“To hear once more the sea, as it is parted and transferred around this magnificent woodwind. The smell of oleoresinous on wood and the lyrics of the wind as it passes through the finely tuned rigging.”
Christopher Eliot Paine’s quest to see his 95-year old father back on board their beloved family yacht Landfall, for one last time. It has been nearly 80 years since his grandfather, Richard Cushing Paine, sailed the waters of the Med, Adriatic, Aegean, and Baltic. Last known to have been in Palma in 1992, this magnificent ketch is out there somewhere, and we hope, through our collective efforts we wish to make his dream come true.
Any information on Landfall’s whereabouts will be greatly appreciated, and thank you all for your efforts. Please use the below contact form for any details that you may have.
Christopher Eliot Paine – “Landfall had a very interesting history during the mid-to-late 1930’s, when she was based in Europe, my grandfather (Richard Cushing Paine) cruised her in the Med, Adriatic, Aegean, and Baltic — her captain in those years was Mike Cumberlege, a masterful British mariner who was (clandestinely) also an officer in British Naval Intelligence – he secretly used the Landfall cruises to map harbors and observe German naval forces in the above areas. My father and grandfather left Landfall and Mike in Italy just days before the German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of WW 2. Landfall was in Marseille when the Germans invaded France, and at some point during she was sunk with other ships to provide an antisubmarine defense of the harbor. Capt. Cumberlege went on to become second in command of British partisan commando operations in the eastern Med, was betrayed to the Germans by Greek partisans while attempting (for a second time) to blow up the Corinth canal, imprisoned and tortured in multiple prison camps across the Reich before being executed just days before the end of the war. An incredible tale, in which Landfall played an early and important part, gathering intelligence.”
View the L. Francis Herreshoff designed ketch LANDFALL’S specification details.
