This I believe was an inspiration as I’d not seen it done before; not at Chris Craft in Fumacino, Italy or at Choy Lee, Hong Kong where I’d worked during two and three day flight layovers. “Why can’t we save labor costs, mould the structural interior shapes as one unit and use plywood and timber only for finishing touches?” I wondered. “We have the overhead cranes and can handle big pieces, no problem!”

Working on formula One race cars at Lotus with the legendary Colin Chapman had also taught me that fiberglass strength increased by a factor of three if a bend was introduced and that a monocoque structure absorbed and dissipated exterior forces, hence a five fold increase in overall boat strength.

Production sequence.

We started with the hulls—Lloyds of London suggested a fiberglass lay-up to comply with their requirements—dropped in the lead keel, glassed this in, fitted the water and diesel tanks and then dropped in the moulded interior unit. Glassed to the hull at strategic points it almost formed a second hull. With the top deck in place the yacht now had more then enough bends in it to increase it’s fore and aft strength by close to 100 percent, while at the same time its overall weight was considerably reduced—a reduction figure I can no longer remember.

Masts, fittings, etc.

A Perkins diesel was selected because I’d visited the Perkins factory in Peterborough, England, not far from the Scott Bader resin laboratories. Well thought of, their engines were simple and tough, something I hope has been experienced by Samantha 39 owners. Proctor masts and rigging were selected as a result of our connection with the father of a very lovely British Airways stewardess friend. Tony Fitzhugh was the Proctor Masts factory foreman and took special care of our orders. For the many other fittings required we set up our own purchasing and exporting company in England, Stratdev Ltd., based out of Cowbridge, Wales and managed by Ruth’s brother, Pete Petersen.

The name.

The name Samantha was chosen and the S and M mimicked our Specialised Mouldings logo.

How many yachts?

As far as I can remember there were 12 hulls molded. The only one not listed on your web site is a hull John Velzian was fitting out himself. Three others were being built against potential orders when I lost control of the factory.

This and that.

Most Samantha 39 owners never met us—something I hope will one day be possible. We now live in Grapevine, Texas.

Who we are.

Ruth’s parents were Danish. Her mother Solveig and father Peer Arvard-Petersen arrived in Kenya via the Nubian  Desert and down the Nile by steamer in 1938. After many business ventures, always the restless adventurer, Peer left his family and ended up in Australia . Ruth studied at the Kenya Girls High School before training as an accountant with Gill and Johnson in Nairobi. We married when she was 19, started and successfully ran the Rondaval Café in Westlands, Nairobi, an auto import company, Jack and Jill—a high end, gently-used (and gentry-used) clothing business—and then finally Specialised Mouldings. Today Ruth is an independent non-profit accounting and administration specialist with two Lutheran churches in our area. She also manages our rental property tax issues and, most important, keeps me in line.

Milan’s parents came to Kenya as Czechoslovakian refugees toward the end of WWII, my Prague-born father Matej setting up an East African trading post for hides and skins for the new Thomas Bata shoe operation in Canada. I was born in Mombasa, next to Fort Jesus. My mother Emily Vassina was from Slovakia. After military service with the Kenya Regiment I became a bush pilot with Boscovich Air Charters and then joined Safari Air Services in Uganda,  flying out of Entebbe. Idi Amin came to power through a coup at this time. Ten years with East African Airways followed. Qualifying with a senior ALTP (Airline Transport Pilot License) and a Flight Engineers License I flew DC3’s, F27 Fokker Friendship turbo props, DC9’s (briefly) and British Aircraft Corporation Super VC10’s internationally. I left EAA to launch Specialised Mouldings (K) Ltd in an open shed building beach buggies—a great idea that didn’t make any money.

Ten years of exhilarating risk and success followed. I traveled anywhere and everywhere to find orders. Idi Amin became a customer, even considered me a friend. The southern Sudan was a good place for business despite its civil war, and Somalia gave us the opportunity to win a considerable United Nations contract. Rwanda and the Congo were also good. There were many times when I wondered whether I’d lost all common sense, however.

The Samantha 39 was the gem however. Exhibiting the yacht at the Southampton Boat Show in the UK for two years and at the Hamburg Boat Show for another was exhilarating. It led to many deep friendships and not a little sense of achievement. The UK magazine Motor Boat and Yachting under their then editor Commander Dick Hewitt did a very nice boat test write-up.

Miscellaneous.

We were able to ship yachts to Southampton Port, UK at the amazing rate of 1,000 pounds sterling because I persuaded the shipping company that as deck cargo it was extra income for them. Cradled in a steel frame much like the wooden one shown on the ‘Samantha hull production’ photograph the yacht was ‘last on’ and ‘first off’ cargo.

In 1980 our world came crashing down. Pressures to hand-over Specialised Mouldings had been building. Physically attacked—the scar stretching from behind my left ear to the center of my left cheek still occasionally itches. Ruth nearly lost her life also, startled awake by an intruder holding a rock over her head. Specialised Mouldings was then placed under receivership, my import licenses for raw materials having been repeatedly denied.

Falsely charged with stealing a Commander 34 police boat that had already been delivered to the Game Department  in Lamu on the Kenya Coast, we soon discovered who our true friends were. Our African manager and foreman, Peter Nyutu and John Ngugi, stood by us despite the risk to themselves.

Systematically stripped of our business, our properties, and our freedom Ruth and our two younger children, Sacha and Ivan, were finally allowed to leave Kenya and joined our older sons, Martin and Adam, in the US after two years of horror. A further two years of my life lost, the bogus charge against me dropped, and I was allowed to go when my torturers became convinced that they had extracted every last asset from me. I left the country of my birth with a briefcase and a change of underwear!

Today I am an author and journalist, writing business and politics for a The Middle East and African Business magazines in London and Paris. We manage our several rental properties and are still passionate about life and world affairs, if only from our armchairs! Four highly successful children and their spouses, six amazing grandsons—and now our beloved Samantha 39 back in our lives—who could ask for anything more?