1933 Yacht Voyage from Hong Kong

Andrew would probably know - he mentioned this yacht in his section on Hong Kong in the 1920s.

Yes, the yacht does still exist, and was recently for sale, in seemingly quite magnificent condition.

Broker's advertisement here:

http://www.coburgbrokers.com/tai.html

Some more on the voyage of the Tai Mo Shan - it has become clear that the five young officers concerned were given leave to make the voyage because they proposed to do some spying on Japan, en route, as indeed they did. They seem to have taken their cue from Erskine Childers' novel "The Riddle of the Sands" (1903 - often considered the first spy novel). They had the idea that the Japanese fleet could be planning to use the Kurile Islands  as part of a strategy for an assault on the US Pacific Fleet.    In which, of course, they were entirely correct.  

A good article in the Times, here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2324103.ece

All five of the crew fought in WW2 and one of them, Robert Ryder, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the famous raid on St Nazaire.

http://www.tai-mo-shan.co.uk/robert_ryder.htm

On her arrival in Britain the five loaned the Tai Mo Shan to the Royal Naval Sailing Association,and she was entered in  a number of ocean races in the late thirties, but it was found that her design was too conservative to be competitive under the RORC handicap rule and she won nothing.

HS Rouse was an enthusiastic amateur designer and he designed several other notable ocean going yachts,many of which were built at the A King yard. Perhaps the most notable of these was the 46ft ketch Tzu Hang, which was sailed round the world by Miles and Beryl Smeeton:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_and_Beryl_Smeeton

My 1977 copy of Lloyds Register of Yachts (no longer published) shows six yachts designed by HS Rouse and built in Hong Kong in the Thirties as still extant at that point.