CARESS-A magnificent restoration
One of the most viewed articles of 2022 in SWS was Ian Ward’s account of his grandfather’s work entitled “Wally Ward designs and the CA’s”. Ian has now produced a history of one particular Wally Ward creation, the beautiful CARESS. Channeling Charles Dickens, we have decided to serialise this detailed account, beginning this week with the double ender’s early history.
Image - Gerry Colley
PART ONE - A CARESS FOR FAMILY & FRIENDS
By Ian Ward
With her distinctive raised deck, pretty canoe stern and unique shear strake, CARESS is the epitome of a truly classic design from a past era. This story of her magnificent restoration and place in a long heritage of yacht designs pays tribute to the owners, builders and designer.
Designed by Wally Ward in Sydney for a family friend in 1948, sisterships CARESS and CAMIRA were a development from his original very successful designs, JANAWAY 1937 and Jasnar 1944. CARESS and CAMIRA were the first of the ‘CA’s’ which hold a distinguished place in Australian yacht racing history as subsequent developments CARMEN, CADENCE, CALLIOPE and CASTANET all proved highly successful in ocean racing, including winning Sydney-Hobart race in 1966.
CARESS was the second of the CA’s built and is identical to Camira. Launched in 1961, she was built from Wally’s original plans, thirteen years after Camira by spray painter Keith Newland in a workshop in Leichhardt, Sydney. During the rebuild Simon Sadubin and his team found that the quality of the workmanship to be of an extremely high quality, evidencing that at least one highly skilled craftsman assisted Keith with the original CARESS build. After CARESS was launched, Wally Ward teamed up with a young boat builder, Ron Swanson to build CARMEN the first of the Carmen class yachts, leading to speculation that it was probably Ron who helped Keith build CARESS in 1961.
CARESS at her mooring at Woollahra in 2019, prior to restoration. Image M. Paull
CARESS was next owned by Robert Coventry and used as a harbour racer. She was moored off their home at Shell Cove Mosman from 1963 to 1976. Interestingly, Tom Coventry, Rob's son, assisted Simon Sadubin on the CARESS restoration including installing all the electrical systems. George Lees and then Jens Skdv-Christensen owned her for short periods in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, until she was eventually sold to Graham Nock in December 1982. Nock, who had previously owned her sistership CAMIRA for a short period, raced CARESS with the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club (SASC) Classic Division fleet for 36 seasons.
CARESS has enjoyed long stints in the hands of Sydney’s sailing families since her launch in 1961. Bought as a daysailer in the late 1960s by Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron (RSYS) member Bob Coventry for his wife Ann and their four children, the yacht was used constantly by the family to explore the nooks and crannies of Sydney Harbour.
Bob Coventry and family aboard CARESS in the 1970’s
Moored off Mosman’s Shell Cove near the family home, CARESS became the centre of the family’s weekends and annual summer holidays for over a decade. Annual Christmas trips up the coast to Pittwater saw the yacht anchored in Careel Bay for well over a month for the family to enjoy and use. Youngest son Tom, who was not quite ten when the boat was sold in the mid 1970s, remembers that all family birthday parties and anniversaries were celebrated onboard CARESS, describing the yacht as ‘so beautiful to sleep and sail on’. The yacht was a great source of happiness and joy for the family with many memorable occasions onboard captured brilliantly in black and white. Bob Coventry’s untimely death a few years after he sold the yacht has amplified the importance of CARESS for the family, with the boat still talked about with great fondness.
CARESS at the opening of the Sydney Opera House
CARESS was also owned for over 30 years by Sydney businessman Graham Nock, of Nock & Kirby hardware retail fame. As the only son of Sydney Lord Mayor and avid yachtsman Sir Norman Nock (acknowledged as introducing the Dragon class yachts to Australia in the 1950s) Nock had spent a lifetime ‘messing around in boats’ by the time he purchased CARESS in his sixties. As a member of Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron (RSYS), Graham and his son Rick enjoyed great success racing against the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club (SASC) fleet on Sydney Harbour every Saturday. CARESS’s distinctive double-ended lines and oversized rig became a familiar sight criss-crossing the harbour course. Reputedly unbeatable downwind, Rick Nock remembers the yacht being perfectly balanced and ‘really just able to sail herself, often surfing at great speed across the finish line. The combination of a seamless design, skilled crew and a fiercely competitive skipper saw CARESS win many more races than not! and her name can be found on a number of the perpetual trophies held by the SASC. These weekly father/son sails were greatly enjoyed and rarely missed.
Graham Nock at the helm of the magnificently restored CARESS, for one last sail!
One of CARESS’ current owners, Michael Paull, crewed with the Nocks for close to seven years each Saturday, learning the ways of the boat and proudly taking over custodianship of CARESS in 2020 in partnership with Julian Sexton and David Kenyon. Graham Nock, now an impressive 96 years old, was invited to climb aboard his old yacht after her extensive restoration and spend the day sailing on Sydney Harbour in 2023. His turn at the helm was bittersweet for family and friends who acknowledged that with his encroaching mobility issues this was to be Graham’s last sail. How fitting that this milestone was spent on board his lovely CARESS.
Michael Paull purchased CARESS from the Nock family in 2019 and in 2020, formed a syndicate with two of his former University of Sydney colleagues, Julian Sexton and David Kenyon to restore CARESS back to "as new" condition, the mandate being given to Symon Sadubin and his team "let's put a brand new classic, with another 60-years racing ahead of her, back on the harbour"
Look out for part two of the CARESS story, “A Complete Restoration” in next week’s SWS.