Some SANDRA History
Following on from his story last week on UTIEKAH II, Malcolm Lambe gives us a little history on another attendee at this year’s RMYC timber boat festival on Pittwater.
The 8 metre class yacht Sandra racing in the 1952 Royal Hobart Regatta.
Not far from UTIEKAH II at the recent RMYC Timber Boat Festival was moored the 8 metre SANDRA. This elegant Huon Pine yacht was designed and built by Max Creese in 1948.
Creese, the respected Hobart boat builder operated from the historic Battery Point slipways from around the late 1940s through the 1980s. Taking over one of the old Abel family slips, Creese established Max Creese Pty Ltd, a yard known initially for building wooden yachts and later for fibreglass renovation and repair work. Between about 1949 and 1966 he built many wooden boats from Tasmanian timbers —and designed yachts such as ISLANDER II (1968), WHITE STAR (1976), and TRADITION (1984), the latter fresh from a restoration by the Tasmnaian Shipwrights &Co and being prepared for the 80th Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race this year.
But for or some reason which remains unclear SANDRA was built in Max´s back yard rather than at Battery Point as this wonderful image shows.
Like DEFIANCE, SANDRA also competed in a Sydney to Hobart, skippered by Creese, coming in third across the line in the 1948 race. Anyone who has sailed in an eight metre will understand how ridiculous a thing this is to choose to do! She also won the Maria Island race that year.
SANDRA taking line honours in the Melbourne to Hobart Westcoasters 1978 under yawl rig by Rolly Tasker.
The Mercury of January 6th 1949 reported - “On her voyage back to Sydney (after the ‘48 Hobart) in the middle of Bass Strait, one of the brass straps which connected the tiller to the rudder post broke. A heavy sea was running and a wind of almost 60 m.p.h. was blowing. The wind was from the south-west, and the yacht was on a broad reach.
SANDRA continued with only one strap holding the tiller until about 8 a.m. next day, when the remaining strap gave way.
This meant that the tiller was no longer connected to the rudder and the yacht was out of control. However, instead of rounding into the wind, Sandra sheered off and set her own course dead before the wind.
Had the yacht come head on to the wind and pounded helplessly in the 15ft. seas which were running she might have been damaged seriously.
While the yacht was planing before the breeze out of control, two shifting wrenches were secured to the remains of the tiller straps and the tiller was made fast to these.
Gradually SANDRA was brought back on her course, but by this time the constant flogging of the storm staysail had caused both forestay hanks to part and the jib sheets to come adrift at the tack of the sail.
With the temporary steering, SANDRA made for Eden, where repairs were effected.”
At some stage between 1950 and 1975 she spend time in Western Australia as there are a few images showing her sailing with Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club markings on her sails.
She raced in the Melbourne to Hobart race in 1978 and rather extraordinarily her current owners, Peter and Caroline Davidson are still using that same mainsail 48 years later! If only modern sails had that longevity!
Approximately five hundred 8 Metre yachts were built around the world of which only 177 have survived.
Some of the 8 Metres built or raced in Australia are Defiance, Frances, Vanessa, Norske, Cariad II, Sandra, Brand V, Marie Louise III, Emily, Pakadoo, Moonbeam and Varg