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TheKingAndI
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 Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 1:39 pm
Richard Johnson and the boat called Nam Sang |
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Through the years Richard Johnson has spoken about his beloved boat, the Nam Sang, which he sunk in the Sacramento River in 1995. Indeed, it is because of his desire to salvage the yacht that he started manufacturing the modern tiled Kamados in an effort to raise money. He says as much in this Kamado.com forum post:
http://www.kamado.com/discus/messages/1/1825.html
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Richardj
Moderator
Post Number: 301
Registered: 4-2002
Posted on Thursday, July 25, 2002 - 6:11 pm:
Kimw, earlier Kim, you mentioned scuba diving. Bring your regulator and mask as we hope to do a Sacramento River dive on Sunday afternoon if I have time to get set up.
As you might know, I sank my famous 72' sailboat in the Sacramento river (thus my reason for starting the new Kamado Company.....to raise money to raise my boat).
If you (or anyone else) want some excitement this will be the place. I hear Nam Sang demanding some customer service! |
As a search of the Kamado.com forum for the terms “Nam Sang” or “Namsang” will reveal, Richard occasionally mentions his desire to raise the boat, which has remained submerged in the river all these years.
A google search on the term “Nam Sang” brought up the following eyebrow-raising link in which some boating enthusiasts mention that the Nam Sang may have been STOLEN:
http://www.woodenboatvb.com/vbulletin/upload/archive/index.php/t-14855 .html
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Nam sang became famous in NZ for losing her mast a couple of times when visiting here in the 60's. It was the biggest mast anyone here had seen, the boat itself was the biggest private yacht anyone had seen.
She ended up coming back and living here for many years and eventually became part of an ownership wrangle. In the 90's sometime she was stolen and sailed back to America. I heard she was subsequently wrecked. |
The Nam Sang is actually quite famous.
http://www.stfyc.com/files/StFrancisHistory.pdf
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"Nam Sang," Oscar Johnson's 66' ketch, is also gone. For several years, she has been based here, and known as the "Ice Follies" yacht. |
Whether Oscar Johnson of "Ice Follies" fame is related to Richard Johnson is unknown. A search of google and google-books will show the boat is mentioned quite frequently:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22nam+sang%22+yacht&btnG=Google+ Search
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Nam+Sang%22+yacht&btnG=Search+Books
What has to be most incredible find, however, is documentation of the theft of the famous boat from New Zealand, in this New Zealand Herald article:
http://innz.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=180822
At sea on a voyage of history and trouble
By : Ferguson, Adelia
In : New Zealand Herald, 11 Sep 1993; s.1 p.9 59cm
Newspaper Article
Abstract : Describes the history and theft of the yacht ’Nam Sang’.
Subject : Boats
Theft
Efforts to obtain copies of this 14-year old New Zealand Herald story resulted in two very poor scans of the article. While the quality is poor, the story is a MUST READ.
Links to two versions (files are huge you'll have to download and print):
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/6549/namsanggoodyd1.jpg
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3614/namsanggood2ri0.jpg
And for those who would rather read the article right this minute, it is transcribed for you here:
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At Sea On A Voyage Of History And Trouble
New Zealand Herald
Saturday, September 11, 1993.
The Nam Sang is floating trouble. The yacht’s 59-year life has been studded with drama, from reported drug smuggling to towing a controversial canoe to Rarotonga. Adelia Ferguson reports:
The alleged theft of the Nam Sang from New Zealand is the last straw for Mr. Rich Brown, who never wants to see her again. The boat owners – Mr. Brown, his partner Mr. Chris Kaye and a nominee company, The King and I, Ltd. – were taken in by the smooth-talking Californian who said he wanted to buy the famous old racing yacht. “I had dinner with him. I trusted him. I would have lent him my car,” a spokesman for the company said.
The man the New Zealanders knew as Bob Thompson, retired pilot, appeared in Auckland in February. He asked a boat broker to find the Nam Sang for him. Thompson’s offer of $100,000 was rejected. The broker spent some time trying to assemble a deal, but by then Thompson knew the Nam Sang was at Gulf Harbour marina and moved to cut the broker out.
One day, Mr. Brown found Thompson sitting on the boat. He said he represented the exclusive Seven Seas Sailing Club, a syndicate of Sacramento doctors who owned yachts around the world. The doctors had their eyes on the Nam Sang, and he wanted to make a deal. Mr. Brown and his associates liked Thompson. He told them stories about his days in Vietnam, flying C130s for the CIA and earning hundreds of dollars a day airlifting personnel out under fire from the Vietcong.
The Nam Sang’s owners did not like the price Thompson was offering for the boat. Finally, a charter deal of $5000 a month for six months, with a right of purchase, was agreed upon. Thompson paid the first $5000. He said he was taking the vessel to the Bay of Islands to see friends, but people who saw him provisioning the boat suspected he was going farther.
They were right. The police say the Nam Sang left New Zealand without clearing Customs. Some people believe the crew of another American yacht which left that day helped Thompson to cross the Pacific, others say he did it alone.
The Nam Sang arrived in American Samoa 38 days later, on July 15. Mr. Brown and Mr. Kaye were waiting. “We saw him row ashore and we went out to the boat. We were going to sail her back to New Zealand, but the motor wouldn’t start. The Coastguard had to tow us ashore.”
A bitter argument over the ownership of the yacht followed. Thompson, now calling himself Mr. Richard Johnson, a man who owned the Nam Sang 17 years ago, swore the boat was his. He produced American registration papers and convinced the Pago Pago authorities the papers carried by Mr. Brown were false. Johnson was allowed to leave with the Nam Sang, despite the protests of the New Zealand police.
The officer handling the case, Detective Sergeant Russell Thomson, said Johnson had lost the Nam Sang by order of the New Zealand Supreme Court in December 1975 when she was sold to cover Johnson’s debts in New Zealand.
The judge who made the order, Justice Coates, said at the time that Johnson had shown little interest in the yacht since she arrived in New Zealand about 1973. He had not opposed the claims of his debtors. Detective Sergeant Thomson said. The Nam Sang was sold to a New Zealander and registered as a New Zealand boat. The United States registration should have been withdrawn, but it was not, Detective Sergeant Thomson said, enabling Johnson to produce documents for the American authorities.
Mr. Brown expects the Nam Sang to be in a sorry state when she arrives in California any day. The solo voyage from Auckland to Pago Pago had done thousands of dollars of damage and the leg to California could be even worse, he said. He said Johnson told him in Pago Pago that after leaving Auckland he was blown south almost to Wellington before being able to head north again. The boat was designed to have a crew of at least six and could not be controlled by a solo yachtsman.
The Nam Sang’s theft is not her most dramatic adventure. Built in Marble Head, Massachusetts, in 1934, she was the darling of the racing world. Originally a ketch, she won the Transpac Los Angeles-to-Hawaii race. Over the next 30 years she is believed to have been owned by Paramount film studios, and a record company, and later to have been involved in drug smuggling and mafia operation between California and South America.
She created a stir when she came to New Zealand in 1962. A veteran Auckland yachtsman, Mr. Jim Davern, said people were excited to see the famous classic racing yacht. The Nam Sang, by then a sloop, broke her mast on the voyage to New Zealand and was laid up for two years while a new one was built. “They couldn’t get one big enough for it,” Mr. Davern said.
The Nam Sang returned to New Zealand in 1973 under the ownership of a Richard Johnson. Police believe it is the same man who, posing as Bob Thompson, took the Nam Sang this year. The 1973 voyage was apparently for repairs, which were cheaper in New Zealand than in the United States. On the way the vessel struck a storm off the Northland coast and was again damaged. Newspaper reports at the time said people who had paid $500 to crew the yacht back to the United States were left stranded in New Zealand and had to find jobs to get the money to return home. At the same time there were complaints from New Zealanders who had booked voyages on another yacht owned by Richard Johnson, the Blue Orpheus. Customers claimed the conditions on board were unbearable and Johnson had charged them too much.
The vessel was thrust into the limelight again this year when it was revealed that she had towed the Maori waka Te Aurere much of the way to Rarotonga and back last year. Detective Sergeant Thomson believes it was the publicity about the waka voyage which brought the Nam Sang to Johnson’s attention once again. |
Amazingly, there is still more to the story. After Richard Johnson sank the boat, he and his family sued Southern Pacific Rail Corp, claiming their power lines were too low. A jury found otherwise and fined Mr. Johnson $128,000 for damages to the power lines. So, in starting Kamado, they were trying to raise money for more than just a salvage operation. A quick search of the Sacramento Bee online archives for "Nam Sang" and ALL years turned up all of this information:
http://www.sacbee.com/109/story/7178.html
| Quote: | | Bee/Kim D. Johnson Southern Pacific employees repair damage to the top of the I Street Bridge on Monday. The Nam Sang, a 73-foot boat, sank in the Sacramento River after snagging on a power line connected to the bridge Saturday afternoon. All nine people aboard, including three children, managed to reach land safely after the boat tipped and took on water. |
| Quote: | Johnson also said the couple is organizing a diving team to recover the Nam Sang, which remains mired in silt at the base of the I Street Bridge. Work could begin next week, she said.
Perry had operated the bridge for eight months before the Nam Sang tried to pass underneath Feb. 4, 1995. The Sacramento River, swollen from heavy winter rainfall, was higher than usual.
Sailing downriver, Richard Johnson radioed Perry from the fork of the Sacramento and American rivers to swing the bridge open, she said. But the Nam Sang skipper did not ask about the wire clearance, she said.
"It's his responsibility to know if he's going to make it," Perry said. "I wish I had said something. But I've only had two people ever ask me for the overhead clearance when the bridge is in the open position." |
| Quote: | Last month, a Sacramento County Superior Court jury found the Johnsons at fault for misjudging the clearance and ordered them to pay $128,000 to SP for damage to the power lines.
"These guys were on TV news for weeks that followed, saying it was my fault," Perry said. "Now that the lawsuits are all over and I'm free to respond, I want people to know what happened to me.
Deborah Johnson said this week that she and her husband had no quarrel with Perry or how she performed her job.
"We thought she knew what the authorized height of the wires were, but we found out in court she didn't," Johnson said. "Nobody at Southern Pacific knew what the height of the wires were. They were never inspected." |
As far as we know, the Nam Sang lies there still. |
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Admin
Site Admin
Joined: 23 Jun 2006
Posts: 1018
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 3:02 pm
Wow!!! |
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Wow.
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fishtail-99
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 1437
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:00 pm
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| In case anyone is wondering what this has to do with the fraud being perpetrated by Richard Johnson on his investors and customers, it just goes to show you that he is capable of stealing a valuable and famous yacht. Why would you question whether or not he would steal $10,000 from the BBQ Guru company or $20,000 from a charcoal company? That's small change compared to what he did in stealing the Nam Sang, isn't it? |
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tcoliver
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 240
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:05 pm
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| So he's stealing from us to pay for the boat that he stole from someone else. AMAZING!!!! |
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curly
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 665
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:08 pm
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Dang...that man's been stealin stuff long before his Kamado days...he's like a pirate. I'm sure this knowledge is gonna make some a his folks love him more though...cause he's more famous than they even knew. He's like an international fugative with who knows how many alias's. Wonder what his real name is
Now I feel like I should buy some Kamado's to help him pay off some a the people he stole stuff from  |
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The Spanker
Joined: 10 Nov 2006
Posts: 207
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:16 pm
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WTF????!!!
Why, oh Why, couldn't someone have found this years ago? It sure could have saved me some money!
Must be tough be a traditional flim flam man in a digital world. I'm guessing this is why there never was a New Zealand "factory." There's probably some good people there that would really like to see the old boy again. |
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curly
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 665
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:27 pm
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| The Spanker wrote: | WTF????!!!
Why, oh Why, couldn't someone have found this years ago? It sure could have saved me some money!
Must be tough be a traditional flim flam man in a digital world. I'm guessing this is why there never was a New Zealand "factory." There's probably some good people there that would really like to see the old boy again. |
True...he's fled from
New Zealand
Indonesia
Mexico
California
Where else that we don't know about? |
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Schadenfreude
Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 20
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:12 pm
So, to recap |
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Here's what the articles you've cited allege:
In 1975, Richard Johnson once owned the Nam Sang but lost it in New Zealand via a court order to cover his debts.
In '93, Richard Johnson assumed another identity (Bob Thompson) to conduct a business transaction.
RJ defrauded a boat broker by using his services and then circumventing him.
RJ stole the Nam Sang still using the guise of "Bob Thompson"
In '95, RJ was at the helm when the boat sank in the Sacramento River.
The Johnsons blamed the bridge operator in the Sacramento media and sued the company that owned the bridge.
A California Court ruled against the Johnsons and fined them 128,000 for damages to the bridge.
And, some background allegations:
In the 70's in NZ, RJ once stranded several people that had each paid $500 to crew the NamSang to California.
And also in the 70's in NZ, RJ once owned another yacht, the Blue Orpheus, where paying passengers complained that conditions were unbearable and that they had been overcharged.
Wow. There's a lot of meat here. Somehow allegations of grand theft dwarf complaints about cracking K's, falling tiles, worthless warranties, nonexistant customer service, crappy charcoal, and Portland cement based refractory formulas.
These allegations, even if only 50% true, are in a whole different league. |
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Nemesis
Joined: 04 Jul 2006
Posts: 534
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:48 pm
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Amazing! Richard Johnson AKA Bob Thompson cavorts around the globe stealing and committing all manner of crimes, and somehow lives to con another day!
A previous poster mentions that this crime, grand theft, puts RJs evil core into perspective. Lets just consider the true magnitude of this crime;
I have no idea what the actual value of the boat was, but since an offer offer of $100,000 was rejected, we can assume it to be at least higher than that. Now, consider that in 1993 the median home price for the US was $103,100. (http://www.realestateabc.com/graphs/natlmedian.htm)
We are talking about a boat that was worth more than most HOMES! Can you imagine someone stealing your whole damn house?!
Suddenly you feel lucky that you have a cracked grill sitting in your yard - at least it means you got something for your money!
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foxhound
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Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 8:55 pm
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| Clearly lying, conning, cheating, theft are a part of his lifestyle. I am surprised someone has not taken more drastic physical revenge on him. |
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Nemesis
Joined: 04 Jul 2006
Posts: 534
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:27 am
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I wonder if the nice reporters at the Sacramento Bee are aware of the history of the Nam Sang? Maybe they would be interested to know, and might like to write a follow-up about the local icon??
I also wonder if the judgement has ever been settled? |
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Fetzervalve
Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 148
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:30 am
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It's a good thing that a K is crap after a year or so, otherwise "Mr. Thompson" may come and steal it back!
Sounds like someone should be on a future episode of Most Wanted!  What a tool....... |
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Fetzervalve
Joined: 21 Sep 2006
Posts: 148
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:32 am
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| curly wrote: | | The Spanker wrote: | WTF????!!!
Why, oh Why, couldn't someone have found this years ago? It sure could have saved me some money!
Must be tough be a traditional flim flam man in a digital world. I'm guessing this is why there never was a New Zealand "factory." There's probably some good people there that would really like to see the old boy again. |
True...he's fled from
New Zealand
Indonesia
Mexico
California
Where else that we don't know about? |
And soon to be Nevada and Indonesia.....again  |
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foxhound
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:44 am
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| I wonder if 'Dog' the bounty hunter will come looking for RJ. |
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LeadDog
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:56 am
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Google is our friend. 
http://www.transpacificyc.org/history/TPYC_Races.pdf
This is a very large PDF file but look down to the race in 1972 Class D and you will see that Richard Johnson sailed the Blue Orpheus. Makes you wonder what he did to "buy" that yacht. |
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