Sheila Patrick Sailor & Journalist
By Charlie Salter
Sheila Patrick and friends sailing her Brighton Jubilee SOUTHWIND C1939.
Courtesy Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron archive
We don’t have a lot of information on Sheila Patrick, but let’s put her out there and see what comes back.
So writes Charlie Salter - so if you, our Reader, have any info on the great Ms P - be sure to add your thoughts into the COMMENTS below - and now over to Charlie…
FROM the 1930’s Sheila was an accomplished Sydney sailor, boat owner, sailing journalist and writer. With a few other women, she pushed through the prejudice and assumptions about women and boats to become an important figure on and off the water.
Sheila’s Boats
Many women sailed and cruised socially often part of a family crew. However, in pre-war times, women who sailed competitively were few. They were viewed with suspicion and subject to teasing if not outright derision. See SWS story on the 19C skiff skipper Irene Pritchard She Sailed.
Jubilee
During the 1930’s a young Sheila Patrick started sailing with the boys in 12ft skiffs at North Shore Sailing Club. Sheila was a natural and knew what boats suited her purpose. By 1939 she was racing her own 18’ Jubilee class SOUTHWIND with RSYS mostly with an all-girl crew. This is essentially a Melbourne boat designed by Charlie Peel in 1934. It was proposed as a one-design all-rounder by Commodore Linacre of Royal Brighton Yacht Club. Hence sail insignia ‘BJ’ for Brighton Jubilee. The remit for Peel was ‘the boat must be of powerful and stable design, so as to safely withstand big and strong seas’. This is a particular issue with Port Phillip boats. A closed deck boat like this could romp along with full sail in Sydney harbour waters and carry lots of camping and picnic friends between races. https://www.jubileeyacht.org.au/history
Patricks commitment to sailing as a young woman is evidenced by achieving her 1941 Certificate of Competency as Master of an Australian Yacht.
FREYDIS BJ1 chasing FULMAR BJ5. Brighton Jubilees off St Kilda pier C1945. Shrine of Remembrance in background
Courtesy of Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron archive
Jubilee FREYDIS BJ1 and Tumlaren TARNA 91 off the rocks at Brighton 1962. Photo Harry Tedstone. RBYC archive
Tumlaren
In 1949 Patrick commissioned a Knud Reimers 27ft Tumlaren from Alfred Johansen of Tuncurry. SVALAN #83 is Swedish for swallow. Again this discerning Sydney sailor chose a boat that had established itself in Melbourne in 1938 with only few being built in Sydney. Sheila was such a fan of this racer-cruiser that she wrote as Mrs Sheila Cohen ‘Dear Sir” letters to Seacraft in 1955. Always an advocate for Tumlaren she noted the growing preference for Dragons, a day racer with cuddy, once they were selected as an Olympic class. See SWS Tums & Dragons - a game of Class. (click on image to enlarge)
SVALAN was sailing in Sydney until recently and is now in Melbourne ready for restoration by F J Darley. She will then join the growing fleet of restored Tumlaren in St Kilda and Williamstown. (click on images to enlarge)
Folkboat
Sheila’s next boat CAPELLA of KURRABA was a Folkboat 26 also with sail #83 built by Hald and Johansen of Dee Why, Sydney. This was a custom build plated for Sheila Cohen of Neutral Bay, launched May 3, 1967. In 1969 Sheila wrote an article for Seacraft called My Fancy Folkboat, celebrating her joy and love of this boat.
Perhaps Sheila did have a preference for racer-cruiser yachts and Scandinavian designers. Charlie Peel’s heritage and family name was actually Pihl (Swedish for arrow). Knud Reimers was a Dane who worked in Stockholm and finally the Swedish designed Folkboat from 1942.
Mr Cohen also sailed a classic Scandinavian 22m Skerry Cruiser SKERRY of KURRABA. See Greg Dwyer’s two part article in SWS Hald and Johansen Danish Boatbuilders and Some of Their Boats. ‘After long ownership in Sheila’s son Geoff Cohen’s hands until a few years ago, moored off the Balmoral Baths in Sydney’s Middle Harbour, CAPELLA went through a few short ownerships and is now in Pittwater, with a refurbishment planned.’ (click on image to enlarge)
Seacraft Journalist
Sheila is best known for her long association with Seacraft magazine. I’m guessing the launch issue of Seacraft in July/Aug 1946 was of great interest to her. A column headlined ‘Women and Sailing’ by their correspondent Nymph, set Seacraft’s agenda for women’s sailing.
‘Although for many years sailing has been wholly a man’s sport, in these enlightened times, women are taking an interest in it, and no yachting magazine would be complete without at least a column devoted to their activities’ The article continues .… ‘in Victoria, women sailing enthusiasts are joining the newly formed Victorian Ladies’ Yacht Club. The Secretary tells Nymph that they have about 150 keen members who sail in anything to gain experience’, and,
Women Should Own Boats. Women are very enthusiastic about sailing, but comparatively few of them own and sail their own boats. This is a great pity as many are very keen sailors and also quite efficient. If a few more women owned boats they would be placed on the same footing as men in yacht clubs, as are the women in England and the United States’.
Sheila Patrick, efficient sailor, boat owner and perhaps Nymph herself, no doubt took extra courage from that editorial.
Sydney in the 1960’s was an active scene for design and development of offshore yachts and fast dinghies. There was Frank Bethwaite and Bob Miller of Miller and Whitworth constantly re-working everything that Sheila the journalist followed with knowledge and interest. From Miller’s 18ft skiff TAIPAN to his 1969 article on offshore design - ‘Unlimited Possibilities of Yacht Construction ……. ‘within the next few years, thanks to the new International Offshore Rule and the trend towards 'line honours’ boats, it will become more the domain of the scientist and the engineer than the traditional boatbuilder.’
Miller designed one of my favourite dinghies and worked hard to get it introduced internationally and pushed for acceptance as an Olympic class. Sheila Patrick was on board with her story “C is for Contender’.
Seacraft July 1968. Apologies for scanned image
Writer
Sheila always wrote using her maiden name, contributing to several books. One sailing compendium published in Sydney in 1969 has two short stories by Patrick. ‘Turned Turtle’ GALLIVANTERS journey between Sydney and Coffs Harbour and ‘Saltash Saga’. SALTASH was a 30ft YW Diamond day racer that sailed from Sydney to Melbourne and return to compete in the National championship in 1967/68. SWS will publish this story in coming weeks.
Turned Turtle in Force Nine and More. Pub. by K G Murray Sydney 1969
Clubs and Sheilas
Sailing clubs bend over backwards to encourage women sailors. Last century, that was not the way. Ladies were actively and openly discouraged to take up sailing. They took supporting roles running the club social auxiliary. At best they could join as associates rather than full members. It took sailors like Sheila Patrick to break through.
When Patrick applied for full membership of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in 1949, letters of protest were submitted to the Club Secretary outlining reasons why her application should be rejected. One letter stated; ‘as this club by its programme is primarily interested in ocean racing, there is no capacity for female members other than in a social capacity, as the outside conditions are so tough that no gentleman would bring along a female member of his crew.’
Jeanette York was one of the few women ocean racers at the CYCA in the 1940s. She remembers Sheila mixing it with the men. ‘When Sheila was sailing with her all-girl crew on Sydney harbour, the guys would sail over and start whistling, but then blush and tack away when they heard the colourful language coming from her mouth.’
Only after threatening to resign her associate status, Sheila became the first female member of the CYCA. She even turned the tables on her name, as Australian men colloquially used to call Australian women ‘sheilas’ (only Sir Les Patterson continues that honour). In 2001 the CYCA, always focused on ocean racing, introduced the Sheila Patrick Memorial Trophy for women completing 10 Sydney Hobart races, giving Sheila the last laugh.
Credits
Offshore Yachting Magazine of the CYCA Aug/Sept 1998.
RSYC Sesquicentennial Book. 2012
Thanks to Michelle Baeza at RSYS and Mitch Grima at CYCA for digging in their archives.