SOUTH PASSAGE- a microcosm of life ashore
By Phill Woodgate
Drawing nicely, early in the 2022 Brisbane to Gladstone Race. She enters every year, in the cruising division, with adult voyage crew. Image-Barry Nicholls.
I may have seen the big, black schooner in Port Stephens, back in the ‘90’s but I first really noticed her in 2000, when she slowly came up behind me in the Great Sandy Straits, inside K’gari (Fraser Is.). She turned east & slowly seemed to grind to a halt on the muddy bottom. We pressed on. Well, after all, as I later learnt, she was designed for the perils of shallow water sailing on Moreton Bay.
On the completion, in May 2024, of another successful voyage on SOUTH PASSAGE, I bade farewell to the young voyage crew as they disembarked. One of them then stopped to introduced me to his father and grandfather, who pointed out that all three had completed a South Passage voyage at different times in their lives!
That’s not a bad endorsement, I thought. We must be doing something right. After 31 years of sail training, we have the children and now the grandchildren of voyage crew, coming to experience what their parents & grand parents experienced. After 31 years, we still have volunteers, mostly retirees, giving their time to keep our ship sailing; we still have ticketed crew, on a nominal wage or volunteering, to run the ship in a professional manner. We still have a small staff to run the office in Manly. We still have Simon Steenland, the man who conceived the idea of a Queensland sail training ship, now keeping in the background, on call when needed, available to get things done, to make things happen. This is South Passage, 31 years old, a ship of her time, a ship for the people.
CONCEPTION.
Simon Steenland came to Australia with very little, a young man from the Netherlands, looking for a better life. He worked hard, qualified as a builder, and did very well for himself. Like most people from the Netherlands, Simon is also a keen sailor & he pursued this interest in his spare time, in his adopted country.
During the 1988 Australian bicentennial celebrations, Simon went to Sydney to see the fleet of tall ships. He was disappointed to notice that all the states except Queensland, his adopted home, were represented by a sail training ship. He decided that this should be rectified.
He consulted Rick James, a prominent Brisbane naval architect. Rick suggested that aluminium would be the best material to build a ship for the rigours of sail training but just to be sure, Simon commissioned the design and building of an aluminium racing yacht of 36 feet, called SKIMMER, to satisfy himself of the suitability of the material.
Confident in the result, Simon then commissioned Rick to design a sail training ship, SOUTH PASSAGE, a gaff schooner of 24.8m LOD and 60-tonnes lightweight, in a style similar to the pilot schooners of America’s north-east. Her keel was laid in Hemmant on the Brisbane River late in 1990 and she was commissioned for sailing in September, 1993.
While building progressed, Simon brought to life the organisation to operate the ship – The Sail Training Association of Queensland Inc.. He recruited various sailing colleagues to help crew her, among them Robyn Elkington, who had a long history of racing yachts up and down the east coast with her family. Eventually, Robyn rose to the dual tasks of Sailing Master and honorary Operations Manager. She is still performing those roles very effectively.
With a small crew, Simon, Robyn and others sailed SOUTH PASSAGE up and down the Qld coast, canvassing schools and youth groups, selling the concept of sail training and building up a clientele of regular customers. Over time, this developed into a busy annual schedule, spending autumn sailing out of Brisbane, working her way north to sail out of Cairns and Townsville in winter. Returning to Brisbane for spring, she works south to Sydney for summer, then back to Brisbane in the new year for slipping in February. Then she starts all over again.
RUNNING THE SHIP.
SOUTH PASSAGE has accommodation for a compliment of 30. She’s crewed by a Skipper, Sailing Master and Cook, who receive a nominal wage, or volunteer their time, and three volunteer watch-leaders. This leaves 24 berths for the voyage crew, which may include trainee watch-leaders. The voyage crew are divided into three watches.
The crew and volunteers are drawn from the membership of the Sail Training Association if Qld Inc., which owns and operates South Passage. Not all members are sailors. Some prefer to support the ship by volunteering their time to her maintenance, administration, marketing and other services.
Voyages can last from two to ten days, depending on the requirements of the customer. Most of the customers are schools: private schools, public schools, special purpose schools but SOUTH PASSAGE also caters for Navy cadets, sea scouts, Duke of Edinburgh candidates and the adult public (Why should kids have all the fun?).
Anchored in Esmerelda Cove, Broughton Is., NSW. Image- Phill Woodgate.
For 31 years, SOUTH PASSAGE has operated successfully with very little governmental or philanthropic support. She has survived primarily on voyage fees and the goodwill of her volunteers.
SAIL TRAINING.
South Passage’s reason for being is sail training, a term which, these days, is lost on many people. To para-phrase Irving Johnson: sail training is not about preparing young people for a life at sea; rather, sail training uses the challenge of voyaging on a sailing a ship to prepare young people for life. After all, the ship at sea is a microcosm of life ashore – a community facing the rigours of daily life to reach our individual and common goals. How do we address those challenges, individually and as a community, to successfully complete our voyage?
Sailing inside Cook Is, northern NSW
On SOUTH PASSAGE, the sail training is based on what we call our R.O.P.E.S. principles:
Respect: for oneself, for each other, for the crew, the ship and the sea. We encourage our voyage crew to be courteous to each other, be tolerant of each others’ differing viewpoints and strive to live harmoniously.
Opportunity: ship-board life at sea provides voyage crew with an opportunity to learn about themselves. How will I respond to the challenges I encounter on the voyage. Can I do this? Where do I fit in the team? What’s it like to be in a leadership role?
Participation: There are many tasks at hand to keep the ship sailing. It requires teamwork by all and a leader or Bosun in each watch – we all have to do our bit for the common good.
Enjoyment: it’s important that everyone enjoys their limited time on the voyage and gets satisfaction from their involvement.
Safety: the greatest priority. We all want to reach our destination safely and in good health.
Voyages of four days or more usually culminate with Command Day, when the voyage crew elect their own skipper, sailing master, navigator and watch-leaders. Using the skills learnt on their voyage, they are given a voyage plan, with a few challenges, and asked to sail the ship to her destination for the day.
BENEFITS FOR THE VOYAGE CREWS.
For most participants, sail training is a life changing experience. A young mother brought her daughter to embark on a voyage out of Manly recently. She told me she wanted her daughter to experience what she herself experienced as a teenager on a SOUTH PASSAGE voyage in the 90’s. She said it turned her life around, saving her from an uncertain future.
Sail training is youth development at sea. It puts the voyage crew in challenging situations from which they learn that perseverance and effort can produce results well beyond their perceived limitations. It gives them the opportunity to understand that when faced with a challenge in life, the best outcome arises from pushing yourself and persevering until you succeed. They learn about the importance of teamwork and community. Some will have opportunity to experience a leadership role. They may well discover latent abilities previously unknown to them. Sail training provides a platform for voyage crew to develop skills that will later help them cope with life.
BENEFITS FOR CREWS AND VOLUNTEERS.
It’s never too late to learn something new. For me personally, SOUTH PASSAGE has provided me with my third and last career – from accounting to farming to becoming a professional mariner. I started sailing in my youth and dreamt of a career at sea or on the land but became a Chartered Accountant. (How did that happen?!)
SOUTH PASSAGE gave me an opportunity. On retirement from farming, I was interested in a job at an island research station – it required someone with practical skills, business skills and a skipper’s ticket. When I discussed this with a new-found colleague who happened to be a tall ship sailor of considerable experience, and one of South Passage’s casual skippers, he responded “You’d better join SOUTH PASSAGE & do your tickets”. So, in 2012 I embarked on my first voyage as a volunteer, trainee watch-leader.
Despite my life-long sailing experience, I had reservations about my ability for the position. Not being a parent, or a teacher, how would I relate to the young voyage crew? (That was the least of my worries, when compared to mastering the process of engaging or disengaging the running backstays.) As the skipper pointed out, adults without parenting or teaching experience may have an advantage in that they tend speak to young people as peers rather than as children, so engendering an early formation of mutual respect.
With time and experience I found immense satisfaction in being a watch-leader. The satisfaction of teaching the voyage crew effectively; seeing them come together as a team; noticing the growth in their character as they gained confidence in themselves, in me and in the ship over the course of the voyage; and sharing the joys and challenges of the adventure of coastal voyaging.
Of course, it's not just their adventure, we all feel the sense of adventure on any voyage. Nobody goes to sea without some feelings of trepidation and hope. Sailing to beautiful locations, contending with the elements, changing weather conditions and sea state, gear failures, managing the sentiment of the ship’s compliment, interactions with marine life – all add to the adventure for the volunteers and crew.
Most of our volunteers are retirees, largely relieved from the responsibilities of young children, employment, mortgages and busy social lives. Giving their time to SOUTH PASSAGE rewards them with a sense of purpose in life, the camaraderie of friends with a common interest, new friendships to enjoy ashore, and the pleasure of sailing on such a beautiful ship, exploring the coast of Qld and NSW.
The volunteers also experience their own personal development. They grow in self-confidence. They develop their communication skills through instructing their watch. They become competent in the teamwork required to be an effective crew member. They further develop their leadership skills as they guide their watch over the course of the voyage.
CHALLENGES.
The world has evolved since SOUTH PASSAGE was launched in 1993. People are faced with ever-increasing demands for their attention. There is a growing market for litigation rather than taking responsibility for one’s actions, so insurance premiums are rising. This makes school and youth group leaders increasingly risk averse. This seems ironic when recent studies point to increased mental health issues in young people stemming from their screen dominated, cosseted lives that preclude them from exploring their physical environment and learning to manage risks.
Of course, there are risks in taking a group of young people to sea on a sailing ship but with well trained, experienced and qualified crew and a well maintained ship, the risks can be managed. The benefits of sail training have manifested themselves over nearly 100 years. Now, more than ever, young people stand to develop into adults better adapted for life if they are given the opportunities for personal growth found in sail training.
CYCLES.
Just as the ocean waves have rolled under her keel, waves of people have rolled through the life of SOUTH PASSAGE. Voyage crew come and go; many are now sending their children, some their grandchildren. Her clientele, the schools and other youth organisations, come and go, often following changes in staff, who bring different opinions as to the relative merits of sail training. The crew and volunteers come and go in waves as they progress through the stages in their lives. Although, some don’t stop.
Each cohort has something to give to and something to gain from the ship; they appreciate the value of sail training in developing the character of our voyage crews and it’s consequent benefit to the wider community; they appreciate the value to the volunteers and crew of gaining purpose, friendship and new skills. South Passage provides a social service to all of them and in doing so she is an asset to the wider community. Together, they keep SOUTH PASSAGE sailing.
A good start in the Brisbane to Gladstone Race, 2019.
THANK YOU.
What about Simon, the man who started it all? What would we all be doing and where would we be, if not for him? Queensland, indeed Australia, owes him a huge debt of gratitude.
Thank you, Simon. Thanks for migrating to Australia. Thanks for persevering to learn your trade and becoming a builder. Thanks for your personal effort, teamwork and leadership in building a successful business. Thanks for having the vision, courage, perseverance and commitment to conceive, build. launch and commission SOUTH PASSAGE and forging her role as the Queensland sail training ship.
The personal attributes Simon has demonstrated are the very attributes we hope to instil in the young voyagers who sail with us. We hope they grow from their SOUTH PASSAGE experience and, whatever path they choose in life, follow Simon’s example.
Phill Woodgate at the helm, leaving Mourilyan Harbour, N. Qld.