On Wednesday July 16, 1969 The Fiji Times reported on a 82-year-old Anglican clergyman who was found dead on his boat in Australia.
The clergyman, who before leaving Suva in a trimaran, said he loved sailing so much that he hoped to die at the tiller of his boat, had his wish fulfilled.
According to the report, an American cargo ship had found the body of the Rev Frederick Watts aboard his 35ft trimaran Jessie W aground on the Great Barrier Reef, 185 miles off Brisbane.
Mr Watts, who was last seen alive when he set out from Suva alone for Australia in April 1969, had been dead for some time when his body was found.
The freighter, the Austral Pilot had reported that Mr Watts may have died from thirst after the trimaran ran aground on the reef.
The crew of the Austral Pilot was ordered by their captain to sink the trimaran with the body of its owner still aboard.
This newspaper reported that Mr Watts had left Suva alone after his friends attempted to dissuade him from doing so.
He said he had been sailing all his life and that he hoped to die at sea. “He was not a navigator,” said one who knew him.
Mr Watts had many mishaps with his trimaran. Once he was wrecked on the Naitonitoni Reef, off Beqa.
He arrived in Fiji two years ago from Australia after hearing the then Bishop in Polynesia, the Rev J.C Vockler, speak about the Diocese of Polynesia while on a visit to Australia.
Mr Watts was living in partial retirement in Western Australia after years as a mission to seaman chaplain in Italy, Japan, West Africa and Fremantle.
He had brought the Jessie W, which he named after his dead wife and met Bishop Vockler shortly afterwards.
“I heard him say that his diocese was so vast he could only give communion to some islanders once a year,” Mr Watts said when he arrived at Suva in August 1967 after a stormy passage from Sydney with a companion.
He arrived without notice to the diocese, having decided to use the Jessie Was a floating mission station among Fiji’s outer islands.
But the diocese, because of Mr Watts age was reluctant to let him work singlehanded.
This newspaper reported that the Jessie W lay at Suva for several months and for a long time was chartered to the Peace Corps.
After being persuaded not to sail on missionary work to the Cook Islands, Mr Watts decided to return home to Australia.
During his time in Fiji he had survived and recovered from a heart attack and also from a major operation for the removal of a cancerous stomach growth.
According to the report Mr Watts set out for Sydney only to turn after the trimaran’s rudder was damaged by bad weather near Kadavu.
When he set out the second time the Jessie W hit a reef at Naitonitoni and her main hull was holed badly and flooded.
Only the two outrigger floats kept the craft afloat until it was towed back to Suva for repair.
When he left Suva for the last time in April, Mr Watts had spent several months installing gear on the trimaran so he could sail it single-handedly.
