserable, in an outside berth. It broke our hearts. But Richard and Susan came to stay with us on our then Dorset house and farm. The four of us drove down and Richard, who had sailed with us, sail-stretching in the Solent when we had first bought her, did an instant deal with the Falmouth yard and got sea-jockeys to deliver her immediately to Groves & Gutteridge, then the best of the Cowes yards, for a very complete refit. Richard and self both being Squadron members, we stayed there with our wives in comfort, and spent hours going over Amokura in her shed. We were deep-sea sailers, while Richard and Susan were then more Solent-orientated. They had every right to do what they wanted to her (and Richard already had heart trouble. They put Proctor spars in her (which I would have done because her spruce ones were worn out), but I would NEVER have cut down the height of her mainmast because she needed that big mainsail, especially to windward. The second alteration with which we disagreed was that they widened the self-draining cockpit, and the third that they installed a big Mercedes engine. Of course I know we were sailing cranks. Isabel got seasick when one motored. When I bought her (in the Menai Straits) I sailed her round night and day with the yacht hand on her (She had been bought from Sir Ernest Harston, who built her at Moodys in 1939.) I sailed her with the Welsh hand, very good, Crosby’s young son, and couple picked up in a bar ashore. We went watch and watch and made a fast passage to Moodys, where I had Robert Clark waiting to survey. He gave her bad marks because he wanted me to buy one of his boats, but I didn’t believe him, for I knew she was a cracker. The following spring Isabel and I sailed her out to Malta, and all over the Western Med on the way. The RCC gave us the Romola Cup for that. We were out in Malta beginning of May to fit out alongside Fort St Angelo, following which we sailed to Corfu, always just the two of us, spent a long […]

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Ownership history

webmstr — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 14:58:27 +0000

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1997: A meeting between Amokura’s owners, old and new

webmstr — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:12:46 +0000

This photograph was taken in June 1997 at the Royal Thames Yacht Club (RTYC). From left to right: David Japp, Susan Carr, George Millar and Venitia Ross-Skinner (Millar’s friend and assistant). Japp had contacted Millar, and the Carr family, in order to research Amokura’s background and as part of that process arranged this meeting. The get-together was reported in Yachting Monthly (August 1997) together with this photograph.

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1954: Amokura visits the Mediterranean — George Millar’s journal entry for the Royal Cruising Club

webmstr — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:26:09 +0000

AMOKURA VISITS THE MEDITERRANEAN By George Millar This article was originally published in the Royal Cruising Club 1954 journal, which notes that the RCC’s Romola Challenge Cup was awarded for this cruise. With thanks to the RCC for granting permission for the article to be included here. Introduction Coastal passage to Falmouth Offshore from Falmouth (2nd June) Arrive Ria de Vivero, Spain To Cascais, Portugal Cascais officialdom, 18th June And on to Seville 28th June, Guadalquivir to Gibraltar Along the Costa del Sol Alicante to Ibiza On to Palma and Andraitx 2nd August: Soller, Minorca and on to Sardinia A 45 knot Mistral in Bonfacio To Girolta, 16th August On to Cap Ferrat 12th September: to Elba Onward to Amalfi To Sicily and on to the final destination of the Summer: Malta Closing words When my wife and I became owners of Amokura (50.3 feet, 37.7, 12.0) at the end of 1953, we brought this handsome yawl, designed by Shepherd and built by Moody’s in 1939 for Ernest Harston, back into the fold of the Cruising Club. Such was not, I admit, our reason for the purchase. Amokura fulfilled our requirements as to size and shape (reasonable overhangs, good freeboard and beam, a flush deck of teak, 1,000 square feet of working canvas) for myself (5 feet 10 inches, 11 stone) and Isabel (5 feet 3 inches, 8 stone) to cruise in; she will eat up to windward with the best of them, which is the only true insurance policy afloat; further, with her yawl rig and reasonable length of keel she is a good one for self-steering both on and off the wind. We completed our fitting-out—so far as the appalling weather allowed—at Cowes and on the Beaulieu River, where we put her on the grid for a coat of Kobe Green, she being unsheathed, I am thankful to say, except on such surfaces as cannot be reached by the antifouling brush. We lay then for a while next to Edwards and his Selamat, and in the cruise ahead we saw no lovelier anchorage, no better neighbours. Apart from making the accommodation lighter and more roomy, with fewer berths, fitting a paraffin refrigerator and a new 15 b.h.p. diesel engine, abolishing the gas cooker, and buying new sails of a somewhat different pattern from the originals, we did little to change Amokura. Our white Bermudian mainsail and mizzen are cut on the mitre, according to the advice of Chris Ratsey, and have no battens (abominations to the cruising man who cherishes his canvas and who fears chafe only after God and a leaking hull). We carry fourteen sails in all, four of them spare headsails from the original outfit. Having decided to strike off for Spain or Portugal from Falmouth, we sailed there enjoyably by short day stages: from Bucklers Hard to Lulworth Cove; inside Portland Race to Dartmouth; then Salcombe, Plymouth, Falmouth. How fresh and companionable is cruising in English waters! how steady the breezes, how green the […]

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