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Thousands to celebrate Australia Day afloat
Thousands of Australians will celebrate
Australia Day afloat next Tuesday 26 January, including more than
one thousand skippers and crew competing in the 174th
Australia Day Regatta on Sydney Harbour and in the traditional
short ocean race from the Harbour to Botany Bay and return.
At least another thousand or so sailors will
compete in regattas marking Australia Day organised by clubs on
Pittwater, Brisbane Waters, Lake Macquarie, Botany Bay and Lake
Illawarra and inland on Chipping Norton Lakes.
The 174th Australia Day Regatta on
Sydney Harbour is the oldest continuously- held sailing regatta in
the world and is again sponsored by the Commonwealth Bank through
Commonwealth Private. First conducted as the Anniversary Regatta
in 1837, only 49 years after the First Fleet sailed into Port
Jackson and raised the Union Jack on the shores of Farm Cove, the
regatta today is still the focal point of Australia Day
celebrations in Sydney.
“What better place to celebrate European
arrival than the beautiful Harbour, ever mindful and grateful to
those already there who kept it in such pristine order for us to
enjoy,” says Regatta President, the eminent Australian yachtsman
Sir James Hardy Kt OBE.
Entries have closed with the Sailing Office
at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, with regatta organisers
expecting more than 140 yachts and skiffs to compete in the
historic Sydney Harbour event and in the short ocean race to
Botany Bay and return.
The Australia Day Regatta will be sailed on
the harbour from 1.30pm on Australia, next Tuesday, 26 January
while the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s ocean race will start
at 11am with the fleet heading down the coast to Botany Bay. The
return leg is over the same coastal waters sailed by the First
Fleet when, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip RN, the
ships moved from Botany Bay to Port Jackson and founded what is
now the great City of Sydney.
The early days of sailing on Sydney Harbour
will be a feature of the harbour regatta with up to 30 original or
replica ‘old-timers’ taking part in the Gaff-Riggers, Classic
Yachts and Historical Skiffs divisions.
Among entries for the classic yacht division
are 1966 Sydney Hobart Race line honours winner Fidelis,
now owned by Nigel Stoke, and the 8-metre class yacht Erica J,
owned by Les Goodridge. Erica J last year celebrated her 60th
anniversary and a career that included winning the coveted
Sayonara Cup for Tasmania in 1953.
The gaff-riggers division is headed by the
famous Ranger, with octogenarian skipper Bill Gale again at
the helm and proudly carrying the sail number A1 of the Sydney
Amateur Sailing Club.
The nine Historical Skiffs are all replicas
of the spectacular gaff-rigged 18-footers that raced on Sydney
Harbour a century ago, many helmed by modern-day skiff champions
including John Winning (Australia IV) and Michael Chapman (Yendys).
Built to the original plans, these icons of Sydney Harbour carry
colour emblems rather than sail numbers on their massive
mainsails.
The Historical Skiffs, all built of wood,
will be joined in the 174th Australia Day Regatta by
modern day 18-footers, built of carbon fibre, in celebrating the
National Day afloat.
The Botany Bay race is part of the Ocean
Point Score, the Grant Thornton Short Ocean Point Score, with the
Grant Thornton Short Haul (non-spinnaker) fleet also joining the
race this year. The race always attracts casual entries,
competing for the City of Sydney Sesquicentennial Cup for the
first boat overall on Performance handicaps.
Biggest boat in the fleet will be Ludde
Ingvall’s YuuZoo, 90-footer which finished seventh in fleet
in the recent Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race while the ‘retired’
87-year-old Middle Harbour yachtsman John Walker has entered his
34-footer Impeccable.
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174th running of world’s oldest continuous
yachting regatta
Sydney Harbour and the historic
coastal stretch of the Tasman Sea between Botany Bay and Port
Jackson will play host to the 174th Australia Day Regatta – the
world’s oldest continuously conducted sailing regatta – on
Tuesday, 26 January 2010.
First introduced to celebrate
the arrival of the First Fleet, the historic regatta will see
yachts of widely varying age and design race on Sydney Harbour
while many of the best ocean races will compete in a traditional
race from Port Jackson to Botany Bay and return. They will be
sailing the course that brought Captain Arthur Phillip north to
the magnificent harbour around which now stands the great city of
Sydney.
The 174th Australia Day will
also be marked by regattas on other coastal waterways, including
Pittwater, Brisbane Waters, Botany Bay, Port Hacking and Lake
Illawarra, as well as on inland waters such as the Chipping Norton
Lakes.
The Sydney Harbour fleet will,
as always, have a touch of nostalgia with divisions for
gaff-rigged wooden yachts, classic yachts and historical skiffs
lovingly restored by their current ‘custodians’ as the proud
owners like to call themselves. In contrast, the ocean racing
fleet will include many yachts built of exotic materials such as
carbon fibre.
The notice of race and entry
form for the 174th Australia Day Regatta on the Harbour can be
downloaded from the Regatta website –
www.australiadayregatta.com.au or from the websites of the Royal
Sydney Yacht Squadron or the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club.
Entries close with the RSYS Sailing Office (Harbour events) or the
Cruising Yacht Club of Australia Sailing Office (Ocean race) on
Monday, 18 January.
The 174th Australia Day Regatta
short ocean race is part of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s
Greg Thornton Short Ocean Pointscore and the Ocean Pointsore and
while these yachts are block entries, owners must specify that
they are entering the Regatta to be eligible for the City of
Sydney Sesquicentenary Trophy and the Geoff Lee Trophy as well as
Australia Day Regatta medallions.
The Regatta short ocean race
will be race seven for the CYCA’s Short Ocean Pointscore, with
Jackpot (Ray Enwhistle) and Soundtrack (Tim Cox) currently heading
provisional IRC points in Division 1 and 3. In the PHS divisions
1 and 3 the leaders are Imagination (Annette and Robin Hawthorn)
and Soundtrack.
Going into the Regatta, also
race seven for the CYCA’s Ocean Pointscore, Dick Cawse’s Vanguard
heads IRC Division while Quetzalcoatl (Anthony Sweetapple) heads
the PHS Division.
Early entries for the 174th
Australia Day Regatta on the Harbour the Division 1 racers
Braveheart (John Meiklejohn) and Sydney (Charles Curran) and two
boats for the Gaffers Division, Lady (David Perrett) and Yeromais
V (John Diacopoulos) and Peter Campbell’s Hornblower, winner of
Division 3 in last year’s Regatta.
The 174th Australia Day Regatta
magazine is available at most yacht clubs and in it the President,
eminent yachtsman Sir James Hardy Kt OBE, writes…”what better
place to celebrate European arrival than the beautiful Harbour,
ever mindful and grateful to those already there who kept it in
such pristine order for us to enjoy.”
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Wife outsails husband in historic Australia Day Regatta win
In what must be a unique
result in the 173 year history of the Australia Day Regatta on
Sydney Harbour, yachtswoman Beverley Bevis today outsailed her
husband Fred to win the Classic Yachts division of the historic
regatta.
Beverley Bevis skippered
Tio Hia, her 26-foot gaff-rigged Port Phillip net boat
built in 1938 and restored after being found as a derelict hull on
Melbourne’s Marybyrnong River.
Fred Bevis helmed
Warana, his classic 31-foot Bermudan rigged sloop built in
1930 of New Zealand kauri.
Both are members of Sydney
Amateur Sailing Club, with Fred a past commodore and current
honorary treasurer of the 173rd Australia Day Regatta
management committee.
“It’s going to be a real
domestic match on the water,” Fred said before today’s 173rd
Australia Day Regatta. And so it seemed, with Warana
finishing 10th across the line with Tio Hia just
two places and just under three minutes astern.
On corrected time,
however, Beverley Bevis beat husband Fred by 2 minutes 18 second,
with third place going to Antara, skippered by wellknown
ABC radio ‘spin doctor’ commentator Ian Kortlang.
The Classic Yachts
attracted the second largest fleet of the 173rd
Australia Day Regatta which saw 108 keelboats, plus historical and
modern 18-footers, race in a 10-12 knot southerly breeze on a
overcast but hot and humid day.
A further 35 yachts
competed in the Australia Day Regatta short ocean race from Sydney
Harbour to Botany Bay and return, replicating the course taken by
the First Fleet when it moved from its original landfall north to
the more suitable Port Jackson.
Enjoying historic status
with the Classic Yachts division was the Gaffers division for
‘yachts that hoist a spar’, with first place going to Onenone,
skippered by well known yacht broker Brendan Hunt.. Runner-up was
Ranger, skippered by 83-year-old Bill Gale, one of two
octogenarians racing on Australia Day, third going to John
Crawford’s Vanity.
The other 83-year-old
racing today, Gordon Ingate in his International Dragon class
yacht Whim, finished out of a place in Division 2, won by
Hick-Up (Bill Ure).
Other winners in the 173rd
Australia Day Regatta on the Harbour today were Nocturne
(Gerard Kesby) in Division 1, Hornblower (Peter
Campbell/Steve Sweeney) in Division 3, The Tavern (Ian,
Shane & Jean Guanaria) in Division 1 Non-spinnaker, Slips
(David Kinsey – Sailability) in Division 2 Non-spinnaker and
Control Plus (Daniel Marlay) in the International Yngling
class.
Winner of the City of
Sydney Sesquicentenial Cup for the overall PHS winner of the race
to Botany Bay and return is St Hilliers Quest, skippered by
Tim Casey, with a corrected time in PHS Division 1 of the CYCA’s
Short Ocean Pointscore of 5 hours 16 minutes 50 seconds.
The next best time came
from PHS Division 3 winner Stormy Petrel (Kevin O’Shea)
with a corrected time of 5 hours 18 minutes 19 seconds.
.St Hilliers Quest
is a Nelson/Marek 46 which won the 2002 Rolex Sydney Hobart and
many other major regattas while Stormy Petrel, an S&S 36,
won the 1971 world One Ton Cup.
Under IRC handicaps,
Division 1 went to Leslie Green’s Ginger and Division 3 to
Brilliant (Howard & Susan Piggott).
The CYCA Ocean Pointscore
race was held in conjunction with the Botany Bay race, with the
PHS division doing to Imagination (Annette & Robin
Hawthorn) while IRC honours went to Andrew Short’s 90-footer
Andrew Short Marine Shockwave 5.
ASM Shockwave 5
took line honours in the Botany Bay race to also win the Geoff Lee
Trophy for fastest time in this Australia Day Race.
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Octogenarian sailors turn out for 173rd Australia Day
Regatta
Two of Sydney
most senior sailors, Bill Gale (pictured left)and Gordon
Ingate, both in their early eighties, will compete in tomorrow’s
173rd Australia Day Regatta on Sydney Harbour.
Ingate, who
will turn 83 in March, will helm his International Dragon class
yacht Whim in
Division 2 of the oldest continuously-conducted sailing regatta in
the world.
The veteran
yachtsman, who began sailing on Sydney Harbour in dinghies some 70
years ago, last year won the prestigious Prince Philip Cup
Australasian Championship in Hobart and earlier this month came
within 14 seconds of retaining the trophy on Sydney Harbour.
In an
illustrious career, the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron member has
represented Australia at the Olympic Games, America’s Cup and
Admiral’s Cup and has extensively ocean raced, including a second
overall in the Sydney Hobart with his then yacht
Caprice of Huon.
Gale, also in
his early 80s, will skipper his famous yacht
Ranger in the Gaffers
Division, continuing his longtime support of the Australia Day
Regatta.
A Life Member
of the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club, this is the 64th
season that
Gale has sailed on the boat designed by
his father, the late Cliff Gale. “I don’t believe I’ve ever missed
an Australia Day Regatta, “ the octogenarian skipper said today.
The Classic Yacht and Gafffers
divisions and the Historical Skiffs division will be highlights of
the 173rd Australia Day Regatta.
Other entries for the Gaffers division include
Reverie, an 8.7m
gaff-rigged cutter owned by John Barclay and Rear Admiral Nigel
Berlyn RAN (ret) which last year won the HV Dangar Memorial Ciup
and the Centenary of Federation Gold Medal.
The Classic Yachts division includes
Ian Kortlang’s Antara,
John Sturrock’s Eudoria
and John Griffin’s Julnar.
Eudoria and Julnar
are both 37-footer harbour racers designed in the late 1930s by
George Griffin along scaled-down lines of the famous J class
yachts that raced for the America’s Cup.
Among the Historical Skiffs entered the 173rd Australia Day
Regatta, sponsored by the Commonwealth Private Bank, will be a
replica of the original Yendys,
a radical snub-nosed 18-footer that was a champion in 1920s and
1930s.
The hull of the original
Yendys has been restored and re-rigged, and is in the
Australian National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour. The
replica Yendys will
carry the distinctive red anchor insignia on its mainsail when it
races on Saturday.
Modern 18-footers will also be racing as part of the 173rd
Australia Day Regatta as part of their national championship,
while yachts will race in several spinnaker and non-spinnaker
divisions.
The 173rd Australia Day Regatta racing will start and finish near
the Flagship HMAS Stuart,
moored near Rushcutters Bay, starting from 1.30pm tomorrow.
In addition to the harbour event, a traditional feature of the
Australia Day Regatta is the ocean race to Botany Bay and return,
starting north of Shark Island at 11am, which has attracted a
fleet of 35 yachts.
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THE
173rd AUSTRALIA DAY REGATTA - THE WORLD'S OLDEST
The world’s oldest
continuously-conducted sailing regatta, the 173rd
Australia Day Regatta, will be held on Sydney Harbour next
Monday, 26 January 2009.
The event marks the
arrival in Sydney Harbour (Port Jackson) of the First Fleet from
England to found the colony of New South Wales, which subsequently
became the Commonwealth of Australia.
The remarkable continuity
of the regatta, through world wars and economic recessions,
underlines the history of a nation surrounded by the sea and
developed through the trade of the sea.
The historic 173rd
Australia Day Regatta on Sydney Harbour will cater for keel
yachts, old and new, including classic gaff-riggers, and Sydney’s
famous 18-footers, both the carbon fibre, state-of-the-art modern
skiffs and wooden replicas of the gaff-rigged skiffs that raced a
century ago.
Conducting it again on
behalf of the Australia Day Regatta Inc will be the Royal Sydney
Yacht Squadron, Australia’s oldest yacht club which will soon
celebrate its own 175th anniversary. Sponsor is again
the Commonwealth Private Bank.
Complementing the Harbour
racing will be a short ocean race from Sydney to Botany Bay and
return, historic in its own right as the First Fleet initially
anchored in that port before moving north to Port Jackson.
Conducting this race will
be the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia which just recently held
its own 64th Rolex Sydney Hobafrt Yacht Race.
The Sydney Harbour Regatta
has attracted some 110 entries, while the ocean race has 35 yachts
specifically nominated for the Australia Day Regatta among the
fleet in what is also a CYCA pointscore event for its Short Ocean
Pointscore and Ocean Pointscore. The fleet has been boosted by
20 casual Australia Day entrants.
The short ocean race will
see the Short brothers in keen competition, with Andrew Short
helming his 90-footer Andrew Short Marine Shockwave 5,
which finished fourth across the line in the recent Sydney Hobart,
and Matthew Short skippering his TP52 Shortwave which set a
record in the Melbourne to Hobart Westcoaster Race.
In a unique clash,
Australia Day Regatta honorary treasurer Fred Bevis will be
sailing Warana in the Classic Yacht Division against his
wife Beverley, skippering Tio Hia.
Two great sailors of
Sydney Harbour, both in their early 80s will be competing in yet
another Australia Day Regatta.
Gordon Ingate, who will
turn 83 in March, will helm his International Dragon class yacht
Whim in Division 2 while 81-year-old Roger Gale will be
skippering his famous gaff-rigger Ranger in the Gaffers
Division of the 173rd Australia Day Regatta.
The Australian Defence
Forces have extended their ongoing support for the Regatta beyond
the Navy providing the Flagship, HMAS Stuart, the RAAF
sending its F-111 jet fighters in spectacular fly pasts and the
Army organizing parachute jumps and 21-gun salutes.
This year the Army yacht
Gunrunner, skippered by Oliver Coovre, will compete in
Division 3 while the RANSA yacht Scarborough will be
skippered by Major Mark Palmer in Division 2 Non Spinnaker.
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HUSBAND AND WIFE RIVAL SKIPPERS ON
AUSTRALIA DAY
For the first time in its
history as the world’s oldest continuously-held sailing regatta, a
husband and wife will be rival skippers in the 173rd
Australia Day Regatta on Sydney Harbour on 26 January 2009.
Fred Bevis and his wife
Beverley will each skipper their own yachts in the Classic Yachts
division of the Regatta, a feature event of the regatta that
attracts dozens of traditional gaff-rigged and Bermudan-rigged
timber boats, some close to a century old.
Fred Bevis, a past
commodore of Sydney Amateur Sailing Club and honorary treasurer of
the 173rd Australia Day Regatta management committee,
will skipper Warana, his classic 31-foot sloop built in
1930 of New Zealand kauri.
Beverley Bevis, also a
member of the SASC, will skipper Tio Hia, her 26-foot
gaff-rigged Port Phillip net boat built in 1938 and restored after
being found as a derelict hull on Melbourne’s Marybynong River.
The boat is a distinctive double-ender with a beam of 9 foot 3
inches.
Both Fred and Beverley
competed in the 2008 Gaffers Day conducted by the Amateurs, but in
different divisions, Tio Hia placing second, Warana
third.
“Beverley is already
lining an expert crew to sail Tio Hia and beat me,” Fred
Bevis commented. “It’s going to be as real domestic match on the
water.”
More than 120 keelboats
and modern and historical 18-footers are expected to line up for
the historic 173rd Australia Day Regatta on the Harbour
while a further 40 to 50 ocean racing yachts will contest the
traditional ocean race from Sydney to Botany Bay and return.
Yacht and sailing clubs on
other parts of the Harbour, as well as on the Pittwater, Botany
Bay, Lake Macquarie, Brisbane Waters (Gosford), Lane Cove,
Georges River, Lake Illawarra and Chipping Norton Lakes will also
stage affiliated Australia Day Regattas, as will the NSW Radio
Controlled Yachting Association with their model yachts. First
the first time in a decade, Woollahra Sailing Club will organize
an Australia Day Regatta in Rose Bay.
The 173rd
Australia Day Regatta will start at 1.15pm from a line to the east
of the Flagship, HMAS Stuart, taking the fleet on a course around
fixed Harbour marks. The Botany Bay ocean race will start at 11am
from a line north of Shark Island, finishing back in Rushcutters
Bay later in the afternoon.
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DAVIDSON FAMILY DONATES HISTORIC 140-YEAR-OLD TROPHY
A fine claret jug won by the yacht Ella in the 1866 Anniversary Day Regatta , as the Australia Day Regatta was then known, has been donated for competition once more, starting with the 171st Australia Day Regatta on Sydney Harbour in January 2007.
The historic trophy will now be known as The Davidson Family Trophy, and as Ella was the winner of the race for Second Class Yachts at the 1866 Anniversary Day Regatta, it will be awarded to the winner of Division 2 for future Australia Day Regattas.
Ella was a prominent competitor in the regattas between 1866 and 1873 and at her first start won the race for Second Class Yachts, for yachts under 12 tons displacement. Her owner, Colonel J.Richardson, received the claret jug as his trophy.
With some good fortune, Geoff Lee, the Australian Day Regatta Management Committee Chairman from 2002-2004, and his wife, Judy, discovered the 140-year-old trophy in a Sydney antique shop
Suzanne Davidson, wife of Colin Davidson (Chairman of the Regatta 1989-1995) purchased the antique claret jug and has very generously donated it to the Australia Day Regatta as a perpetual trophy to be known as “The Davidson Family Trophy” for future regattas.
Ella was a cutter of 11 tons built for Colonel Richardson in 1866 by Dan Sheehy at Wooloomooloo, under the supervision of her designer William Bourke Rusesell Watson. It was he who in the 1880s devised a system of tonnage and measurements that was used for yacht racing as late as 1919.
Ella’s official number was 64372, her dimensions being: Length 35.9 feet; Beam 9.0 feet; Draft 7.0 feet.
Ella sailed in numerous races conducted by the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron as well as the Anniversary Regatta from 1866-1873 and the Balmain Regatta. In 1966 she also won the St Patrick’s Day Regatta.
Her Anniversary Regatta record is as follows:
Friday, 26 January 1866: 1st Place (Colonel J Richardson)
Saturday, 2 February 1867: 2nd Place (Colonel J Richardson)
Tuesda, 28 January 1868: 2nd Place (Colonel J Richardson)
Wednesday, 27 January 1869: Did not compete
Thursday, 27 January 1870: 2nd Place (RSYS Commodore H C Dangar)
Friday, 27 January 1871: 1st Place (RSYS Commodore H C Dangar)
Saturday, 27 January 1872: 4th Place (Mr W Farmer)
Wednesday, 29 January 1873: 3rd Place (Mr W Farmer
In 1879 Ella transferred from Sydney to Hobart Town where she sailed with the Derwent Yacht Club. In 1886 she was still on the register of that Club.
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Another Life Member, Brian Northam, passes on
Brian Northam, a Life Member of the Australia Day Regatta and past Chairman of the ADR Management Committee, died in Sydney in April 2008 after a short illness, at the age of 75.
Brian took over as Chairman of the Management Committee in 1996 after serving as Vice-Chairman to Judge Colin P Davidson OAM for several years. The late Geoff Lee AM OAM, another Life Member who passed away late in 2007, succeeded him as Chairman.
The three of them, all later elected Life Members, made a major contribution to the expansion of the Australia Day Regatta, establishing its status as the major event on Sydney Harbour on that day and obtaining significant sponsorship. Judge Davidson is still an active member of the ADR Management Committee.
Brian Northam, a sailor since a teenager, was a member of the crew of Gretel, Australia’s first challenger for the America’s Cup in 1962. He remained
actively involved in Sydney’s yachting and maritime activities for most of his adult life, also serving as President of the Sydney Maritime Museum (now the Sydney Heritage Fleet) from 1988 to 1991.
Brian was a son of the late Sir William (‘Bill’) Northam who won Australia’s first sailing Gold Medal when he skippered the 5.5 metre class yacht Barranjoey to victory at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Brian was closely involved in the restoration of his father’s yacht to compete in the Classic Division of the 5.5 Metre World Championship held in Sydney.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s Brian was active in ocean racing, sailing his East Coast 31 Humdinger and Humbdinger II in two Sydney Hobart Races. He also competed in races to Lord Howe Island with another yacht, Humbug.
Brian had been a member of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron since 1948 and was one of the driving forces in starting the Squadron’s annual May Cruise, a family-oriented event that continues to grow in popularity.
While he had retired from active participation, Brian maintained a close interest in the Australia Day Regatta. The Northam Family Trophy is competed for each year by young sailors in the Sabot two-up class.
