Defiance - The Name Says It All
Reborn…and sailing at Port Huon
In the late 1980’s I did my first serious offshore racing on a little fibre glass S&S 30 called CORNICHE.
It was hard work but exciting.
Twin poles gybes, bloopers, downwind death-rolls, a crowded wet cabin but marching upwind, higher and faster than the then, more modern yachts. So when I received an email from Craig Coulson about the restoration of the original timber DEFIANCE I felt a wave of nostalgia…the exaggerated tumblehome, the sloping decks, the proud pointed bow, even the powder blue hull. Here’s what he had to say:
In late primary school, I was dragged by my father to Sydney on one his boat buying expeditions. At Middle Harbour, we saw DEFIANCE, which was not for sale but that was the boat for us. The family ended up with a Swanson 32 instead, so still a good choice at the time. DEFIANCE of course is the original S&S Design 2098 and all the ones that came afterwards whether timber or otherwise are not DEFIANCE.
(Thanks to Phil Yeomans at Deck Hardware for the original photos)
Sparkman and Stephens design, built by Doug Booker using the very best materials of the time. Triple Oregon on laminated frames with a double skin cedar ply deck. State of the art and money no object. So an icon of Australian small ocean racing of the 1970s. But the Solitary Island Race, the Montague Island Race and the Sydney to Mooloolaba Race, each now are no longer held.
Are we lesser sailors?
Or are the boats lesser?
But time passes as do owners. So why give a 50-year-old derelict icon another life? Who knows.
Maybe it is as simple as, I could not let DEFIANCE pass through the chain saws blade with the lead keel sold for scrap. Abandoned in an industrial storage yard, two more days under the Queensland sun and that was the unhappy fate for DEFIANCE. Uninsurable and deemed unseaworthy. Maybe part of me somehow wanted to save something from a golden age of small boat offshore racing that I had grown up with and cherished but is now lost. When small boats raced long races that were an adventure and the crews were seaman. But that would be vanity.
In any event it is now done, 9 months on the hard with Peter Kerr at Deagon Slipway and quick trip to Hobart for the Festival with Jimmi Magician. The folly is complete.
Now I look forward to simply cruising Southern Tasmania
especially when it is windy.
By // Craig Coulson