An International Incident on the Waters off Macau
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Sim & Jim at Tai Pak
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An International Incident on the Waters off Macau
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Sim & Jim at Tai Pak
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The return of the Harpers to Hong Kong was to be a closing of the business involvement of Jim with Airstocks and the beginning of the return to home - this time for good. Sally had gone to the Philippines to see family before their move while Jim and Roberta returned to Hong Kong on a voyage that included an unscheduled stop at Saigon.
Sally and Roberta left Hong Kong in early 1969 to begin residence in Iowa with Jim to follow soon after. That is until February 15, 1969.
A group of three yachts from the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club were making a fairly routine sail to Macau Island when they were stopped and boarded by Chinese Red Guards. Sim and Hope Donald were aboard Sim's boat the Morasum. The three yachts were towed to Chinese territory and detained. The crews and passengers of two of the yachts - the Uin-na-Mara and the Reverie - were released after six weeks of captivity.
The Morasum and crew were held for ten months.
When negotiations finally did yield results, Sim, Hope and the Morasum were released on December 7, 1969.
It was only after Sim was released that Jim left the Far East for the last time and joined his family at the homestead in Iowa. The flying and business days were over. How short of a span of time it must have seemed to Jim as he considered it all. And as he said in the opening interview - "Looking back, I don't know how I survived the bloody business." But, survive he did.
The detention and treatments of Sim at the hands of the Chinese were hard on him and in the end the experience broke his health. Sim died not too long after the episode - in 1972. His ashes were scattered in Big Snake Bay, Hong Kong - which has since become known as "Sim's Bay."
The Morasum still sails to this day.
Airstocks Limited lives on too - now part of Boeing.
And, Sally recalls that she liked Sim very much.
