A VALUABLE maritime library, a top club administration system and two surviving generations of family sailors mark part of the legacy Albert Klestadt has left on Williamstown yachting.
Aged 92, he died at Cabrini Hospice in Prahran on 14 April from pneumonia.
In the 1970s he rose through the membership ranks at the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria to be its Commodore from 1978 to 1980.
He was regarded by his sailing colleagues as a great adventurer, who at heart was a very formal gentleman who knew right from wrong and always liked to see things done the correct way.
Mr Klestadt was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1913, and his mother later taught him to sail on the Alster River.
In 1935, he left Germany to work for a German trading company in Tokyo, where in his spare time he enjoyed an idyllic life.
He became part of the expatriate community playing ice hockey, boxing and voyaging on the inland sea in his small yacht, Spray.
In the early 1940s with war preparations in Japan building, Mr Klestadt turned his sailing and photography skills to good use by providing valuable information on Japanese naval activities to the British government.
In November 1941, he reported that all the Japanese ships in Kobe Harbour were painting out their distinctive markings with grey naval paint.
Realising that war was imminent, he left Japan for Australia but only made it to Manila when the Japanese invaded and interred him.
He produced his German passport and tricked his way out of captivity.
He then bought an old native trading boat and sailed alone through the southern Philippines with the Japanese close on his heels.
The Muslim communities on the islands en-route helped him on his way by supplying food and directions risking certain death if the Japanese had ever caught them.
Guided by homemade charts torn from a Dutch Atlas, he successfully island hopped under sail to Darwin, landing safely at Croker Island in December, 1942.
His worldly possessions included a pair of torn shorts and an old shirt.
He later wrote a book, “The Sea Was Kind”, about his epic voyage.
With the war raging in the Pacific, as Mr Klestadt could read, write and speak fluent Japanese and German he was snapped up by the Australian Army’s Far East Liaison Organisation.
Here he met Alfred Brookes who was to become his lifelong friend and inducted him into the shadowy world of intelligence.
Promoted to Lieutenant, he was sent to New Guinea to the front line to deliver propaganda broadcasts over a public address system to the invading Japanese forces.
But these broadcasts proved highly unpopular with his fellow troops because very time he got on to the microphone, his broadcast would draw fire and mortar rounds.
So instead he turned his intelligence skills to interpreting reams of Japanese battle plans documents – captured every day.
He often said how pleased he was to have served as a ‘digger’ and that he considered the Australian slouch hat the finest military headgear in the world.
Following the War, he returned to Tokyo to become a war crimes investigator and prosecutor with the Australian War Crimes Commission.
Here he met Edna, a young American who was working with the U.S. War Crimes Commission.
They married in 1948 and decided to settle in Melbourne.
Soon after, he opened his highly successful trading company Scrivenor-Klestadt, that specialised in exporting Australian mined minerals, metals and chemicals to Indonesia and through out South East Asia.
He was very proud of his reputation with his bank.
It was so good that in those days long before electronic funds transfer, he was doing millions of dollars worth of business without any security other than his good name.
In 1949 his first son Geoff was born and given the middle name, Bligh, in honour of William Bligh whose epic voyage he had emulated in an open boat years earlier.
In 1951 his second son Jon arrived.
Through the 1950s he served in the Citizens Military Forces rising to the rank of major.
He had little spare time for sailing in those days, but in 1959 after his two young sons almost drowned in a rowing boat at Bermagui, he decided it was time to build a small 14-foot GP14 yacht.
He wanted to ensure that both boys learned to sail and experience his love of the sea.
In March 1963, he joined the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, but sailed his GP14 dinghy mainly from the Chelsea Yacht Club.
In later years he was a proud owner of three keelboats, the last being the 25-footer Fair Virtue that is now owned by his son Geoff.
He served on various RYCV committees and made an early impression in the 1970s as chairman of Royal’s membership committee when he vetoed the application to join from Alex Tzakmakis, a very prominent top keelboat skipper.
Son Geoff recalls, “Dad’s decision was a very hot topic not only around the club but also at the Klestadt dinner table in East Hawthorn.
“But he was later proved right when Tzakmakis was subsequently arrested for a high profile Point Lonsdale murder, convicted and sent to prison, where he died from burns inflicted by fellow prisoners.”
Mr Klestadt was Royals’ Commodore from 1978 to 1980 and he was instrumental in setting up its highly regarded administration system that according to a long time friend and past Commodore and Peter Bedggood put the club on a very good footing.
Mr Bedggood says, “Albert was very formal and correct, but he instilled and encouraged a very friendly atmosphere at the Club.
“He was a man of letters, spoke four languages and had a commanding use of English. He was instrumental in setting up the Club’s library and secured from Clive Tadgell an extremely valuable family collection of nautical books that included Captain Cook’s diaries and Flinders and King’s exploits.
“I’m very pleased that the Club has decided to name it the Albert Klestadt library in his honour!” Mr Bedggood added.
Mr Klestadt was never a prouder man than the day in August 1992 when his son Jon was inducted as the second generation of Klestadts to assume the role of Commodore at Royals.
Today two generations of the family are still members after starting out in the club’s cadets.
According to Jon, “He never slowed down or retired but was always voyaging whether it be cruising around Port Phillip with Edna, travelling to the outback, India or the Great Barrier Reef and Fiji where at the age of 72 he took up SCUBA diving.
“Into his late seventies he was the oldest certified diver in Australia and was livid when the Queensland Government refused to renew his license because of his age!”
He also served as the Melbourne Club’s Honorary Librarian transforming its Collins St first floor into a library and billiards room, and discovering in the process the club’s collection contained a number of extremely rare and valuable books.
When not building his business, running his beloved yacht club or cruising, he and wife Edna travelled extensively to Europe and South East Asia where he discovered another passion – photography.
But last year, at the age of 92, his body finally began to fail him and he could voyage no more.
Royal’s Vice Commodore Mike Smith says, “The Club mourns his passing but we are all the richer because of his very valuable efforts to re-establish our library after it was destroyed in a fire.”
He was a top administrator and has spearheaded three family generations who have sailed at the Club.
Albert is survived by his devoted wife Edna, his two sons, two grandsons and many friends who will fondly remember him.
