The Sunderland man whose Gibraltar adventure hit the rocks
Bob Hepple had his share of dramas in 1975 - and he lived to tell the tale when he got back to Sunderland.
Wearside seaman Bob Hepple spoke to the Sunderland Echo when he got back home after an adventure trip in Gibraltar in which he was adrift for two days.
‘Just about everything went wrong’
Mr Hepple (26), of Oswald Terrace, Grangetown, was heading home from The Rock when he decided to offer his services as a navigator to a businessman bringing an old two-master to Britain for charter work in the Scilly Isles.
The vessel was the Johanne, a 68-year-old wooden ship built on the Baltic, and later installed with an engine.
A Sunderland Echo story at the time, in 1975, said: “Mr Hepple was one of the four-man crew with a girl cook who set off to bring the craft back to England.
Second distress signal got a response
“When we were five days out just about everything went wrong. The reduction gear packed up, the engine room flooded, and the batteries went flat, ” he said.
They were drifting south-west into the Atlantic before they sent up their first distress signal which was not sighted by a passing ship.
They were lucky with their second flare, which was spotted by a Romanian cargo ship and which came to their help.
They were offered a tow back to Gibraltar which they decided would be better to take in the circumstances.
Also in the news that year;
Tanker lorry driver Ken Thompson, of Sunderland, won the North-East Safe Driver of the Year competition - for the second time.
Mr Thompson, 37, of High Barnes, came out on top driving his caravette in the competition in Newcastle, after manoeuvrability tests, a ten-mile road test and a series of questions, competing against 200 other drivers.
There were five new arrivals at Seaburn Ocean Park in Sunderland.
They included four pumas that were born at the park, and a chimpanzee which arrived from Scarborough Zoo.
A large congregation - including a man who attended Redby Boys’ School when it opened in 1899 - was at St Andrew’s Church, Roker, for a commemorative service, marking the closure of both the Redby Boys’ and Fulwell Girls’ Schools.
The Rev JG Bates, vicar of St Andrew’s, conducted the service, assisted by the Rev F Hawkins, Minister of St Stephen’s Church, Side Cliff Road, and Deaconess M Parker.
Mr Bates stressed the importance of community life in schools and told of how both schools had grown up with Fulwell.
Among the congregation attending the commemorative service were the staff and pupils from the schools as well as representatives from the local community.
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