EOS-Goddess of the dawn
By Malcolm Lambe
EOS is a 33.5ft (10.2M) Brittany Class designed by Laurent Giles in 1938 and built in Seaforth, Sydney 1956 by shipwright David Linton and owner Tom Flower. She’s out of (mostly) full-length planks of White Beech with bronze floors.
The first of the class BETTINE was launched in 1939 and won a cross-Channel race in that same year. The second, DAULA was built the following year but was damaged in the Blitz and wasn’t launched until 1946. Only nineteen Brittany Class boats were built including two in Australia – to an upgraded version of 1954 which stepped the mast on the deck supported by two steel compression posts in the saloon on either side of the central walkway with full headroom all the way to the forepeak.
Transporting EOS to be launched 1956
The launching took place in May 1956 at Clontarf. Lifting EOS out of the shed at Seaforth where she was built involved removing part of the roof, placing her on a low loader and then driving her down to Middle Harbour and placing her on a slip.
EOS MH 71, was a Middle Harbour Yacht Club yacht and remained so until Tom Flower’s death in 1979.
In the 1950s Australia still suffered from shortages of materials resulting from WW II and Graham Newland, twice winner of the Sydney to Hobart in his Lion Class yacht SIANDRA described the situation like this…
“The difficulties of building a yacht in this period were profound. The purchase of north coast White Beech for the planking gives an idea. Sufficient timber for the construction of four yachts was required: three Lion Class yachts SIANDRA, KAIYU (impounded a couple of years back by Maritime at Careel Bay and ended up at Kimbriki Tip) and MALOHI plus EOS for Tom Flower.
All owners wanted full length planks, so the only way was to purchase eleven trees in the (Wauchope) forest where they stood. No local timber mill could handle these logs in their full length, so they were railed to Sydney. After much searching a timber jinker was found that could carry the logs to a mill with a 40 foot run out in Baulkham Hills. Here the logs were cut into planks.”
In 1957 EOS was registered as a British ship (Australia did not have its own registration system then). The Middle Harbour Yacht Club Register states Eos is 33.37 ft long, 25.6 ft on the waterline and weighs 7 Tons.
Tom Flower bought the plans for EOS in the early 1950s and by 1955 she was substantially complete. Tom had the Beecraft Engineering Works which was located on Sydney Road between Hope Street and Kempbridge Avenue, Seaforth.
EOS was built there and fitted out at Davis Marina, North Harbour near Manly.
She raced out of Middle Harbour Yacht Club and after a particularly successful race Tom would fire a cannon as he approached the berth at the Marina. The EOS Cannon was cast at Beecraft Engineering Works at the time when EOS was being built. For firing it was mounted on the main hatch cover. Before it was taken to the yacht Tom decided to test it out at home. He clamped it to his drawing stand and propped an old drawing board against the wall to protect it. He poured some black powder down the barrel, then a wad and for good measure rolled a ball bearing down as well. Finally he called his wife in and said “watch this”. He held a match to the touch hole.
There was an almighty explosion and the room filled with smoke. When it cleared Tom discovered the ball had passed right through the drawing board and smashed a brick in the wall behind it.
EOS sailed in the Sydney Hobart Race in 1957 and 1960 with Tom in charge. She also sailed to Tasmania and the Great Barrier Reef. In January 1959 Eos embarked on the first of her many ocean voyages. This time to New Zealand. Tom took Dave Linton, the shipwright, with him as one of the crew.
When Tom Flower died in 1979 the boat was sold to a couple of film crew from Channel Seven – Vernon Moore and Tony Curtis. They embarked on an ambitious voyage around the South Pacific starting with New Zealand. Tony’s friend, John Paton, who had never sailed before, was persuaded to go with them for 'a pleasant holiday'.
At their planned departure time the weather forecast was not too good, heavy winds were forecast and Cyclone Paul was about. Tropical cyclone Paul developed out of a tropical depression that first became evident in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria on 2 January 1980. By 3 January 1980 this tropical depression had developed early signs of a cyclonic circulation and had deepened to 997 hPa, but it had been drifting slowly southeast and made landfall before reaching cyclone intensity. The Weather Bureau advised them it was 'not a good time to go to sea' but they cast off anyway.
On January 16th 1980 the barometer dropped 4 points and things got hairy. Their single sideband radio would receive Radio Moscow in English but all they could receive from Australia was snatches of cricket commentary - no weather forecasts.
The barometer kept dropping, and was suddenly below 998 mills - the cyclone had caught EOS.
The wind was constant at 50 knots or over and then their wind gauge jammed at its maximum of 60 knots. Twice EOS was rolled on her beams end until the mast was in the water. The door to the lazarette in the stern was smashed so water pouring into the cockpit fed straight into the bilge. The floorboards in the main cabin were floating before that gap was plugged.
Vernon described how on one occasion he found himself standing with one foot on the side of the hull and the other on the cabin ceiling praying for Eos to right herself. She did, obviously.
At the height of the storm they put out a PAN PAN call with no response. To try a MAYDAY was futile.
The engine ingested water and refused to start; no way to charge the batteries. The main sail split in two and had to be taken down. All the time the seas were building.
Under bare poles and with three hawsers attached to big fenders streamed over the stern she was doing 6 knots and keeping her head up as she charged down the face of 35ft waves with the odd monster wave much higher than that. Fortunately the drogue effect of the hawsers kept her stern to the wind and prevented her pitchpoling down the face of a wave.
The weather had been overcast for days, which meant, that getting a fix with a sextant was impossible. All navigation was by dead reckoning and so their exact position was not known. They decided their best bet was to head for Lord Howe Island but were not sure where it was. EOS was fitted with roller reefing at that time so they rolled the bottom of the top half main sail around the boom and hoisted the remainder - balanced with a small jib the EOS was moving.
By this time the crew were exhausted; they had been wet under their wet weather gear for days and with their harnesses on for the same length of time, the men had salt-water ulcers on their derrieres, serious chaffing from the harnesses and itching in their armpits.
Fortunately the dead reckoning proved accurate. The sight of Lord Howe Island silhouetted in the gold light of a setting sun brought tears to their eyes and they could finally peel off the wet weather gear for the first time in seven days as they skimmed into the calm waters in the lee of the island.
At 0815 on January 23rd the EOS was towed into the lagoon by a long boat. They had been at sea for two weeks and travelled nine hundred and fifty seven miles just to reach Lord Howe.
“Did you see any other boats out there?” was the first question asked.
Surprised at the question they discovered New Zealand yacht SMACKWATER JACK a Whiting one tonner, had left Hobart after the Sydney to Hobart race to return home in a race from Hobart to Auckland at the same time Eos left Sydney. Tragically, she was lost without trace. Her Skipper/Owner/Builder Paul Whiting, wife Alison, John Sugden and Scott Coombes were on board when she disappeared.
Maritime historian Noel Hilliam spotted a deflated life-raft with three bodies about 1km north of Round Hill, Ripiro Beach more than a week after the official search for the SMACKWATER JACK and her crew ended. Even then an effort to recover the bodies was delayed by high seas and they were not seen again. In 2008, 28 years later, a cockpit grating was found just north of the monument on Omamari Beach, with the same Historian stating then it could belong to the lost yacht.
Seven weeks after they landed at Lord Howe the EOS set sail for New Zealand again. Vernon had made a visit to Sydney and returned with new and repaired sails while the others gave EOS a makeover of fresh paint and varnish and a scrub from the bottom up.
Three weeks out from Lord Howe Island they saw the light on the most seaward of the Three Kings Islands off the northern tip of New Zealand. They docked at Auckland and were tidying up prior to a well-earned beer when a couple strolling towards the yacht stopped for a chat.
"I sailed over from Sydney in a yacht just like that. We tied up right here," the man said
"Shocking trip, thought I would never see land again. In fact, I was so relieved to be alive that I went straight to that phone box over there and proposed to this lady over the phone”.
“Yes” she said.
“In fact,” said the man “today is the anniversary of that phone call and I promised my wife that I would show her the exact phone box where I made that call exactly two years ago.
“This yacht is remarkably similar to the yacht I sailed in,” the man then said, inquiring, “What’s her name?”
EOS
EOS! It’s the same Yacht!”
Whereupon the exhausted crew of EOS went off to the pub for a beer and to sleep in the hotel accommodation booked by the couple who were delighted to stay aboard the EOS instead.
Their voyage proceeded south from Auckland then west through the Cook Strait then north again to New Plymouth where it was intended to do some filming. However, the filming did not materialise so the EOS headed north towards Fiji. By this time Tony’s brother Peter, a shipwright, had joined the crew. He became ill on board so Suva became a definite port of call for medical attention.
Peter recovered and while he was doing so Tony and Vernon took advantage of the break, spending much time at the Royal Suva Yacht Club. Their next leg was to Efate Island and took the form of an impromptu race with other cruising yachts. The Eos won and the race became a recognised event in the ocean-racing calendar.
Brian Wilson bought EOS from Tony and Vernon in 1992.
After purchasing her he set about doing some restoration works and took Tom Flower's sons, Errol, Terry and Kevin for a sail in her.
They recalled, as apprentices at Beecraft Engineering, making the patterns for the bronze castings for Eos, the winches, various brackets holding the hull together, the stanchion bases, the rudder bearings and the floors. Tom’s daughter June remembered putting the little wooden plugs into the hull planking - there were literally thousands of them.
When Brian found out Eos was eligible for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race of 1994 he shifted his focus from making her look great on the water and comfortable inside to do all required to secure a Cat. 1 certificate, and a cruiser/racer classification.
EOS very nearly didn’t start that race. When motoring out to the starting line the CV joint connecting the shaft to the engine came adrift and was making an almighty racket below. Brian crawled into the bilges below the removable cockpit sole and was able to make repairs.
EOS was the second smallest in that year’s race – arriving in Constitution Dock on New Year’s day after 7 days at sea – with six crew – including two women. Must have been quite a feat with a Porta-Potty, ice-box, Metho stove with only 2 burners and a grill. At one stage they were taking water and thought they must have sprung a plank, until discovering the anchor hatch was not secured properly.
I’ve owned EOS since 2018. Although still harbour racing with Manly Yacht Club she was rather run down. Luckily I found a brilliant team of wooden boat shipwrights at Ian Begg’s Mackenzie Marine at Gonsalves Boatshed, Palm Beach, Pittwater. I’ve spent quite a bit of time and money on her since. Well that’s what you do when you’re a wooden boat tragic - there’s no escape.
When did I start sailing? Well I learnt to sail at 10 years old at BYRA on dinghies similar to Manly Juniors. Then crewed on a Jim Overy-built V.J. ROULETTE – one of the first to have a “rolling cockpit” and Terylene sails. Saturdays I crewed on yachts at RPAYC including a Colleen class DOLPHIN which regularly won Division Three. I sailed to the reef at nineteen on a Tophat with its owner and Anne Gash – who went on to sail a singlehanded Folkboat around the world. But my sailing roots go back even beyond that. I was about 8 years old. My brother and I would take my father’s 12 foot rowing dinghy from a shed in Crystal Bay opposite the Prince Alfred Yacht Club. We’d skid it on the oars over the mangrove shoots, oyster beds and mud. Row out into the bay, then rig up one of the heavy oars as a mast, hoist an old cotton tarpaulin and sail down Pittwater. Probably inspired by “Swallows & Amazons”. Rowing back was a real ordeal. Our hands would be blistered and raw. Not sure our parents even knew what we were up to – apart from messing around in boats. And as you know...there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
Especially timber boats!
