“…Of all the many anachronisms at the modern Olympics, sailing is perhaps the most conspicuous of all: a continuing sop to super-rich men who founded the Games and still just really love yachts, basically inaccessible to most of the countries in the world, even the ones with a viable coastline.”

Both Mander and Tasker published books with accounts of this career defining competition. They reveal different approaches to sailing mostly defined by character.

The word Sharpie has always appealed. They were 1960’s working class street gangs with flash style and tough attitude. Melbourne’s own West Side Story was Romper Stomper, a movie made in Footscray and Spotswood, next door to the Royal Yacht Club Victoria in Williamstown. The club had its own fleet of Sharpies in the 1950’s and 60’s and hosted the Olympic Sharpies at the 1956 regatta.