they are a part of this country’s water-based heritage. America’s Cup from the Americans who had held it for 132 The museum holds a significant collection of posters years. that refer to Australia’s beach culture and other aspects What has driven such high levels of achievement in and of life and the environment in coastal and river areas. It on the water? Climate is clearly part of the answer. And so 8 Sport and play also has a far-reaching collection of objects that attest to too, in all likelihood, is the perception held elsewhere in the Australia’s love of the outdoor life and its prominence in world and by us in this country that Australians are strong, aquatic sport. healthy people who enjoy their time outdoors in the sun. With striking modernist illustrations and a palette of bright effect. Its imagery of sunshine, open space, good health Australian swimmers have won a total of 58 Olympic Bill Richards colours, the new Australian National Travel Association and physical strength defined Australia and Australians for gold medals, easily securing their status as Australia’s alerted the world in the 1930s to Australia’s wide open people overseas, and generally confirmed in the minds of top athletes. There has been a similar progression in > landscapes, sun-drenched beaches and outdoor lifestyle. Australians the perceptions they were forming of themselves < Gert Sellheim (1901–1970) Narelle Autio (b 1969) and sculling and rowing, from Henry Robert (Bobby) Australia for Sun and Surf, 1936. Trent Parke (b 1971) Untitled #11 The agency’s aim was to capture attention in and life in this country. And it didn’t end there. Pearce’s Olympic gold medals in 1928 and 1932, to the In one of the Australian National from The Seventh Wave, 2000. and elsewhere and tell people in those often depressed areas The themes of that ANTA initiative have reverberated Travel Association’s most famous After travelling the globe as internationally celebrated ‘Oarsome Foursome’, who won posters, artist Gert Sellheim award-winning photojournalists, about the great opportunities for immigration, investment down through the years in successive corporate and govern- three Olympic gold medals and four world titles in the evokes for an international Autio and Parke wanted to and holidays in a young and relatively carefree nation. The ment campaigns that sought to capture an aspect of ‘Aus- audience the exuberance and explore Australia’s underwater 1990s. From the 1960s, our surfers have been carving enduring allure of Australia. world. Here under the pier, campaign succeeded, but it also had another, more enduring tralianness’. The qualities that this early campaign captured their place in world competition. And in , Australia Colour process lithograph, swimmers float in water, in are still considered central to the Australian identity. 105.6 x 61.8 cm, courtesy shadows and light, as much at has always moved well in international company – never A focus on watersports and pastimes is one of the Nik Sellheim and Josef Lebovic home as the fish. Silver gelatin more triumphantly than that breathtaking September Gallery Sydney print, 109.7 x 288.1 cm © ways that this museum has expanded the traditional ambit Narelle Autio and Trent Parke. in 1983 when Australia II snatched the ‘unwinnable’ of maritime history, to give even more people a sense that Image courtesy of the artists and Stills Gallery, Sydney >

196 197 Colonial boating was much more colourful than suggested by the pictures, popular on yacht club walls, of the glorious white-winged yachts of wealthy owners and sailors. In fact, it had more in common with the ramshackle antics of the Northern Territory’s infamous Henley-on-Todd Regatta (held on a dry riverbed) than with races for elite craft off Cowes in the United Kingdom. From the 1830s, colonial leaders assembled whatever boats and crews they could to shape a pageant for sailors, rowers, scullers and spectators alike.

of the British colony in New South Wales in 1788. Regattas Picnickers at harbour vantage points watched races between amateur and professional rowers, or between As the fledgling colonies developed, aquatic spectacles working craft and elite sailors in the few large yachts, while became a focus of community celebration and an assertion the cream of colonial society watched from the flagship, of growing mercantile confidence. usually a visiting naval or important merchant vessel. The Australia Day Regatta has been held on The Sydney Gazette described the first regatta in 1837 26 January every year since 1837. Then known as the as ‘entirely devoted to pleasure’, setting the pattern for Anniversary Day Regatta, it celebrated the establishment Australia Days to come.

< J Henderson Picnic at Lady Macquarie’s Chair, Sydney N. S. Wales in 1852, 1870s Hand-coloured lithograph after oil painting by unknown artist, 47.5 x 68.5 (image)

> Charles Louis Napoléon d’Albert (1809–1886) The Regatta Waltzes, 1855 Sheet music, 34.4 x 25.7cm

198 199 The Hobart Regatta was inaugurated one year later, An assortment of trophies from entertainments, including fancy costume parades, bearded ram with silver detailing (below), offered by the John Walker the 19th and 20th centuries under the patronage of Governor John Franklin’s wife, Lady Gifts from the Wright Family ladies, greasy-pole fights and snake charmers. Whisky company to the boat that won the event twice – the Jane. Far more than a yacht race, it was held every year, of Roma, Queensland through The museum’s collections feature many rare and 22-footer Effie, owned by James McMurtrie. usually in early December, to commemorate the anniversary Donna and Ross Fraser & Lesley exciting artefacts, which show these early colonial regattas Competition grew with the various colonies’ development, and Stanley Harrison; Francis of Abel Tasman’s ‘discovery’ of the island in 1642. It hoped Pinel, Judy Gifford, Carol and as public celebrations and assertions of progress. There are with more boats, more races and more opportunities for the to demonstrate the unity and patronage of civil and military Gordon Billett, Faye Magner, Dr also more humble artefacts showing the activities of smaller many clubs supporting aquatic sports. Rowing was especially David Lark, Lady Desolie Hurley, elites, promoted whaling and other free-settler enterprises, Iain and Alex Murray communities, where the regatta played an equally pivotal strong in river communities, large and small. and even aimed to reduce the colony’s convict stain. role as a sporting forum and source of community pride. Today, aquatic spectacles remain a focus for public The program reveals the commercial and leisure activities Illustrated (on p. 199) are a rare piece of English piano celebrations on waterways around Australia – witness the at the time. Professional watermen who carried people and sheet music entitled The Regatta Waltzes, published in annual New Year’s Eve celebrations. Although no longer goods across the waters raced the crews of the many visiting Sydney with vignettes of local scenes in 1855, and (below) the feature event as it was in colonial times, the regatta naval, whaling and trading ships and ketches, in gigs, pulling a variety of cups, trophies and other prizes awarded to remains one of many offerings in a smorgasbord of public boats, skiffs and sculls. The spectators mixed more freely, regatta winners. entertainment. The former Anniversary Day Regatta is representing a broad cross-section of society. A public holiday These prizes varied, and included highly crafted today known as the Australia Day Regatta and, evoking its was declared and free beer and food dispensed to those silver trophies, purses, amounts of money and, for the spirit, local working craft feature on the day – the ubiquitous who took part from the fledgling convict settlement. By the Intercolonial Sailing Carnival held from 1897 to 1899, a Sydney ferries race to huge public interest and enthusiasm. 1900s, the boat races were competing with other novelty most idiosyncratic trophy made from the head of merino Daina Fletcher

200 201 Colonial Maori figurehead from Akarana, William Frederick Hall (working 1888, made into a domestic 1880s–1900s) Akarana (at left) ornament 1890s Kauri, mahogany, racing Sirocco on Sydney Harbour, paint, glass, 37.5 x 28.7 cm Gift 1889 Glass plate negative 12 x from Arthur and Nancye Goard 16.5 cm Gift from Bruce Stannard In October 1888 a group gathered at Auckland docks to see Scottish boatbuilder Robert Logan’s Yacht Club’s season. new 39-foot yacht loaded on With a six-minute time board the SS Nemesis to sail allowance, they beat St for Melbourne, to take part Kilda’s centre-boarders to the gold medal by 12 in the Intercolonial Regatta minutes, in light airs, to celebrate the centenary without even hoisting of British settlement in the a topsail. colonies. Akarana, the Maori But the Intercolonial name for Auckland, featured a Regatta yielded uneven results. On day one, figurehead of a Maori on its bow 24 November, in still air, and took with it New Zealand’s Akarana (by then the race honour and Logan’s aspirations, with favourite) beat its rivals in the the boatbuilder and his skipper Jack Bell 5–10 tonne class and claimed the on board. Logan returned six months later, £130 prize. On day two, in stronger but it was a century before the plucky gaff cutter winds, Akarana trailed the fleet behind many of the vessels it had beaten the previous day, was back in New Zealand again. providing one of the surprises of the regatta. Among the small yachting fleets of the colonies every Logan took the yacht to Sydney for the Anniversary new yacht was eagerly reported, and especially so an Day Regatta on 26 January 1889, and entered it in the the yacht passed through many owners, whose photographs bicentennial gift from the government and people of intercolonial challenger racing under the burgee of the second class race for yachts under 20 tonnes. Akarana show a life of pleasure, cruising on the harbour and Broken New Zealand. So after 99 years, Akarana made its way Auckland Yacht Club. The Auckland wished Logan won, despite losing three minutes after grounding off Bay, with parasols and picnics. across the Tasman to Auckland for restoration. For the well, describing the narrow, triple-skinned diagonal kauri- Fort Denison – earning Logan £20, three cases of Moët Akarana raced again in the 1940s in Sydney and, bicentennial celebrations in Australia, the (then) Prime planked gaff-cutter as ‘built on beautiful lines. She is of the et Chandon champagne, and an even higher regard as expected for a yacht that survived two world wars and Minister of New Zealand, David Lange, presented deep-sinker type, and has a lead keel weighing five tons, for Akarana’s performance and his own patriotism in economic vagaries, underwent many modifications and Akarana to his Australian counterpart, Bob Hawke, on while another one or two tons will be carried for additional sending a New Zealand challenger to the Australian permutations, including the souveniring of its Maori 20 August 1988 at the Australian National Maritime ballast’.1 The Star also reported that Logan hoped to sell centennial regattas. figurehead (subsequently located in a former owner’s garage Museum site in Darling Harbour, three years before the Akarana for £500. Logan did indeed sell his yacht in Sydney, to a Royal during a museum research program). Nonetheless, it was museum’s opening. On Port Phillip Bay, Jack Bell sailed Akarana in Sydney Yacht Squadron sailor, chemist John Simpson much loved. Akarana’s speedy reconstruction in New Zealand trials in late October and early November, and they were Abraham, and Akarana became a feature of late-century In 1987 the New Zealand Government bought allowed little time to research changes to its former then invited to compete in the gala opening of St Kilda events on Sydney Harbour. During the ensuing decades Akarana, intending to present it to Australia as a configuration. The yacht was taken from the water in

202 203 Chasing the 1997–98 in a year-long project to return it as close as possible to its original keel design. action on Sydney This work included reinstating its five-tonne lead keel, with adjustments to the spars and sails. Akarana now has greatly improved sailing performance, yet after 110 years Harbour it remains a fair-weather yacht. Today, the deep-keeled It’s a Saturday race day on Sydney gaff cutter is testimony to its builder Robert Logan’s Harbour in 1922, and the heavy timber adventurous spirit, and indeed to the enduring spirit skiffs are launched from working sheds of friendship and rivalry with our neighbours across the Tasman. dotted around the harbour foreshore. The Daina Fletcher crews assemble and hoist the huge sails to career down the harbour, eventually > Builder’s certificate for Akarana, setting topsails and ringtails, tacking and October 1888 Paper, ink, 44.5 x 28.4 cm Gift from John Beach gybing through a triangular course. They (MBE) are chased by a little motorboat sporting a small flag on its bow, printed ‘Hall Photo’. William Hall is there with his camera, intent on capturing the exciting antics.

The Hall photographic studio played a vital role in William James Hall (1877–1951) William Frederick Hall (working the Sydney boating world from the 1880s, when it was Miss Phyllis, 1930s Nitrate 1880s–1900s) Akarana sailing negative, 12 x 16.5 cm Transfer on Sydney Harbour, 1893 Glass established by William Frederick Hall, a fingerprint expert. from the Mitchell Library plate negative, 16.5 x 21.5 cm Gift from the Royal Sydney His son, William James, took over the business in 1902, Yacht Squadron and went on to record the explosion of leisure craft on the harbour into the 20th century. Although neither man yachts and smaller second-class yachts of the Royal Sydney was a sailor, both developed a keen interest in boating, Yacht Squadron and the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club. documenting the weekend sailors, their craft and their Regattas also feature, with the large liner as flagship shown supporters on Sydney Harbour. Each Monday, Hall in a harbour crowded with vessels. displayed photographs of weekend races in the window of his William James Hall photographed the action in a series, Hunter Street studio, advertising and selling his work to the hoping for that magic image, hurriedly pressing the shutter sailors, boat owners, their family and friends. Yacht clubs, as the boats raced or sailed past. Some of the images don’t too, proudly displayed their champions on their walls. work, but some do. He captured the rise of motorboating as Hall photographed all manner of boating and boats. a gentlemen’s sport, when engineers fired the inboard engine The museum’s collections number in the thousands, and the and goggle-clad drivers took the wheel. In one series, he did Hall studio’s subjects include early craft, from rowing eights, indeed capture a magic image when the exuberant crew on fours and skiffs and naval cutters of the late century, to the board the half-cabin cruiser Miss Phyllis heralded his arrival first surf rescue boats, and the handful of glorious first-class and that of the speedboat tied up alongside.

204 205 It is a very warm image, enhanced by information provided by studying other images from the same series in the collection, which show us that the two boats were motoring on the George’s River, south of Sydney, and that the speedboat alongside is the G-Whiz and that it raced with the St George Motor Boat Club. Similarly, the series of images of the 10-footer Commonwealth in the 1920s show the five crew clad in their rugby league jerseys careering down the western reaches of the harbour, with massive sail, topsail and ringtail variously set. The class echoed the larger 18-foot open boats, which the studio and especially William James Hall captured so well. They were classes that were, up to the 1930s, defined largely by hull length only. Dramatic and colourful, they were great subjects for a photographer, but Hall also sought images of the sailors, and he was often able to get close chasing the crews in his little motorboat. Many of his images with the excitement of the class. See the photograph of Arakoon (right) during the one day of the year when the big boats carried a woman crewmember: the Queen of the Harbour competition held to raise funds for charities. We see the crew hanging off the gunwale, backs bent down to the water. And we see the delighted female crewmember, standing out in her light sweater and beret. Documenting the rise of the exciting open-boat racing was to become the Hall studio’s signature work. As a collection, it provides a detailed record of the fortunes of these boats and their crews, from the huge 22-footers of the 1880s to the sport’s boom time in the 1930s. Daina Fletcher

from top All photos by William James Hall (1877–1951) Hall’s motor boat chasing 12-foot dinghies, Sydney Harbour, 1920s; Spectators watching a sailing race aboard the ferry Newcastle, 1920–25; Spectators viewing > the start of an 18-footer race off William James Hall (1877–1951) >> William James Hall (1877– Clark Island, 1920s All glass plate Arakoon in the Queen of the 1951) Following the 10-footer negatives, 12 x 16.5 cm, All: Harbour yacht race, 1931 Glass Commonwealth on Sydney Harbour, transferred from the Mitchell plate negative 12 x 16.5 cm Gift 1920s Four glass plate negatives, all 12 Library from Bruce Stannard x 16.5 cm Gift from Bruce Stannard

206 207 Model yachting has captivated sailors and would-be sailors for ages, and the craft have become works of art in their own right, home built with obsessive and often The early model skiffs were carved from solid Queensland lavish attention to detail. Their owners showed them off as though they were a red cedar, a light timber used for planking the real skiffs, while new family member, then raced them hard against fellow competitors. later models were planked up on frames, also like the real skiffs. The large two-footer Lily (left) was home-made at Redfern during the Depression era. Henry ‘Waltho’ Mobberley carved Model yachts Lily out of a solid block of cedar, and made the wooden spars for the two rigs it used to suit different conditions. Henry’s wife, The museum has collected a number of typically Australian Rose, made the sails and a bag for carrying the rigs. Lily was a examples, spanning the local classes from the early 1900s successful skiff for Mobberley, winning many trophies. through to the present internationally raced yachts. Covering As the model skiffs faded from the harbour in the 1950s, hand-carved wood to hi-tech composite fibreglass model yachting in other classes maintained a strong following on construction, the collection also tracks the changes from lakes and other more sheltered waters. It was an international hands-on, on-the-water involvement to onshore radio control. sport, one of the most popular classes being the American In Sydney, the ponds at Centennial Park were a popular, Marblehead boats. Snoopy, built by John Pollnitz in South enclosed stretch of water for model yacht sailors from the early Australia in 1970, is typical of boats built in this era. Because 1900s. Congregating at one end of the pond, on the starter’s fittings were not commercially available then, Pollnitz orders the owners released their boats together, cheering meticulously fabricated everything, including the gears and them on as they sailed toward the opposite shore. other parts of the vane steering assembly – an example of the Around the same time, model skiffs began racing skill and ingenuity of the craftsman that remained on show on open water, creating a new community event. with the new classes. The skipper and another rower, in a typical 10- or The mid-1970s saw the introduction of radio control for 12-foot clinker dinghy, tracked the model as it raced, steering and sail trim, and then composite construction. Builders coming alongside to adjust the rig or tack the boat. These adopted on a micro scale the exotic high-strength materials, such dinghy teams often comprised brothers, fathers, sons, cousins as carbon fibre and Kevlar, which now dominate contemporary and nephews, and sometimes even their girlfriends. Ferries yacht building. Engineer Bob Sheddon built his international carried spectators, crowds lined the shore, and bookmakers 10-rater, Toad, in 1997. Even though plans, boats and fittings circulated to take advantage of Australians’ desire to bet. had become freely available, Sheddon, like other dedicated The models often raced in large fleets, even out on the main > Henry ‘Waltho’ Mobberley Model of two-footer Lily, with model yacht builders, still designed and built the carbon fibre harbour, up to the mid-1950s. trophies, 1920s–1930s Cedar, hull and all its fittings himself. It was a championship-winning Building and sailing a skiff was done by eye and feel, brass, 63.2 x 14.5 cm Photo: Jenni Carter, ANMM Gift combination in 1997 and 1998, and is a wonderful expression based on experience handed on by each generation. Hulls from Ron Mobberley of Sheddon’s devotion to the sport. Model yachting continues took form in the evening after a day’s work, and the model strongly in the 21st century, adopting the latest big-boat trends, boatyard could be a kitchen table as easily as a shipwright’s > from top George McGoogan (1922–2009) with Joan such as canting keels, and shows no signs of ever declining. bench. Builders conjured fittings from offcuts of metal, and in Balmain; Max Howard David Payne sails were scrounged from leftover materials. Getting the rig prepares his model Comet before the race; Janice proportions right and the trim correct each day was an art Mahoney holding the hull of > from top Vera makes a good his skiff Dynamic by holding the form, but balanced correctly the unmanned craft sailed true Max Howard’s model yacht start on the first leg; Ivy’s skipper boom tip; M Phillips reaches Comet. All: Photographer and crew row hard to keep up under Fay to move the keel and fast, even under spinnaker. unknown with the skiff; K Haydon tacking

208 209 It’s the period between the wars during the years of the Great Depression. On a typical London winter evening, you’re walking past Australia House on the Strand or running through Victoria Station to catch the last train home. Your eye is drawn to the smiling suntanned beach girl splashing in the surf, to the magnetic yellow and blue geometry of surf lifesavers on parade or to the bright exotica of tropical fish in a blossoming colour field of coral. Australia beckons.

> Gert Sellheim (1901–1970) > Percival Trompf (1902–1964) Sea & Sunshine Go By Train! Tropical North Queensland, Australia for sun and surf 1930s Colour process Australia, c1930 Colour lithograph, 100.6 x 63 cm, lithograph, 108.3 x 74 cm, These posters – exhorting visitors to Australia as travellers, Courtesy Nik Sellheim and Josef Courtesy Percy Trompf Artistic Lebovic Gallery Sydney Trust and Josef Lebovic Gallery tourists, immigrants, investor settlers and industrialists – were Sydney produced by the Australian National Travel Association (ANTA), established in 1929 to promote Australia internationally. The ANTA employed a stable of brilliant graphic artists, many of whom were European immigrants versed in modernist design aesthetics and commercial advertising art practice (learned at Melbourne’s Art Training Institute). They included Douglas Annand, Gert Sellheim, Eileen Mayo, Percy Trompf and James Northfield. These artists designed striking lithographs of geometric form in dazzlingly bright blocks of colour, using a lexicon of symbols of wide, sun-drenched beaches and vast grazing country, dotted with the exotic eucalypt. AUSTRALIA, they cried, was a land of visceral and spatial physicality – of The ANTA shaped the work of the local state tourism James Northfield (1887–1973) large sunny skies over even larger landscapes. It was a place agencies, working with railway companies and tourist agencies Try Wangaratta Victoria Australia, 1949 Colour process lithograph, of freedom and fun, which also embodied more familiar to better promote local tourism and leisure sites for the national 109.3 x 71.1 cm © James Northfield characteristics of stoicism and a pioneering spirit – idealised market. With that mandate, it produced the magazine Heritage Art Trust, reproduced with permission images certainly, and now mythologised – but at the time, Walkabout from 1934 to 1974, and more posters, booklets most certainly tempting. and brochures as a powerful mouthpiece for ‘Australianness’. By 1936, with an annual budget of £20,000, the All this catalysed a new national image – an outward- After World War II, the ANTA eventually morphed ANTA had distributed more than 200,000 posters, 87,000 looking consciousness, based on marketing unique Australian into the Australian Tourist Commission, taking on a broader photographs and 3.5 million booklets and folders, and secured forms and attributes. role of organising events as well as producing marketing 3,000 permanent poster sites in travel agents, embassies, The prominence of beach, coastal and river culture in material. In the 1950s, its Walkabout editorial declared that consular offices, shipping and airline companies, and even this poster imagery is of interest to the museum. The posters it would ‘underline the natural attractions of Australia, its in the windows of leading department stores. It had mailed promoted a national image that drew fresh emblems from climate, its outdoors, its plenty and its opportunities for publicity material to 200 army messes in India, and brought liberal beach, bay and swimming cultures, a unique lifesaving people to settle in a more or less British atmosphere and way writers to Australia from Europe and North America. It also culture specialised in the surf, national and international of life’. This was the time of then Immigration Minister Ben organised promotional events in Australia and around the sporting success at swimming and, later, surfing and the rise of Chifley’s ‘populate or perish’ maxim. world, including representation at fairs and festivals. the Great Barrier Reef as an international tourist site. Daina Fletcher

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