The wind strength increased all night until in the vicinity of Bustard Head lighthouse it topped 100 knots. Our last remaining canvas, the Spitfire jib was hoisted, and KINTAMA lay ahull. The crew exhausted, replaced the storm boards, piled into the soaked bunks and fell asleep

In one season alone Coles made sixteen Channel crossings in COHOE, but her most famous voyage was the 1950 Transatlantic Race from Bermuda to Plymouth.

"If you can remember it, you weren't there", a phrase often used in connection with Woodstock, but equally applicable to the infamous Auscrew parties of the Admiral's Cup era of offshore racing

It’s amazing that yachts which require so many crew, so much expertise, not to mention so many dollars to run them, have become such a flourishing class in Europe and the USA.

Most sailors know Knud Reimers’ Tumlaren sailed in Australia since 1937. But it’s just one boat in a huge folio of successful designs over six decades. Here’s a look at Reimers and his boats.

“I have included a photo taken from leeward just after the start with MORNA leading the fleet, SAGA is just to windward of her, but further to leeward and astern of MORNA is a staysail schooner with a wishbone rig on the foremast.”

It’s hard to believe it, but in England, the Classic Yachting fraternity is slap bang in the middle of its biggest week of the year.

Australian sailors have always respected their New Zealand neighbours. With a population of only 4.8m, NZ holds the America’s Cup, have long pedigree with both ocean racing and dinghy design and a healthy tradition of maintaining their yachting heritage.

“But sailing is a pursuit most fascinating, varied, and exciting, in which women can become absolutely proficient, requiring no particular muscular effort or physical strength, only quickness of judgment, and a knowledge, which can be acquired by practice and the opportunity. So any woman wishing to shine in a delightful little world of her own would do well to emulate Miss Pritchard.”

What a great outcome it would be if she could regularly race on Port Phillip, her spiritual home, against her elder sister, providing pleasure not only for a new custodian and her crew, but for all those lucky enough to witness the sight.

Although the Australian’s were quietly confident that they would not be disgraced, they were not prepared for the horse laughter of the English yachting press. One of their quotes read: 'Very sporting of the Australians to send over a couple of cruising boats (double-enders) and a very old Robert Clark design'.

While there are hundreds of beautiful words, lyrical and practical, used to describe the hull a boat, when it comes the interior there are few. Words seem to describe the atmosphere rather than the space. Those that do define space seem to have come from via the Navy rather than from the lips of the designer.

As with all things involving our FAIR WINDS crew, the weekend began with a knock-out dinner and about thirty seven bottles of our finest…and then the wind blew! Sal and Mark wrap up the weekend that was the GREAT VETERANS RACE.

It’s a good time to re-introduce inexpensive ply kits. Mirror enthusiasts from the 1960’s and 70’s are now parents and grandparents wanting to share Mirror Love with a new generation. So write Charlie Salter and Jaemie Wilson.

Bucknell happened to drink with Daily Mirror feature writers in a local Ealing pub. The Mirror was the largest circulation tabloid in the UK and was keen for a project. Sailing had recently topped a poll of English leisure activities so Bucknell suggested his DIY dinghy…And the rest is dinghy history so write Charlie Salter and Jaemie Wilson.

When Scott Patrick took Wistari out for her 51st race we thought she deserved an appropriate escort of vintage timber yachts. It would be the 18th Gladstone for Pagan, my 1962 Tasman Seabird, and the first time Dan Deburiatte skippered 1959 Joanne Brodie in the race up the coast. Wistari sure as hell didn’t wait around for us though. 

Albert Park Lake in Melbourne and Lake Wendouree in Ballarat are large, freshwater, metropolitan lakes, often forgotten for their contribution to boating, yacht design and racing for 150 years.

Quick trivia question : Name three yachts that arrived off Battery Point, at the end of the Sydney-Hobart, believing they were line honours winners, only to be denied by the protest committee?

Peter Warner may have won line honours in three Sydney to Hobart Races and narrowly missed a fourth by less than a minute but perhaps he was better known for his rescue of 6 Shipwrecked,Tongan teenagers.

So, when I was given a copy of South Sea Vagabonds by Johnny Wray I assumed it was going to be another entertaining but outdated, perhaps pompous account of a privileged white man’s parade through the islands. I couldn’t have been more wrong.