Sailing Traditions: A Cultural History of Sailing and Yachting in Australian Waters, 1888-1945

Carlin Stephen de Montfort

A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

School of Humanities Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

2011

Contents

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction 1

2. The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race 32

3. Sailing and Yachting in 1888 59

4. The Open Boat Legend 86

5. Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers 113

6. Federation and the Modern Australian ‗Yachtsman‘ 138

7. ‗City Sailors‘ and the Sea 166

8. The America‘s Cup: Conclusion 198

Bibliography 212

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Ruth Balint and co supervisor Dr Sean Brawley for their continued support and encouragement during throughout my candidature. The completion of this thesis is based on their professional and personal support. I am deeply grateful. I would also like to acknowledge the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and School of Humanities at the University of New South Wales for the opportunity to study for this degree. I am grateful to the academic and administrative staff including Dr Paul Brown, Dr Nicholas Doumanis, Dr Mina Roces, Dr Geoff Nathan, Sally Pearson, and Lekana Kim. And I would like to thank the following PhD students for their comments and friendship, Charmaine Robson, Eureka Henrich, Eve Carroll- Dwyer, Erik Nielsen, Lindsay Yeates, and Uraiwan Keodara. Finally, I must thank all my family and friends for their love and support, particularly my partner, Lois Morgan, and My parents, David de Montfort, Rowena Sargent and Barry Sargent. I would like to remember Elaine Morgan, Peter de Montfort, Karen de Montfort, and William Lister Johnson, who could not see this thesis completed.

Chapter 1 Introduction

My grandfather‘s yacht, Portia has a small brass plate mounted above the round faces of the barometer and clock ‗down below‘ in the cabin. The plate testifies to the successful completion of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race in 1968. Portia did not do particularly well in the race and my grandfather was yet to own it. No one in my family had ever competed in the Sydney-Hobart. Yet, that brass plate was part of my childhood experiences. Some of my earliest memories are of sailing Portia on Pittwater to the north of Sydney. Below deck was safe and secure. I remember the sweaty vinyl cushions in the cabin, the comforting smell of diesel and salt water, and the smooth threadbare cotton pillowcases that never really dried out in the salt air. I also remember lying in the cabin fascinated by the mystery of the brass plate. I knew the words before I knew the meaning. They seemed distant and adventurous, and yet, over time as I came to understand them, they felt close through the boat and its history:

CRUISING YACHT CLUB OF AUSTRALIA THE YACHT PORTIA COMPETED IN THE SYDNEY-HOBART YACHT RACE DEC. 1968

The Sydney-Hobart had an important place in our family traditions. We had our big raucous family Christmas on Boxing Day, and we would arrive at my grandparent‘s before the Sydney-Hobart started. If we timed it right, we could stand in the living room and watch the live broadcast of the start on the television before rushing up the hill to a lookout on Dobroyd head where we would work our way into the crowd of spectators. Sometimes we would find the hidden track down to an old gunpowder magazine, a relic of the harbour defences, and join the others who also knew the ‗secret spot‘. We would squint down the harbour, waiting for the tops of the tallest masts to first appear above Middle Head. The anticipation built as the yachts followed by helicopters pleasure boats and nearly every ferry on the harbour would come into view, turn right around South Head or a marker in the Sound, and then disappear

Introduction down the coast. The kids fought over the binoculars, and the adults struck up conversations with other spectators. They threw sailing jargon into their observations, each party trying to see if the other knew ‗what they were talking about‘. Back at the house, we opened presents, ate, swam in the pool, and at some point inevitably imagined just how far down the coast the yachts would be and whether or not they had run into a ‗Southerly Buster‘. These experiences contributed to my sense of an ‗imagined community‘ of Australians who, like myself, were entranced by the romance of sailing and the sea. Benedict Anderson defined the nation as an ‗imagined political community‘ because its members who may not know one another imagined connections and shared interests that united them.1 We could see the spectators on North Head and South head, on the ferries, yachts and cruisers that surged along with the fleet in a sea of wash and imagine the infinite number of people tuning in to the race on live television in any part of Australia. The Sydney-Hobart was described by commentators as a ‗national tradition‘ and an ‗Australian icon‘, drawing attention to this shared ritual. We celebrated the skills and bravery of Australian sailors and the romance of ‗our‘ coastline. The Sydney-Hobart was also an important part of the way that we imagined Australian sailing and yachting and the small brass plate in Portia’s cabin stood as a timeless testament to these traditions. It was a physical link to these abstract concepts of self and nation. This thesis has forced me to reconsider what sailing has meant to my family, my sailing friends and me and to investigate both public and private meanings of the pastime. I became interested in the history of the Sydney-Hobart at around the same time as I ‗discovered‘ Australian history during my undergraduate studies. Having been previously interested in grand narratives of European politics, wars, and economics, Australian social and cultural history was a revelation. It was ‗close to home‘ and personal. I read legends of Australian sailing penned by yachting journalists such as Lou d‘Alpuget and Bob Ross in Yachting in Australia and The Sailing Australians.2 These books presented Australian sailing and Australian sailors in a national context providing stories of skilled successful sailors, particularly in strong winds and heavy weather that buffeted the Australian coast. The Bluewater

1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised edition, Verso, London, 1991, pp. 5-7, 9-36. 2 Lou d‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia: Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Hutchinson Group, Richmond, Victoria, 1980; Bob Ross, The Sailing Australians, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973.

2 Introduction

Bushmen by Bruce Stannard provided my sailing with a romantic legacy with its black and white photographs from a ‗golden age‘ of open boat sailing in Sydney.3 I wanted to tell the stories of a successful maritime tradition in a serious scholarly forum. But I didn‘t write about the Sydney-Hobart. I wrote about various aspects of Australian history in my essays and exams and wrote about the history of the open boats for my honours thesis. Interesting but unresolved questions about sailing, yachting, class, legends, and Australian identity were brought up through this preliminary research.4 When I began this PhD, a history of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race was the obvious choice. It was a succinct topic with clear parameters. The event was clearly an Australian icon, yet it had received little scholarly attention. It promised to provide me with the maritime story of ‗being Australian‘ that I longed to tell.5 I set out to write the sea into Australian history, to tell the stories of those brave Australians who race to Hobart and their kin who follow them in spirit, and to better understand my own experience and identity of being an Australian sailor. At the same time, I was aware of the limitations of the legend and the constructions of this image. As Richard White observed in the introduction of Inventing Australia, ‗there is no ―real‖ Australia waiting to be uncovered‘. Instead, all versions of Australia are intellectual constructs ‗neat, tidy, comprehensible – and necessarily false‘. He maintained that instead of investigating whether they were true or false, we should consider their function, their creation, and whose interests they serve.6 The closer I looked for answers, the clearer the problems of the Sydney- Hobart became. There was no ‗real‘ Sydney-Hobart other than an annual ocean race. Furthermore, considering the power behind the tradition required a broader scope than I anticipated. The race was one part of a larger sailing culture in Australian history that has drawn on rich and complicated maritime traditions. It opened up questions about the origins of sailing and yachting in Australia: how did the Sydney-Hobart become an Australian icon; what did it reveal about the sea in Australian culture; and

3 Bruce Stannard, The Bluewater Bushmen: The Colourful Story of Australia’s Best and Boldest Boatmen, Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1981. 4 Carlin de Montfort, The Sentimental Boat: The Legend of Sydney‘s Open Boats, unpublished honours thesis, University of Sydney, Department of History, 2004.. 5 Catriona Elder, Being Australian: Narratives of National Identity, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, 2007. 6 Richard White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1981, p. viii.

3 Introduction what meanings were attached to sailing and yachting before the race was established? Only after a long process of considering the traditions of the sea and sailing in Australian culture could the Sydney-Hobart be properly explained. The race was not just the beginning of a yachting tradition, but also the outcome of a long and complicated relationship with the sea and a maritime heritage that were centered around the traditions of sailing and yachting in Australia. It was intertwined with stories of class, civilisation, Britishness, and Empire. Sailing was the maritime culture of invaders and settlers, and it told their story of nation. Sailing also revealed the accommodation to the Australian waterways by a settler society and local stories of attachment to place.

Sailing and yachting in Australian culture This thesis considers the cultural history of recreational sailing and yachting in Australian waters. It looks at the complicated ‗webs of meaning‘ that surround the pastime, for sailors and spectators. Clifford Geertz believed with Max Weber that ‗man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun‘ and understood culture to be those webs.7 This thesis considers how these meanings have been constructed through myths, legends and rituals. It approaches myths as symbols that carry meaning as used by Roland Barthes in Mythologies.8 Myths simplify the way that objects and events are understood in society. For example, Adrian Ceasar identified the way that: ‗Myths operate in society to foster beliefs which in turn make it ―natural‖ to look at things, events, people in specific, ideologically freighted ways‘.9 Donald Horne considered the myths of modern society in The Public Culture. He noted the ‗transforming effect‘ of myths:

‗Myths‘ have the magic quality of transforming complex affairs into simple but crystal-clear ‗realities‘ that explain and justify how things are now, or how we would like them to be. Whether altogether false, or partly true, they have

7 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, Basic Books, New York, 1973, p. 5; Richard Waterhouse also uses this definition in Private Pleasures Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture Since 1788, Longman, South Melbourne 1995, p. ix. 8 Roland Barthes, Mythologies, Jonathon Cape, London, 1972. 9 Adrian Ceasar, ‗National myths of manhood: Anzacs and Others‘, The Oxford Literary History of Australia, Bruce Bennet and Jennifer Strauss (eds), Oxford University Press Australia, Melbourne, 1998, p. 147.

4 Introduction

the transforming effect of hiding actual contradictions, confusions and inadequacies.10

Horne defined a legend as a simple story that illustrates a myth. Catriona Elder also looked at ‗stories‘ and ‗tales‘ in a wider sense as narratives. She argued that ‗the way people make sense of things … is to construct ―narratives‖‘. Like myths, these might be ‗mostly true, partly true or completely false‘ and they appear in written or spoken form, in physical spaces, or through architecture and design.11 Rituals are an important way of creating shared meanings. For example Horne defined ritual as a shared activity that ‗involves the participants symbolically in a common enterprise‘ and Elder, considered public holidays and national events as rituals that ‗relate to or reproduce particular understandings of being Australian‘.12 Myths, legends and rituals surround the big popular events in sailing and yachting. For example, the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race has a strong foundation legend that celebrates the first race in 1945 as the beginning of Australian ocean racing in the context of post-war renewal. This simple story obscures other factors that contributed to ocean racing and the Sydney-Hobart tradition such as international trends in yachting and an ongoing sea culture in Australia. Looking back, 1945 becomes a symbolic date associated with the beginning of a long period of sustained growth and prosperity, and the Sydney-Hobart has been included in this story as a new national icon. Narratives of national identity were pertinent in the aftermath of the disastrous 1998 race where six sailors lost their lives in a severe storm. Familiar metaphors of battle and sacrifice from the Anzac Legend were applied to the Sydney-Hobart sailors in best-selling accounts of the disaster that helped the public to reconcile a shared sense of loss. Popular histories of sailing and yachting in Australia have contributed the myths and legends of the sport. Notably, Percy Reginald Stephensen detailed the history of yachting on Sydney Harbour through the history of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron.13 Yachting journalist Lou d‘Alpuget wrote a detailed account of Australia sailing and yachting in Yachting in Australia. D‘Alpuget documented legends of the sport through the beginnings of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, the history of open

10 Donald Horne, The Public Culture: The Triumph of Industrialism, Pluto Press, London 1986, pp. 57- 58. 11 Elder, Being Australian, pp. 6-7. 12 Horne, The Public Culture, pp. 57-58; Elder, Being Australian, p. 239. 13 P. R Stephensen, Sydney Sails: The Story of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s First 100 Years 1862-1962, Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1962.

5 Introduction boat sailing on the harbour, and Australian success in international competitions such as the Olympic games.14 Older histories of yachting in Australia dating back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reveal different stories. Yachting and sailing were remembered as ‗British traditions‘. One history of Sydney sailing claimed that the very first settlers brought their national customs and habits with them, including the love of sport, ‗which forms so big a part of every Englishman‘. The author continued: ‗Being Britishers, the bacterium navigandi was in their blood, and could not help but manifest its presence in that love for the sea‘.15 The annual regattas in Sydney and Hobart dated back to 1837. As public holidays, the regattas included the whole community in shared rituals of festivity. But instead of being uniquely Australian, these ceremonies were a reflection of British maritime culture that was transplanted to the Australian colonies. The design of sailing boats and yachts are also celebrated in different ways. The open boats of Sydney Harbour are celebrated as a uniquely Australian boat for working class men. Ross claimed that they were a boat for the ‗battlers of old Sydney town who couldn‘t afford the pleasures of yachting as practiced by the gentlemen… There‘s certainly nothing like them anywhere else in the world.‘16 Yachts on the other hand revealed the restraint and respectability of middle class sailors, characteristics that were celebrated in the 1890s. Regarding yacht types in Australian waters, one commentator claimed, ‗if yachting should tend toward developing a race of amateur sailors‘, then ‗the keel-boat deserves the patronage of the yachting public‘.17 This thesis documents the rich meanings of sailing and yachting in Australian waters. It argues that sailing and yachting have been important cultural products that have contributed to the way that people have made sense of place, heritage and identity over a long period of time. These meanings cannot be approached as part of a single homogeneous culture neatly defined by national boundaries. Instead, borrowing a maritime metaphor, they have been fluid and changing. Multiple meanings, myths and legends have existed in Australian waters. They have been informed by a variety of imported and local traditions, by national and transnational connections. This thesis

14 D‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, p. 12. 15 ‗Pilot‘, ‗Old Time Sydney Sailing‘, The Anchor, 5 October, 1911. 16 Bob Ross, The Sailing Australians, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973, pp. 49-50. 17 Reginald Mallory, ‗Yacht Types in Australian Waters‘, Southern Cross, December 12, 1898, pp. 31- 35.

6 Introduction reveals the culture of sailing and yachting in Australian history as a complicated and open-ended story of how Australians have made sense of the sea and a sea culture.

Sailing and yachting in Australian history Sailing and yachting have fallen through the gaps of maritime history and sport history in Australia. Although they are included in the definition of maritime history adopted by the Australian Association for Maritime History as all interaction between human kind and the sea, there has been little research on the subjects. Maritime history has tended to focus on economic and social themes with little focus on culture or recreation. When Malcolm Tull reviewed the state of Australian maritime history in 1995, he decided not to comment on the subjects of ‗leisure‘ and ‗culture‘ at all, as they were in his words ‗still very much underdeveloped‘.18 Maritime historian, Frank Broeze recognised the potential of sailing and yachting as a significant component of Australian history in 1988 when he argued that maritime history should be brought from the ‗periphery to the mainstream‘ in Australian history. Broeze wrote that a number of popular events, including the tall ships race and the First Fleet reconstruction for the Bicentenary in 1988 on top of the 1987 America‘s Cup defence in Fremantle, ‗demonstrated just how much ocean sailing and racing has become part of the Australian mystique‘. He suggested six broad conceptual frameworks through which historians in Australia might approach a wide range of relationships with the sea. These functional categories were listed as: using the resources of the sea and its subsoil; using the sea for transport; using the sea for power projection; scientific exploration; leisure activities; and the inspiration of the sea in culture and ‗ideology‘.19 The beach and yachting were cited as two examples of how maritime leisure has been central to Australian history. Broeze argued that yachting had become ‗institutionalised‘, citing the 1983 America‘s Cup as an example of how yachting may be related to general ideological debates about the nature of Australian society. Broeze cited his comments at the time where he related the victory to the thesis that Australian society is basically egalitarian. He said that the triumph was linked to great

18 Malcolm Tull, ‗Maritime History in Australia‘, Maritime History at the Crossroads: A Critical Review of Recent Historiography, Frank Broeze, International Maritime Economic History Association, St John‘s Newfoundland, 1995, p. 4. 19 An edited version of this address was published in Great Circle: Frank Broeze, ‗From the Periphery to the Mainstream: The Challenge of Australia‘s Maritime History‘, Great Circle, volume 11, number 1, 1989, pp. 1-13.

7 Introduction legends of the past, ‗and many believed that the spirit of Eureka and Gallipoli lived on in the Argonauts of Australia II in their quest for the Golden Fleece off Newport‘. The victory was seen as a ‗triumph of Australia‘s open society and free enterprise system‘.20 In another case, he cited the skipper of Australia II, John Bertrand used the victory to press for a redefinition of the ‗Australian dream‘. The organisation of a racing yacht was compared to the running of government and success on the world stage. Bertrand stated: ‗To translate these principles to our nation‘s affairs, I believe ―rule by consensus‖ has served its time and that Australians are now looking for clear, simple, courageous decisions‘.21 In 1998, Broeze reviewed sailing and yachting again in Island Nation, his revisionist history of Australia and the sea.22 Here, he argued that Australia had a rich and diverse culture in recreational sailing:

Australian yachting has enjoyed an almost uninterrupted ascendance. Ever more sophisticated and expensive yachts were developed, while at the same time many more modestly priced craft catered for all classes of water lovers. Australia reputedly has the second-highest rate of sailing-boats in the world behind Norway, and yacht clubs can be found around the entire littoral.23

One reviewer described this section on recreation as the ‗real treat of the book‘.24 Yet, the material on sailing and yachting was underdeveloped and the references reveal that it was based mostly on the work of journalists, Lou d‘Alpuget, Bruce Stannard and Rob Mundle. These writers demonstrate an intimate and nuanced knowledge of their topic, but they also tend to romanticise the legends of the sport and contribute to the myth of an unfailing ascendance in sailing and yachting. Critical approaches on the other hand, can explore more complicated themes. This thesis considers the history of sailing and yachting using Broeze‘s last two functional categories: the use of the sea for leisure, and the inspiration of the sea in culture. It goes further than Broeze‘s research by returning to primary sources – newspaper articles, magazines, yachting histories and books, poetry, race programs,

20 Frank Broeze, ABC News Commentry, 1983, quoted in Broeze, ‗From the Periphery to the Mainstream‘, p. 10. 21 Broeze, ‗From the Periphery to the Mainstream‘ p. 10. 22 Frank Broeze, Island Nation: A History of Australians and the Sea, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1998, pp. 245-249. 23 Ibid, p. 247. 24 Lex Heerma Van Voss, ‗Book Review: Island Nation‘, in International Journal of Maritime History, volume 10, number 2, 1998, p. 291.

8 Introduction images, and the design of boats – to consider the ways that the pastime developed in Australian waters and locate it in the broader themes Australian history and culture. It reveals a vast and largely unstudied culture of recreational sailing and argues that this made a significant contribution to Australian society. This thesis also interrogates the popular histories of sailing and yachting by reconsidering the legends of the sport and their function in broader stories of Australian identity. The themes and approaches of sport history help to identify yachting and sailing as leisure activities, looking at class, identity, rituals, recreation and popular culture. The themes of maritime history, considering the significance of the interaction between humankind and the sea, helps to consider sailing and yachting as evidence of a ‗sea culture‘ in Australian history.

Sailing and yachting as leisure activities Sailing and yachting were included in the conceptual framework of leisure in two volumes of British maritime history, Recreation and the Sea and Exploiting the Sea, from the Exeter Centre for Maritime History.25 Janet Cusack considered the early history of yachting in England tracing the rise of the pastime in England and South Devon between 1640 and 1827 and the development of yachting in Britain between 1890 and 1960.26 These studies examine the general growth of participation in yachting with attention to social and technological changes in the sport. Roger Ryan considered the emergence of middle class yachting in northwest England from the late nineteenth century.27 Ryan looked at the local economic and social forces as well as the technical aspects of the sport at this time. These three articles provide a valuable overview of changes in British yachting culture that influenced the Australian experience. As an imported sport, yachting reflected the trends of the mother country while adapting them to local conditions. Sailing and yachting have been considered from the perspective of sport history in Australia. The editors of the ‗Sport and Leisure‘ chapter of Australians: A Guide to Sources, published for the 1988 Bicentenary identified the ‗long enjoyed

25 David J Starkey, and Alan G Jamieson (eds), Exploiting the Sea: Aspects of Britain’s Maritime Economy since 1870, Exeter Press, Exeter, 1998; Stephen Fisher (ed.), Recreation and the Sea, University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1997. 26 Janet Cusack, ‗The Rise of Yachting in England and South Devon Revisited, 1640-1827‘, Recreation and the Sea, Fisher, pp. 101-149; Janet Cusack, ‗Yachting in Britain, 1890-1960‘, Exploiting the Sea, Starkey and Jamieson, pp. 167-192. 27 Roger Ryan, ‗The Emergence of Middle-class yachting in the North-West of England from the Later Nineteenth Century‘, Recreation and the Sea, Fisher, pp. 150-180.

9 Introduction popularity‘ of water-based sports in Australia. This was ‗scarcely surprising given the distribution of Australia‘s population along the eastern seaboard and the beautiful harbours, lakes and rivers which characterise Australian cities‘. They identified regattas, the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race and the establishment of yacht clubs as evidence of a nearly two hundred year‘s involvement in the sport.28 Gerald Crawford also noted the popularity of sailing and yachting in the Oxford Companion to Australian Sport: ‗With so many of Australia‘s major cities and towns on the east coast or near inland waterways, it is easy to understand why boating, cruising, and yacht-racing are some of the most popular sporting and recreational activities‘.29 Nineteen further entries related to ‗Sailing and Yachting‘ revealed the potential for further study of the topic. They ranged from notable events such as the America‘s Cup and the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, to a number of famous sailing personalities such as America‘s cup skippers: Alexander Sturrock, Sir James Hardie and John Bertrand.30 Sailing and yachting are included in a number of histories of Australian sport and leisure. J W C Cumes considered the social aspects of early sailing races on Sydney Harbour as a popular sport, and identified its relationship to gambling and convict leisure.31 John A Daly included regular references to yachting in a history of sport, class and community in colonial South Australia.32 Brian Stoddart considered sailing and yachting a number of times in Saturday Afternoon Fever, and made some critical observations regarding class and status, noting that way that crew members are placed in a serving capacity by their inability to own major craft.33 Marion K Stell also mentions yachting and sailing regularly in a history of Australian women in sport, Half the Race but does not analyse the sport.34 Richard Cashman also mentions early regattas and boat races that included sailing and the formation of yacht clubs in

28 Victor Crittenden, G Peguero and Carol M Mills, ‗Sport and Leisure‘, Australians: A Guide to Sources, D H Borchardt (ed.), Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, NSW, 1987, p. 389. 29 Gerald Crawford, ‗Sailing and Yachting‘, The Oxford Companion to Australian Sport, Wray Vamplew, Ian Jobling and Katherine Moore (eds), Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 372. 30 Vamplew, Jobling and Moore, Oxford Companion to Australian Sport, pp. 307-308. 31 J W C Cumes, Their Chastity was not too rigid: Leisure Times in Early Australia, Longman Cheshire/Reed, Terry Hills, 1979, pp. 157-162. 32 John A Daly, Elysian Fields: Sport, Class and Community in Colonial South Australia 1836-1890, John A Daly, Adelaide, 1982. 33 Brian Stoddart, Saturday Afternoon Fever, Sport in the Australian Culture, Angus and Robinson, North Ryde, NSW, 1986, pp. 40-41 34 Marion K Stell, Half the Race: A History of Australian Women in Sport, Angus and Robinson, North Ryde, 1991.

10 Introduction

Paradise of Sport without looking closely at the pastime. 35 Tony Dingle used the case of post-war dinghy sailing on Port Phillip to argue that the introduction of new technology, in the form of marine plywood and waterproof glues, after the second world war made sailing more widely accessible as a sport. Dingle was countering an argument by Daryl Adair and Wray Vamplew that new technologies in sport are normally expensive, thus making the respective sport more exclusive.36 And Melinda Hammond explored the public meanings attached to sailing in the Northern Territory ‗Regatta Day‘, demonstrating that the regatta was widely attended up to 1911.37 However the engagement with yachting and sailing has remained superficial in these general histories of Australian sport, and rarely developed in detail. In a recent issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport focussing on new work on Australasian aquatic cultures, Rob Hess and Claire Parker note that ‗the majority of academic scrutiny during the last two decades or so had been directed towards investigations of surfing and surf lifesaving in particular, and beach culture more generally‘. They describe the literature on the beach in sport history: ‗Debates about various manifestations of surfing subculture have arisen, controversies concerning the origins of particular surf lifesaving clubs have surfaced, international conference sessions have been devoted to such topics, and commissioned histories have been written and critiqued‘. They cite the work of Douglas Booth, Ed Jaggard and Sean Brawley in ‗helping to create an intimidating corpus of scholarly literature related to these issues‘. In contrast, the focus on yachting is narrow, ‗with research on the competition for the America‘s Cup looming large in the extant literature‘. They agree that aquatic cultures are broader and more diverse than the existing literature would indicate.38 As Hess and Parker indicate, the victory in the 1983 America‘s Cup has dominated critical engagement with yachting in Australian history. The campaign was funded by West Australian businessman Alan Bond and resulted in spontaneous displays of national celebration as the New York Yacht Club‘s long run of success

35 Richard Cashman, Paradise of Sport: The Rise of Organised Sport in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995. 36 Tony Dingle, ‗―I‘d Rather Be Sailing‖: The Postwar Boom in Dinghy Sailing‘, Great Circle, volume 21, number 2, 1999, pp. 121-127. 37 Melissa Hammond, ‗Against the Wind: The Tradition of Regatta Day in the Northern Territory until 1911‘, Journal of Northern Territory History, number 9, 1998, pp. 43-54. 38 Rob Hess, and Claire Parker, ‗Against the Tide: New Work on Australasian Aquatic Cultures‘, The International Journal of the History of Sport, volume 26, number 14, 2009, pp. 2060-2068.

11 Introduction was brought to an end. In celebration of the victory, the then Prime Minister Bob Hawke famously stated: ‗Any boss who sacks a worker for not turning up today is a bum‘.39 The race is now popularly remembered as a turning point for Australia. Critical accounts of the victory have revealed the way that politicians, the mass media and entrepreneurs appropriated this sentiment for their own ends. In addition to Broeze‘s comments, Paul James, Brian Stoddardt, Jim McKay, Daryl Adair and Wray Vamplew, Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, Graeme Davison, Christopher Thompson, and Tony Ward, have all considered the America‘s Cup in studies of Australian sport.40 James considered the way that the America‘s Cup ‗dissolved for a period the boundaries between politics and sporting nationalism‘ and for a moment united individuals in spontaneous celebration.41 McKay used the theory of hegemony to demonstrate how dominant groups can ‗frame‘ sport to legitimise their values. He argued that no one group orchestrated the reactions to the America‘s cup, but it was celebrated because it appealed to established popular concepts of sport, individualism, capitalism, masculinity, nationalism and liberalism. McKay concluded: ‗The victory of a millionaire competing in one of the world‘s most exclusive and expensive sports was used by powerful groups as an example of Australia‘s essentially democratic and egalitarian nature‘.42 McKay‘s case study provided a compelling argument, demonstrating how yachting can be used to shed light on broader themes in Australian society. However, yachting was portrayed as an elite and unpopular sport, at odds with Australian values and culture. McKay claimed that: ‗Sailing is one of the most unpopular sports in Australia‘ and Adair and Vamplew wrote: ‗Rarely has the nation

39 Christian Kerr, ‗The America's Cup win was a turning point for Australia, former prime minister Bob Hawke has said‘, The Australian, 1 January, 2012, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national- affairs/the-americas-cup-win-was-a-turning-point-for-australia-former-prime-minister-bob-hawke-has- said/story-fn59niix-1226234287438, accessed 19/3/2012. 40 Paul James, ‗The ideology of winning: cultural politics and the America‘s Cup‘, Power Play: Essays in the sociology of Australian sport, Geoffrey Lawrence and David Rowe, Hale and Iremonger Sydney 1986, pp. 136-147; Stoddart, Saturday Afternoon Fever, pp. 67-71, 183-188; Jim McKay, No Pain, No Gain? Sport and Australian Culture, Prentice Hall, New York, Sydney, 1991 pp. 19-36; Daryl Adair and Wray Vamplew, Sport in Australian History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997, pp. 42-43; Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, One-Eyed: A View of Australian Sport, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000, pp. 182-183; Graeme Davison, ‗The Imaginary Grandstand‘, The imaginary grandstand: identity and narrative in Australian sport, Bernard Whimpress (ed.), Kent Town, SA, Australian Society for Sports History, 2001, pp. 12-26; Christopher Thompson, ‗Boats Bondy and the Boxing Kangaroo: The 1983 America‘s Cup in Australian Sport and Identity‘, Buoyant Nationalism: Australian Identity, Sport and the World Stage 1982-1983, Ian Warren, Balaclava, VIC, Australian Society for Sports History, 2004, pp. 59-118; Tony Ward, Sport in Australian national identity: kicking goals, Routledge, London, 2010, p. 168. 41 James, ‗The Ideology of Winning‘, p. 146. 42 McKay, No Pain, No Gain?, p. 34.

12 Introduction witnessed such scenes of jubilation, despite the fact that very few Australians were familiar with sailing‘.43 Booth and Tatz, Thomson, and Ward all cite the unpopularity of yachting in their accounts of the victory. Yachting has not been an isolated and unpopular sport in Australian culture. This thesis argues that the links between yachting and Australian identity revealed in reactions to the 1983 America‘s cup were not new or unusual, but were part of an long-term relationship between sailing yachting and a number of expressions of local national and imperial identities established since the mid nineteenth century. This thesis takes a different approach by avoiding the Australian bids for the America‘s Cup. Instead, it explores the complexity of sailing and yachting in Australian waters. The sport was not restricted to one homogeneous concept such as the narrative of ‗egalitarianism‘ associated with the 1983 victory, but multiple and co-existing ideas linked to class, masculinity, Britishness and a local attachment to place. Yachting has been connected to images of Australian progress and wealth as an elite sport, but more accessible working class and middle class forms of the sport have also emerged. The broad range of traditions connected to sailing and yachting help to further explain the paradox of 1983 where an elite sport was also associated with ideas of Australia‘s ‗collective and egalitarian nature‘.44 Looking closely at the history and traditions of yachting can shed light on more recent events. For example, James considered the nineteenth century origins of the America‘s Cup in 1851 as a symbol of the vigour of competitive capitalism and the surpassing of the old by a ‗new nation‘ to explain the reactions to the victory in 1983.45 And Brian Stoddart noted that in the late nineteenth century, sailing along with racing ‗quickly became the way to display wealth conspicuously‘ and this underpinned the massive capital outlays on the 1987 defence.46 Louise Bricknell considered Anglo American relations and the early challenges for the America‘s Cup. Yachting symbolized wealth, civilization and power for wealthy Britons and Americans alike. Again this provided a stronger context to events that surrounded the 1983 campaign. Bricknell concluded:

43 Jim McKay, No Pain, No Gain?, p. 24; Adair and Vamplew, Sport in Australian History, pp. 42-43. 44 Broeze, ‗From the Periphery to the Mainstream‘, p. 10. 45 Paul James, ‗The ideology of winning‘, pp. 136-139. 46 Brian Stoddart, ‗The Hidden Influence of Sport‘, Constructing a Culture: a Peoples History of Australia since 1788, Penguin, Verity Burgmann and Jenny Lee (eds), Victoria, 1988, p. 127.

13 Introduction

Maybe now, the events of 1983 … can be more easily understood. Politics had long been a central component of the America‘s Cup. It was not the loss of a silver cup that concerned the Americans, rather it was the loss of an icon that symbolised America‘s supremacy in the developed world.‘47

Bridget Griffen-Foley considered Frank Packer‘s 1962 America‘s Cup challenge through the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. The publicity convinced the Australian government that ‗the challenge could boost both Australia‘s profile abroad, and the Australian people‘s confidence to strut on the world stage‘ well before 1983.48 This thesis traces the earlier import of sailing and yachting culture to the Australian colonies from Britain, and its development over the following century that would underpin such statements.

Sailing and yachting as sea cultures Gesa Mackenthun and Bernard Klein edited a volume of revisionist maritime histories entitled Sea Changes: Historicizing the Ocean in 2004. These essays challenged the ‗cultural myth that the ocean is outside and beyond history‘, that an atemporal, ahistorical sea stands diametrically opposed to a fully historicised land. Instead, they attempted to recover in the history of the sea ‗a paradigm that may accommodate various revisionary accounts … of the modern historical experience of transnational contact zones‘.49 The sea is a site of connection and cross-cultural encounter in transnational histories. For example, Paul Gilroy and Peter Linebaugh and Markus Rediker have considered maritime connections across the Atlantic.50 The history of the Pacific Ocean reveals similar connections close to the Australian continent explored by historians including Greg Dening, Frances Steel and Matt Matsuda.51

47 Louise Bricknell, ‗Fickle Winds and Treacherous Feelings: Anglo-American Relations and the Early Challenges for the America‘s Cup‘, Sporting Traditions, volume 9, number 2, 1993, pp. 14-30. 48 Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‗Playing with Princes and Presidents: Sir Frank Packer and the 1962 Challenge for the America‘s Cup‘, Australian Journal of Politics and History, volume 46, number 1, 2000, pp. 51-66. 49 Bernhard Klein, and Gesa Mackenthun (eds), Sea Changes: Historicizing the Ocean, Routledge, New York, 2004, p. 2; Also see Phillip E Steinberg, The Social Construction of the Ocean, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001. 50 Paul Gilroy, The black Atlantic: modernity and double consciousness, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1993; Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The many-headed hydra: sailors, slaves, commoners, and the hidden history of the revolutionary Atlantic, Beacon Press, Boston 2000. 51 Greg Dening, Beach Crossings: Voyaging Across Times, Cultures and Self, Melbourne University Publishing, Carlton, VIC, 2004; Frances Steel, Oceania under Steam: Sea transport and the cultures of colonialism, c.1870-1914, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2011; Matt Matsuda, Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2012.

14 Introduction

The sea is also central to stories of European ‗discovery‘, colonisation, and immigration connecting Australia to the outside world. Ernest Scott‘s chronology at the beginning of A Short History of Australia begins with maritime events, including: the rounding of Cape Hope in 1486, Magellan entering the Pacific in 1520, the Duyfken in the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1606, Tasman‘s discovery of Van Diemen‘s land in 1642, Cook‘s discovery of New South Wales in 1770, and Flinders‘s circumnavigation of Australia in 1803. Scott wrote that Australia was discovered as ‗a great and wonderful series of events opened new sea-routes and fresh lands to the enterprise of mankind‘.52 Keith Hancock wrote about the sea and possession of the land in the opening chapters of Australia: ‗For six generations they [British peoples] have swarmed inland from the sea, pressing forwards to their economic frontiers‘. The First Fleet, clipper ships, and steamers brought Australia closer to the Northern Hemisphere.53 Geoffrey Blainey argued that Australia was shaped by distance across the land and the sea in The Tyranny of Distance. Like Scott‘s Short History, it began with an account of maritime exploration, and settlement, and it considered ongoing connections with the ‗old world‘ across the oceans through the trade routes of clipper ships and steamships. He argued that this distance was ‗as characteristic of Australia as mountains are of Switzerland … a central and unifying factor in Australia‘s history‘.54 For a long time, the perception that sea culture has been neglected in Australian historiography remained. John Bach, author of the 1976 study A Maritime History of Australia, noted that older societies, particularly, Portugal, the Netherlands and England, had ‗developed an appropriate tradition, with its own ethics and mythology, to acknowledge the role that maritime enterprise had played in their history‘. Yet Australia has not conformed to this pattern. Bach observed: ‗Economically and historically indebted to the sea though it be, Australian society gives precious little room to that element in the national mythology it has laboriously contrived to put together over its two centuries of being‘. Bach suggested that Australian settlers looked towards a romanticised inland in a way similar to how the English looked out towards a romanticised sea. Upon being exiled on a distant shore,

52 Ernest Scott, A Short History of Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1964 (first edition 1916), pp. xvii-xviii, 2. 53 Keith Hancock, Australia, Jacaranda Press, 1961, (first published 1930), p. 1, 19. 54 Geoffrey Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance: How distance Shaped Australia’s History, Sun Books, Melbourne, 1966, pp. iii-x.

15 Introduction settlers may have wished to reject the sea as associated with the country that had sent them there.55 Over 30 years later, Broeze made similar observations about the neglect of the sea in Australian history in Island Nation: ‗Australian history and Australian society have been shaped by the dynamic interaction of land, cities and the sea … but the role of the sea as an integral and vital part of our national experience has remained largely unexplored‘. Broeze explained how concepts of ‗continental‘ Australia have viewed the sea as a fence between Australia and the outside world, suggesting: ‗It was part of an ‗other‘ world, in which Australia held no stake‘. He hoped to integrate ‗the maritime elements of Australia‘s history into the country‘s general history by opening new windows through which its experiences and forces can be investigated and understood‘.56 Since then, a ‗sea change‘ has occurred in Australian history, as the meanings of the sea in Australian history have been reconsidered. Alan Atkinson employed the maritime metaphor to describe the struggle to impose imperial order and authority in the convict colony. Atkinson wrote: ‗The generation which lived through the first decades of European settlement in Australia was one for whom the sea was still appallingly large. … The parameters of the sea, its depth and breadth, its perpetual movement, were still far beyond common comprehension.‘ Atkinson invoked the image of Jeremy Bentham‘s panopticon where prisoners simultaneously come under the surveillance of a central point, as taking place across the empty expanse of the ocean: ‗But his [Bentham‘s] panopticon principle was quite capable of being given a world-wide dimension, making Britain the final point of reference for the control of individuals whose cells were continents and islands‘.57 The sea was part of the connections to Europe and the transplanting of European culture and traditions to Australian shores. Ross Gibson considered maritime settlement, using the metaphor of the sea as fluid and oceanic to reconsider social relationships and encounters in early Sydney. He argued:

One can revise aspects of Australian history responsibly enough by setting the colony in a different context: marine rather than terrine. This is not to deny that the pastoralist dream came to dominate non-Aboriginal historiography for

55 John Bach, A Maritime History of Australia, Thomas Nelson Australia, West Melbourne, 1976, pp. 2-3. 56 Broeze, Island Nation, pp. 1-2. 57 Alan Atkinson, The Europeans in Australia: A History, volume 1, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1997, pp. 292-296.

16 Introduction

at least one hundred and fifty years. But it is to assert that there have always been other visions and nascent traditions available to settlers. One can still retrieve traces of fugitive colonial histories which suggest that many people in the early years of European incursion sensed that they were poised to abandon or adapt their presumptions and desires in this new place. Perhaps they even sensed themselves awash. Once the Pacific setting of Australian history is brought to the fore, fluidity and mutability rather than stoic, reactive intransigence can be proposed as a communal tendency.58

Suvendrini Perera, Ruth Balint, and Alison Bashford have all examined the sea as a national and geopolitical space.59 Balint explores the ‗stretch of ocean between southeast Asia and northern Australia‘ where the sea has historically acted as a ‗bridge and lifeblood‘ for indigenous communities living along its rim, but has been a ‗border zone‘ for European Australia, ‗frequently imagined as a lurking and polluting threat to the nation‘s territorial integrity‘. Balint ‗challenges the idea of the sea as an unproblematic, uniform space, an empty void‘ by historicising this northwest seascape.60 Bashford also explores the way that the maritime border has shaped ideas of Australia in studies of quarantine, immigration and contagion.61 In these histories, the sea is still imagined as distant and foreign to many contemporary Australians. The sea is either a fence that protects Australia from invasion, or it is a historical connection to an older period now superseded by technology. As distance across the ocean has been ‗annihilated‘, it appears to be no longer relevant to contemporary life. The beach on the other hand, is understood as a present sea culture that Australians embrace. For example, Phillip Drew questioned the dominance of the bush by citing the importance of the beach in Australian culture. Drew described Australians as a ‗nation of coast dwellers‘, with an increasingly littoral culture and claimed: ‗… It is Bondi, not Ayres Rock [Uluru], that symbolises this country for the majority.‘62 Drew argued:

58 Ross Gibson, ‗Ocean settlement‘, Meanjin, volume 53, number 4, 1994, p. 666. 59 Suvendrini Perera, Australia and the Insular Imagination: Beaches, Borders, Boats and Bodies, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Ruth Balint, Troubled Waters: Borders, Boundaries and Possession in the Timor Sea, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, 2005; Alison Bashford, Imperial Hygiene: A Critical History of Colonialism, Nationalism and Public Health, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2003. 60 Ruth Balint, 'The Yellow Sea', in David Walker and Agnieszka Sobocinka, Australia in Asia, University of WA Press, Perth, 2012: Forthcoming. By courtesy of the author. 61 Alison Bashford, ‗At the Border: Contagion, Immigration, Nation‘, Australian Historical Studies, volume 33, number 120, 2002, pp. 344-358. 62 Phillip Drew, The coast Dwellers: A Radical reappraisal of Australian Identity, Penguin, Ringwood, VIC, 1994, pp. x-xi.

17 Introduction

Long after 1850, Australia was still a country confined to a shallow south-east boomerang coast. This was where the biggest cities were; where Australian character was formed. Not in the outback away from the ocean, but on a long narrow land corridor squeezed between a broken apron of sandy beaches and jutting rocky headlands and the Great Escarpment; a land corridor less than 200 kilometres wide and more than 2000 kilometres long.63

Drew presented a map of Australia shaped by population density and wrote: ‗Australia begins to look more like the Japanese archipelago‘ than a large continental landmass.64 Geoffrey Dutton described the Australian art, literature and poetry inspired by the beach as an alternative to the bush legend, Sun Sea Surf and Sand – The Myth of the Beach. At that point as Dutton stated the beach was not understood in intellectual terms, but ‗instinctively endorsed by the vast majority of Australians‘ and writers and artists were best able to divine the relationship of the beach with the national character. Dutton argued that while hundreds of thousands of Australians go outback every year, ‗millions go to the beach, and they go there for pleasure‘.65 The beach is often imagined a unique Australian culture. Dutton argued that that the people on ‗our beaches‘ are akin to those on the beaches of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Baltic and North Sea, the Atlantic and the American Pacific, but ‗Australians are the only people who live with their beaches all the time, even in winter‘.66 Leone Huntsman made similar observations arguing that in many countries, climate, geography, history, accessibility of the ocean and cultural inhibitions limit beach culture, where favourable conditions in Australia ‗combined to enhance the ability and the inclination of Australians to respond to the lure of the beach‘. Furthermore, this was a twentieth century discovery. Huntsman argues that the bush dominated Australian culture in the nineteenth century, and ‗the beach, and all it would mean in the century to come, was yet to be discovered‘.67 Douglas Booth also noted that the beach helps to define Australian identity, writing that ‗no other country is so beach-bound‘.68

63 Ibid, p. 14. 64 Ibid, p. 24. 65 Geoffrey Dutton, Sun, Sea, Surf and Sand – The Myth of the Beach, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1985, p. 6. 66 Ibid, pp. 6-7. 67 Leone Huntsman, Sand in Our Souls: The Beach in Australian History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, VIC, 2001, p. 11, 52. 68 Douglas Booth, Australian Beach Cultures: The History of Sun, Sand and Surf, Frank Cass, London, 2001, pp. 1-3.

18 Introduction

The history of sailing and yachting in Australian waters can be used to further explore the interaction between Australian society and the sea through older maritime connections. In 1988 for example, a fleet of tall ships from all over the world 'raced' from Hobart to Sydney in January, so that they could then form a 'Parade of Sail' through the heads for the Bicentenary celebrations in 1988.69 An unofficial re- enactment of the First Fleet was also organised.70 Traditions that were associated with recreational sailing, racing, harbour-side celebrations and parades, were integrated with the working maritime traditions of tall ship sailing and seamanship in a story of British foundations. The Governor General, Sir Ninian Stephen wrote that: ‗Tall Ships Australia 1988 reminds us of our heritage of sail and of the importance of the sea to Australia, both now and in the future; especially it reminds us of what the sea and sailing offers to Australians as recreation and adventure‘.71 P. R Stephensen also celebrated maritime connections in modern Australia in his history of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, published during its centenary year in 1962. He claimed that ‗yachtsmen‘ in Australia and in many other countries throughout the world ‗preserved the traditional practical skills of seamanship … They strove to master and use immense natural forces of the winds, seas, tides and currents that have been, from time immemorial, benevolent or hostile to seafarers, but always a challenge to strenuous endeavour.‘72 This triumphant story highlighted shared traditions of the sea that connected yacht sailors across the world. The Bicentenary demonstrated how these shared traditions were combined with a popular sense of Australian history. At the same time, sailing and yachting can be considered as an addition to beach cultures. They were both part of an attachment to the local environment, climate and place, extensions of a coastal culture and the port capitals of the Australian continent. Local sailing traditions were apparent, like the open boat racing on Sydney Harbour that emerged in a modern form from the working class suburbs of Pyrmont, Balmain and Woolloomooloo in the late nineteenth century. The boats became a famous ‗Sydney type‘ renowned for carrying large sails and having many crew heaped on the side of the boat for balance while a steamer full of spectators would follow the little craft around the harbour race course. The cruising culture that

69 Andrew Cowell, Tall Ships Australia 1988, Australian Consolidated Press, Sydney, 1987. 70 Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, second edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, pp. 285–286. 71 Sir Ninian Stephen, 'Foreword', Tall Ships Australia 1988, p. 5. 72 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 236.

19 Introduction developed in the 1920s and 1930s combined the hedonism of the beach with the traditions of the sea as amateur sailors undertook coastal and ocean passages in small yachts. They wrote about the joys and adventures cruising and the beauties of Australia‘s seacoast in accounts of their voyages published in the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly. By looking beyond the beach, this thesis reveals different ways that coastal Australians have experienced the sea, adding to understandings of Australia‘s contemporary sea culture.

Sailing and yachting in English history This thesis considers sailing and yachting as distinctive, but closely related activities. Sailing has always referred to the practice of boat handling, navigation and seamanship for work or pleasure. Yachting has carried greater meanings. Douglas Phillips-Birt described yachting as ‗a butterfly of a word to catch and fix. It covers a variety of activities having little in common except that they all take place in the environment of water that is usually – but not inevitably – salt.‘73 In England the word came to describe a pleasure boat of sorts. Cusack defined yachting as ‗the use of sailing boats for pleasure‘ in a study of the rise of yachting in England and South Devon between 1640 and 1827. Cusack wrote:

Yachting – that is the use of sailing boats for pleasure – like any other form of leisure pursuit, varies according to the social and economic characteristics of the society in which its participants live. It can be regarded as an individual activity, giving aesthetic pleasure and physical or psychological challenge, including the opportunity to play out individual fantasies, such as realistic war games. It can also be considered as a means of asserting or claiming high social or economic status by conspicuous consumption…74

Cusack challenged the ‗traditional popular view of the history of English yachting‘. This view stated that the socially exclusive sport of yacht racing was brought to England from Holland on the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, which then lapsed after the fall of James II before being revived towards the end of the eighteenth century. The Royal Yacht Squadron was founded in Cowes at the end of the

73 Douglas Phillips-Birt, The History of Yachting, London: Elm Tree Books, 1974, p. 11. 74 Cusack, ‗The rise of Yachting in England and South Devon Revisited, 1640-1827‘, p. 101.

20 Introduction

Napoleonic Wars in 1815, and yachting spread through English waters and beyond. Cusack argues that the use of the word yacht was already in use since at least 1557 as a description of Norwegian or Dutch boats and as a description of a pleasure boat since at least 1643, and that pleasure sailing took place in the royal family well before 1600. In addition, Cusack warns against the conventional view of King Charles II as ‗the father of English yachting‘ because most of his yachts were naval vessels used for government business and charged to the Admiralty.75 But in the nineteenth century, yachting was defined by the ‗popular view‘ as a royal sport with naval connections. As Phillips-Birt explains, Yacht came from the Dutch word jacht or joghte that referred to a swift light vessel of war, commerce or pleasure and jachten meant to hunt, chase or pursue with rapid motion.76 Cusack also notes: ‗It is probable that the real contribution of Charles II and James II to the development of English pleasure sailing and yacht racing was that their personal enthusiasm set a fashion for the possession of private yachts which survived the Stuart monarchy‘.77 This royal fashion of private boat ownership and not the act of sailing for pleasure is a better definition of ‗yachting‘. There were many examples of recreational sailing as Cusack documents, but the word yacht came to suggest the royal connections, conspicuous consumption and semi-naval status enjoyed by wealthy yacht owners. The Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes was the pinnacle of the sport. It was a highly exclusive institution and membership was limited by wealth and status. The large yachts of the Squadron were sailed by professional crews and retired naval captains. An early nineteenth century ‗yachtsman‘ was a yacht owner and a man of leisure, – the ‗yacht sailors‘ were his crew. A century later, The Complete Yachtsman advised the yacht owner on the duties of the paid skipper and hands.78 Even the Corinthian Yachtsman, a guide aimed at the gentleman amateur, advised on the management of a paid crew.79 Not all ‗yachtsmen‘ employed paid crews, or sailed extremely expensive yachts, but the definitions and meanings of the word were passed down from the fashionable and the elite.

75 Ibid, pp. 101-149. 76 Phillips-Birt, The History of Yachting, pp. 9-11. 77 Janet Cusack, ‗The rise of Yachting in England and South Devon Revisited, 1640-1827‘, p. 106. 78 B. Heckstall Smith and Captain E. Du Boulay, The Complete Yachtsman, Methuen, London, third edition, no date, (first edition 1912), pp. 154-156. 79 Tyrrel E Biddle, The Corinthian Yachtsman or Hints on Yachting, C Wilson, London, 1881 pp. 35- 38.

21 Introduction

Yachting was not defined by practice, the activity of sailing for pleasure, but by status. For example, Joseph Conrad was critical of yachting as a display of wealth and leisure in England. He wrote: ‗Of course, yacht racing is an organised pastime, a function of social idleness ministering to the vanity of certain wealthy inhabitants of these isles nearly as much as to their inborn love of the sea‘. But the practice of sailing and seamanship maintained by the professional crew as opposed to the yacht owner elevated the sailing of pleasure craft to a ‗fine art‘:

…The sailing and racing of yachts has developed a class of fore-and-aft sailors, men born and bred to the sea, fishing in winter and yachting in summer; men to whom the handling of that particular rig presents no mystery. It is their striving for victory that has elevated the sailing of pleasure craft to the dignity of a fine art in that special sense.80

Most accounts of sailing and yachting consider them to be separate activities, usually divided by class. Yacht referred to relatively large and expensive decked-in keelboats with fixed ballast. A yachtsman was usually a middle class owner or amateur crewmember. Sailing referred to smaller open boats, half-deckers or skiffs without the status of yachts. These boats often had ‗live ballast‘, meaning that the crew were required to balance the boat, and sliding centreboards instead of fixed keels. They could be sailed by professional racing sailors, who were often working class, or amateurs. On account of their small size and relative affordability, sailing boats did not carry the same pretentions to wealth and respectability inherent in the meaning of yachting. Sailing and yachting changed dramatically over the late nineteenth and first part of the twentieth century. Conrad referred to of ‗fore-and-aft‘ sailors. This described the typical sail plan of a small boat or yacht, with sails set along the length of the boat rather than across the boat like on a square rigged ship. This type of sailing became the domain of the amateur yacht owner and crew over the period covered in this thesis. Yachting changed from an elite pastime reserved for very wealthy yachtsmen who employed paid hands to a more accessible middle class pastime pursued by sailors who handled their own boats. Janet Cusack argues that yachting

80 Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea, Gresham, London, 1906, pp. 23-26.

22 Introduction was ‗revolutionised‘ in Britain between 1890 and 1960. The design of boats and equipment changed, they became smaller and more affordable; the numbers of yachts and yacht clubs increased; racing and cruising developed; dinghy sailing shifted from a minority activity to dominate the pastime in the 1950s; paid crews virtually vanished, and women gained some status in yacht clubs.81 Roger Ryan also identified a shift during this period, arguing that ‗yacht racing altered significantly between the 1880s and 1814 because it changed from being a highly exclusive activity for a wealthy elite using large yachts‘ to a form of middle class recreation. This underpinned the rapid growth of yachting after World War II marked by a rapid increase in clubs and participation.82

Sailing Traditions Sailing and yachting developed in between 1888 and 1945 within the broader context of modernisation. Australia underwent a massive shift with the spread of industrialisation, urbanisation, and consumer culture, from a number of pre-industrial colonial societies to a modern nation based on advanced industrial capitalism. As in England, recreational sailing underwent broad technological and social changes. It became available to a wider section of the community as advances in technology and production as well as material gains in wealth and leisure time made the sport available to more people. The social barriers that restricted membership to the elite yacht clubs eased, and in some cases sailing clubs catered to a working class membership. Sailing was commodified as a popular spectator sport and leisure activity, and by the 1930s the interests of the pastime and the local boating industry were served by a successful Australian aquatic journal in the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly. Apart from the first chapter considering the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, this thesis adopts a chronological and thematic structure. It concentrates on broad trends and shifts in sailing and yachting culture and is developed around a series of case studies looking at: the regatta tradition; open boat sailing in Sydney Harbour; middle class morality in The Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist; yachting and Federation; and finally modern cruising culture between the wars. This thesis is focused on the south eastern coast of Australia and particularly Sydney Harbour where the strongest

81 Cusack, ‗Yachting in Britain, 1890-1960‘, pp. 167-189. 82 Ryan, ‗The Emergence of Middle –class yachting in the North-West of England‘, pp. 150-181.

23 Introduction sailing culture existed, and where primary sources are readily available. While this necessarily leaves gaps in the history, the focus on broad turning points in sailing and yachting over a significant period of time provides a general overview of sailing and yachting in Australia, and a context in which further studies of the sports can be placed. This thesis takes an empirical approach to primary source material and builds on knowledge gained from previous research.83 A focus on newspaper sources reveals the shared culture of sailing and yachting in Australian waters. Newspapers have been accessed online through the Trove database hosted by the National Library of Australia, through library collections on microfilm, and through collections of newspaper clippings. Books, periodicals, regatta programmes, yacht and sailing club rules, pamphlets, and images of yachts and sailing boats have been accessed through the card and online catalogues at the Mitchell library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney including the J S Davis and E S Marks collections of printed materials related to sport. The Vaughn Evans Library at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney also contains race programs, journals and specialist books relating to sailing and yachting. Trove has emerged as a new resource over the duration of this thesis and Australian newspapers have been progressively added to the database. Character- reading technology has allowed key word searches of the text that can be refined by a period of time, location, or individual newspaper. This type of search has been particularly useful in accessing a wide range of newspaper titles, linking broad themes in sailing and yachting across Australia, and in focussing on specific issues and events. However, due to the inconsistencies of the character reading software, and the fact that it is still in development, Trove has been used in conjunction with other newspaper sources. Both daily newspapers including the Argus, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Gazette, and Sydney Morning Herald, as well as illustrated weekly newspapers such as the Australasian, Illustrated Sydney News, and Sydney Mail and have been consulted on microfilm. Newspapers often had sections devoted to ‗Aquatics‘, ‗Sailing‘ or ‗Yachting‘ that provided reviews of the week‘s activities. It has been possible to review particular years focussing on particular clubs, ceremonial events such as annual regattas, and the opening and closing of sailing seasons.

83 Carlin de Montfort, The Sentimental Boat: The Legend of Sydney‘s Open Boats, unpublished honours thesis, University of Sydney, Department of History, 2004.

24 Introduction

Furthermore, the illustrated articles often signalled more popular, widely acknowledged, sailing and yachting events. Sport newspapers such as the Referee, searched on a season by season basis, have revealed more focussed accounts of the week to week activities of the sailing and yachting institutions. Special features and supplements including accounts of the centenary of British settlement in 1888 in the Illustrated Sydney News, Sydney Morning Herald and Town and Country Journal, the ‗Sailing‘ issue of the Sydney Mail published in 1897, and ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘ published over two months in the Evening News in 1907, reveal detailed accounts of sailing and yachting. Before the publication of the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly in 1925, attempts at establishing an Australian publication specific to aquatic sport were limited. Titles such as the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, published over three seasons between 1896 and 1899, and the Anchor, published between 1911 and 1912, were unique but short lived. However used alongside newspaper features and supplements on sailing and yachting, these journals and magazines provide important snapshots of the expert culture of sailing and yachting. They published overviews of the ‗history and progress‘ of the sport, while editorial content and letters from correspondents revealed the debates taking place within the sailing community. Advertisements, descriptions of yachts and sailing boats, poetry, illustrations and reports of sailing adventures added depth to these pictures of sailing cultures. The success of the Motor Boat and Yachting after 1925 signalled the new growth of boating in Australian waters. Its continued publication showcased sailing and yachting through boom and bust, including the 1930s Depression and World War 2. The national distribution and content also show a more homogeneous image of Australian sailing and yachting in this period as did the Australian Aquatic Annual published twice after the sesquicentenary of British colonisation in 1938 and 1939. Books on Australian sailing and yachting also make up the primary sources reviewed in this thesis. W H Bundey‘s reminiscences of twenty-five years of yachting in South Australia published in 1888 stands out as the only book on Australian yachting published in the nineteenth century.84 Histories and accounts of the sport in the twentieth century were more prolific. Early histories consulted include Thomas Welsby‘s 1918 history of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club, E H Webster and L

84, W H Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Years Yachting in Australia: An Essay on Manly Sports, A Cruise on Shore, &c., &c., E S Wigg and son, Adelaide, 1888.

25 Introduction

Norman‘s 1936 history of yachting in Tasmania and R H Goddard‘s 1937 account of yachting in New South Wales.85 In the 1970s and 1980s, authors such as Bob Ross and Lou D‘Alpuget attempted to define the unique aspects of Australian sailing and yachting in The Sailing Australians and Yachting in Australia.86 These books differ from the shorter newspaper and magazine sources by providing extended discussions of sailing and yachting at different points in time. In addition to these text-based sources, photographs and newsreels have been approached to help understand the image of sailing and yachting. Photographs of sailing and yachting on Sydney harbour taken by William J Hall and William Frederick Hall were consulted. The father and son were professional photographers who would capture images of the weekend‘s sailing and yachting events before displaying the images in the window of their George Street studio. Many of these images are held by the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney and a selection have been published by the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron87 Sam Hood initially ran a business in ships‘ portraits before expanding into press photography. Some of his photographs of yachts and yachting in Sydney can be found in the Sam Hood collection in the State Library of New South Wales and in the Australian National Maritime Museum. The images of sailing on Sydney Harbour collected by Bruce Stannard in The Bluewater Bushmen have also provided evidence of sailing and yachting culture on Sydney harbour that informed the chapter on the open boats.88 As well as showing the activities and popularity of sailing and yachting, these images revealed the spectacle of the sport on the weekends and regatta days. Newsreels held by the National Film and Sound Archive provide more evidence of how yachting was presented to non sailing audiences. Moving images of public regattas and popular events, particularly the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, are used in the chapters dealing with the twentieth century.

85 Thomas Welsby, History of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club, Watson, Ferguson and Company, Brisbane, 1918; E H Webster and L Norman, A Hundred Years of Yachting, J Walch, Hobart, 1936; R H Goddard, , A Century of Yachting: Record of a Great Sport 1837-1937, circa 1937. 86 Bob Ross, The Sailing Australians, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973; Lou d‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia: Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Hutchinson Group, Richmond, Victoria, 1980. 87 See for example: William Hall Sailing & Harbour Scenes, Australian National Maritime Museum, Flickr set (website), http://www.flickr.com/photos/anmm_thecommons/sets/72157629572334337/, accessed 16 September 2012; William Hall, Sydney Harbour of yesteryear: the glass plate photography of William James Hall, Reed in association with the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, Sydney 1982. 88 Bruce Stannard, The Bluewater Bushmen: The Colourful Story of Australia’s Best and Boldest Boatmen, Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1981.

26 Introduction

Finally, boats are approached as primary sources in this thesis. Boats have been viewed through published plans, moving and still images and as physical artefacts. Collections can be found in the Sydney Heritage Fleet small boat collection and the Australian Register of Historic Vessels maintained by the Australian National Maritime Museum. The Wooden Boat Festival held alternately in Sydney and Hobart also displays a wide range of historic sailing craft many of which are privately owned. From the descriptions and images of these boats and by carefully considering the contexts in which they were used it has been possible to understand the social and cultural meanings attached to their design. It has not been possible to quantify the participation in sailing and yachting due to the lack of primary evidence and difficulty in defining participation. Yet, by considering a broad range of primary sources, accessed where available and approached empirically, this thesis has provided evidence of a rich and diverse sailing culture. With a close reading of secondary material, it has been possible to draw links between sailing and yachting in Sydney and the other port capitals of Australia and reveal some of the meanings attached to the pastime. This thesis starts with the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race and its ‗foundation legend‘ in modern sailing and yachting culture. During the 1990s, the race was celebrated as the beginning of a grand tradition in Australian yachting, and the first race in 1945 represented the beginnings of it all, ocean racing in Australia and the popular tradition. The Sydney-Hobart demonstrates how a yachting event has become connected to broader narratives of Australian identity through popular legend and ritual. A broad range of sources including the comments generated after the storm in 1998, popular histories of Australian sailing and yachting, newspaper articles, newsreels, and memorabilia are consulted to reveal the different ways that the race has been imagined over time. This chapter argues that while the first race in 1945 was the beginning of a new maritime tradition, it was also part of an ongoing relationship with the sea in Australian popular culture. And by exploring links between the Sydney-Hobart and international trends in ocean cruising and ocean racing, it questions the significance of the event as the foundation of Australian ocean racing. The following chapter returns to the nineteenth century to explore the beginnings of Australian yachting and sailing in the popular imagination. It considers a number of regattas and the emergence of sailing and yachting histories during the centenary of British settlement in 1888. It argues that regattas held in Sydney, Hobart,

27 Introduction

Fremantle, and Melbourne over the year were evidence of a shared culture of popular public celebration across the Australian colonies. It explores four histories of sailing and yachting published during the same year. Three accounts of the history and progress of New South Wales were published in Sydney newspapers, and South Australian yachtsman WH Bundey provided his reminiscences of the sport as well as a history of its development in the colonies in Yachting in Australia. To explain the significance of sailing and yachting in 1888, this chapter also considers the beginnings of both sailing and yachting in Sydney. It argues that sailing and yachting were closely associated with progress, respectability and material wealth, and that they soon became the ‗national‘ sports of the colonies through the regatta tradition and the association of yachting with elite society. The next two chapters are concerned with sailing in Sydney during the 1890s. The maritime cultures of Sydney as a ‗harbour city‘ and a busy working port are valuable for this thesis. The popularity of sailing on the harbour was enough to sustain distinctive working and middle class traditions that reveal connections between class, sailing and Australian identity. ‗The open boat legend‘ looks at a boom in open boat sailing in Sydney during the early 1890s. Open boat sailing has been romanticised as a ‗typically Australian‘ aspect of sailing, with popular writers citing the working class origins and local characteristics of open boat design as evidence of these Australian characteristics. This chapter looks closely at class and place through the open boat clubs in Sydney and the design of the boats to explore the working class aspect of the sport. It argues that a popular working class sailing culture did emerge in Sydney Harbour during the 1890s, however it was associated with Sydney, and there was little evidence that the sport was imagined as ‗Australian‘. Still, this was a relatively unique sailing culture in its development as a professional spectator sport that was not seen in the England or the other Australian colonies. The way that working traditions of the harbour were appropriated is an example of how an image of open boat sailing was commodified in Sydney, and how this would later become imagined as ‗Australian‘. The next chapter, ‗Sailing Boats vs. Deep Keelers‘ further criticises the tendency to romanticise the open boats of the 1890s as a national type. This chapter considers middle class sailing resistance to open boat sailing in the yachting press, and the promotion of the keelboat as an alternative. A new aquatic journal, The Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist provides a unique snapshot of the culture of sailing and yachting at this time. The publication was devoted solely to aquatic sports,

28 Introduction yachting boating, canoeing, swimming, and fishing in Australia. It was based on the well-known English Yachtsman, and was considered as evidence of Australia‘s zealous pursuit of the various aquatic pastimes.89 The Australian Town and Country Journal noted that previously, the aquatic community was too small and well connected to warrant such a dedicated paper, but now: ‗Our local aquatic men ought certainly to be able to maintain a representative ―organ‖‘.90 The editor called for the support of ‗men‘ who had the ‗interests of yachting at heart‘ to support the journal and look at it ‗as their own‘.91 The aquatic community was expected to provide content, and as such it reflected the controversies, opinions, and events pertinent to yacht and boat sailors in Sydney. The journal was published in Sydney for only three sailing seasons between 1896 and 1899, and despite commenting on ‗Australian‘ and ‗National‘ sailing culture it was focussed tightly on New South Wales. Nevertheless, it reveals how a section of the boating community in Sydney saw their sport in a national and international context. The editor imagined that it would bring ‗the yachting men of the Colony more than ever before the world‘. This chapter places the correspondence and editorial content in this journal in the broader contexts of class, morality and sport in the 1890s. It argues that the standard set by modern British and American yachts were more compatible with a respectable image of modern Australia than the open boats of Sydney Harbour. The final two chapters consider what sailing as yachting meant as maritime cultures in the twentieth century. ‗Federation and the Modern Australian ―Yachtsman‖‘ returns to elite yachting culture to consider how the meanings of yachting as a national sport were negotiated during the Federation decades up to 1914. A regatta in Sydney, the Commonwealth Aquatic Display, celebrated the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia. It demonstrated the ongoing significance of the regatta as a form public celebration in Sydney, but it also revealed the way that yachting was associated with a new national identity. This chapter looks at the ceremonies and rituals of the yacht clubs with royal patronage through their public image. Newspapers reported on the ceremonies and regattas of the clubs, and these became occasions for addresses by politicians and Governors who commented on national issues such as naval defence. This chapter argues that there was a strong

89 ‗Short Notice‘, Australian Town and Country Journal, 3 October, 1896, p. 45. 90 ‗Short Notice‘, Australian Town and Country Journal, 12 December, 1896, p. 52. 91 ‗Announcement to Yachtsmen and Canoeists‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 26 September, 1896, p. 1.

29 Introduction

‗Federation factor‘ in yachting because of its status as a national sport in Britain and the colonies. The Commonwealth of Australia provided a new political entity to which ‗yachtsmen‘ could display their loyalty. Finally, ‗―City Sailors‖ and the Sea‘ considers the rise of cruising during the 1920s and 1930s. It examines a cruising culture presented in the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly. The magazine is a valuable resource that emerged in 1925 as part of the modernisation of sailing culture. It was a well-illustrated, monthly journal that claimed a national readership and sought to promote the Australian boating industry. The success of this publication over the following decades represented the growth of Australian aquatic sport, particularly motor boating and yachting. Under the name International Power Boat and Yachting Monthly, the Australian magazine boasted international distribution and a readership of 10 000 by the late 1930s.92 This chapter looks at the descriptions of cruising during holiday periods, cruising boats, and stories of cruising submitted by readers published in the Motor Boat and Yachting. It places them in the broader context of modern recreational sailing in Australia during the interwar period, and the romantic tradition of short handed sailing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This chapter argues that both universal images of the sea, seafaring and adventure adopted by amateur sailors and local conditions contributed to the image of cruising as a modern sea culture in Australia at this time. Over one hundred years, from the mid nineteenth century to the end of World War II, sailing and yachting maintained a hold on the Australian imagination. They were closely connected to popular public celebrations and festivals, images of progress, respectability, history, and Australian sea cultures. They were sold as an exciting spectator sport, as a moral pastime for self-improvement, and as an aspect of Australian life. And they were adapted to different expressions of Australian identity, local, national and imperial. By the second half of the twentieth century, the establishment of the Sydney-Hobart as an annual tradition, and Australian campaigns for the America‘s Cup over three decades from the 1960s rested upon strong foundations of recreational sailing. The sea as well as the cities and the bush had contributed to Australian identity. A theme song for the 1983 America‘s Cup

92 See for example, International Powerboat and Aquatic Monthly, September 1938-September 1944.

30 Introduction challenge ‗We‘re coming to get you‘ looked back to this maritime heritage. It opened with the lines:

Australia's an island, surrounded by oceans, with a shoreline that stretches to the edge of forever, so don't you go tell us 'bout the sea and her secrets, she's a mistress, we've loved her for two hundred years.93

93 B. Woodley and A. Goldsmith, ‗We‘re coming to get you‘, Wheatley Music/Pocketful of Tunes, Woolloomooloo, 1983, quoted in Thompson, ‗Boats Bondy and the Boxing Kangaroo‘, p. 84.

31 Chapter 2 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

The Sydney-Hobart race is Australia‘s most iconic yachting event, an annual ocean race that begins on the waters of Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day and ends at Constitution Dock on the Derwent River, Hobart. In the 1998 race, the fleet encountered an unexpectedly severe low-pressure system as it entered Bass Strait, the narrow strip of water between Tasmania and the mainland. Exceptionally strong 75- knot winds with stronger gusts and massive 15-metre waves on the second day of the race created particularly dangerous sailing conditions.1 Yachts began to retire with gear failure, broken masts, and injured crew but the intensity of the storm made it difficult to seek shelter. The number of distress and urgency calls and the deployment of EPIRBs caused the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to declare a Mayday for the general area and major Search and Rescue actions took place over the next two days. The aftermath revealed Six yachts were abandoned, five boats sunk and six lives were lost. Seventy-one yachts retired from the race, 12 yachts required Search and Rescue intervention, and 55 sailors were rescued. The race was not cancelled, however, and 44 of the 115 starters completed the race, reaching Hobart between the morning of the 29th of December and the afternoon of New Year‘s Day. 2 Larry Ellison, skipper of the winning maxi yacht Sayonara, conveyed his sense of futility in the face of the disaster: ‗This is supposed to be fun … you‘re not supposed to die doing it‘.3 Others in the sailing community expressed personal grief. Richard Winning, who lost three of his crew in the storm, spoke at a ceremony held at Constitution Dock, Hobart: ‗May their loved ones find some comfort in the knowledge that these men died doing something they loved‘.4 The shocking images of the storm, weather beaten crews, and stricken yachts had been broadcast on television news bulletins and printed in the national press as the dramatic events unfolded. The public also witnessed the breaking waves and saw sailors being winched to safety. It was widely felt that further explanation was required. Official investigations and findings by the Bureau of Meteorology, the

1 Bureau of Meteorology, Preliminary report on meteorological aspects of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, Bureau of Meteorology, February, 1999, pp. vi-vii. 2 Sydney Hobart Race Review Committee, Report of the 1998 Sydney Hobart Race Review Committee, Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, May 1999, pp. 6-8. 3 Larry Ellison quoted by Bruce Knecht, The Proving Ground, Fourth Estate, London, 2001, p. 233. 4 Richard Winning, quoted by Bruce Knecht, The Proving Ground, p. 241.

The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

Cruising Yacht Club of Australia and the New South Wales State Coroner reconstructed the events in authoritative detail and handed down their findings and recommendations for the future of safer yacht racing. These included practical changes to weather forecasting, the implementation of new safety procedures regarding offshore sailing, and management processes for the Sydney-Hobart.5 Journalists also reconstructed the events, describing the personal struggle of the sailors and what it was like to be caught in such catastrophic conditions. People were eager to hear these accounts. The most popular account was Fatal Storm by yachting journalist Rob Mundle, and it sold over 150 000 copies by 2002. Mundle concluded that ocean racing ‗is a romantic sport … not carried out against the elements, but because of them‘.6 Four Corners journalist Debbie Whitmont also appealed to adventure. Her account of the race, An Extreme Event, was written ‗for anyone who longs for adventure … Without adventure, and without risk taking the world would be a dull and limited place‘.7 However, These stories of romance and adventure and the dry scientific application of safeguards have not considered the meanings of the Sydney-Hobart legend as a fundamental aspect of the 1998 tragedy. Despite the numerous reconstructions of the 1998 race, the coronial inquiry, books, and documentaries, there has been no attempt to deconstruct the legend of the Sydney-Hobart as a popular icon that made the disaster so pertinent to the general community. The most critical account of the 1998 race, The Proving Ground, by Bruce Knecht, focussed on the motivations and culture of yacht sailors and ocean racing beyond simply ‗adventure‘, but avoided the themes of national identity and popular traditions.8 This chapter considers how the maritime tradition of the Sydney- Hobart began, and how it was then mythologised and popularised to become a ‗national icon‘. By looking closely at the foundation legend, the stories about the first Sydney-Hobart in 1945, this chapter argues that the popular traditions that contributed to the initial success of the event and the iconic status of the race were based on older established relationships with the sea. The Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race represents the

5 Report of the 1998 Sydney Hobart Race Review Committee; John Abernethy, Inquests into the deaths of John William Dean, Michael Bannister, James Michael Lawler, Glyn Roderick Charles, Phillip Raymond Charles Skeggs, Bruce Raymond Guy, during the 1998 Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, New South Wales state coroner, Glebe, NSW, 2000. 6 Sharon Green, quoted in Rob Mundle, Fatal Storm: The 54th Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, Harper Collins, Sydney, 1999, p. 314. 7 Debbie Whitmont, An Extreme Event: The Compelling, True Story of the Tragic 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race, Random House, Sydney, 1999, p. 7. 8 Bruce Knecht, The Proving Ground.

33 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race apex of contemporary yachting culture, but it is also based on older sailing traditions in Australian waters that were again shared beyond the expert yachting community.

The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart The Sydney-Hobart is popularly described as a shared holiday tradition and a defining aspect of the Australian summer in web logs and travel websites. A Web logger from Adelaide considered Boxing Day a day for cricket and yachting, and explains: ‗Here in Australia, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race vies with the Boxing Day Cricket Test Match held annually in Melbourne as the major sporting events for this part of the year‘. 9 For Julie, the author of the web log ‗Sydney Eye‘, the Sydney-Hobart is a ‗Boxing Day tradition‘. She arrived early to secure a vantage point at South Head to see the maxi yachts unfurl their spinnakers and take full advantage of the offshore winds that would propel them to Hobart in 2008. ‗Jilly‘ from Tinderbox near Hobart commented that she enjoyed the same tradition.10 ‗Kirk‘ also identified the race as a Boxing Day tradition on his web log and explained that the ‗Sydney Hobart has become an icon of Australia‘s summer sport‘ ranking alongside the tennis and cricket. After watching the race start in 2005, Kirk excitedly posted: ‗I was at the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race!! along with 500,000 people on a beautiful Sydney day.‘11 Further descriptions of Sydney at Christmas time on websites aimed at international tourists explain the excitement that the race generates. Robert Pearce writing for Embrace Australia describes it as ‗one of the most iconic Australian events, it rivals the tennis and the cricket for coverage‘ during the holiday period.12 A travel blog describes it as a peculiar tradition of a ‗―Chrissy‖ in Oz‘ and another warned that hotels in Sydney and Hobart fill up quickly because of the race.13

9 Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe, ‗Cricket or Yachting for Boxing Day‘, 26 December, 2007, http://adelaidegreenporridgecafe.blogspot.com/2007/12/cricket-or-yachting-for-boxing-day.html, accessed 11 August 2011. 10 ‗Julie‘, ‗Boxing Day Tradition‘, Sydney Eye, Saturday, 27 December, 2008, http://sydney- eye.blogspot.com/2008/12/boxing-day-tradition.html, accessed 11 August 2011; Jilly, Comment, ‗Boxing Day tradition‘. 11 ‗Kirk‘, ‗The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race - A Boxing Day Tradition‘, Kirk‘s Weblog, 26 December, 2005, http://blogs.oracle.com/Kirk/entry/the_sydney_to_hobart_yacht, accessed 11 August 2011; ‗Kirk‘, ‗Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race: Great Photos‘, Kirk‘s Weblog, 28 December, 2005, http://blogs.oracle.com/Kirk/entry/sydney_to_hobart_yacht_race, accessed 11 August 2011. 12 Robert Pearce, Embrace Australia, 6 December, 2010, http://www.embraceaustralia.com/the-rolex- sydney-hobart-yacht-race-8410.htm, accessed 11 August 2011. 13 Russell V J Ward, ‗Does Santa Wear Board Shorts‘, In Search of a Life Less Ordinary, 22 December, 2010, http://www.insearchofalifelessordinary.com/2010/12/does-santa-wear-board- shorts.html, accessed 11 August 2011; ‗Rolex Sydney Hobart – Aussie Yacht Race‘, Beers and Beans,

34 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

It is through this sense of an ‗imagined community‘ – that the race is a shared tradition with other people – that the shock and grief expressed by those directly involved in the 1998 disaster was shared with other Australians.14 When Graem Sims described the tradition of watching the Sydney-Hobart through the binoculars near his family‘s house at Austinmer to the north of Wollongong he affirmed: ‗…it‘s still special. It‘s our connection to the race.‘ This memory provided context for Martin Dugard‘s dramatic account of the disaster, Knockdown: The harrowing true story of a yacht race turned deadly.15 The report undertaken by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia pointed out that the race was regarded as one of ‗Australia‘s sporting icons and one of the world‘s great yacht races‘ in its opening pages.16 Introducing his findings, the NSW State Coroner John Abernethy stated that he had had little to do with sailing: ‗Nevertheless, since I was young, … I, like so many others have been interested in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race‘.17 When the Prime Minister, John Howard commented on the disaster, he said, ‗the Sydney to Hobart Race is part of our way of life … It‘s a tragedy, but there are many tens of thousands of Australians that are keen sailors and yachtsmen, and they will go on‘.18 Noted yacht sailor Sir James Hardy described traditions in Australian history and culture that underscored the activity and the risks of ocean racing in the foreword to Fatal Storm:

Australia is an island continent founded by seafarers and even to this day is largely dependent on sea trade. It is because ours is a sport which fosters the qualities of our forebears – daring, comradeship, endurance and the risks that the ocean carries with it – that so many of us enjoy offshore sailing.19

The significance of the Sydney-Hobart as an icon of Australian sport and maritime traditions could be seen during the 50th race in 1994. The anniversary was marked by a record fleet of 371 competitors and an expectation that over 300 000 spectators would turn out to watch the start. Archina and Winston Churchill, two yachts that had competed in the first Sydney-Hobart in 1945, joined a fleet of more than 60 ‗veteran‘

11 August, 2008, http://beersandbeans.com/2011/08/07/rolex-sydney-hobart-yacht-race/, accessed 11 August 2011. 14 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, London, 1991. 15 Graem Sims, quoted in Martin Dugard, Knockdown, the harrowing true account of a yacht race turned deadly, Pocket books, New York, 1999, pp. 41-42. 16 Report of the 1998 Sydney Hobart Race Review Committee, p. 3. 17 Abernethy, Inquests…1998 Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race, p. 13. 18 John Howard, quoted by Bruce Knecht, The Proving Ground, p. 253. 19 Sir James Hardy, ‗Foreword‘, Mundle, Fatal Storm, p. viii.

35 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race and ‗vintage‘ yachts to race in 1994. This link to the race‘s history was also celebrated in an exhibition that year entitled ‗Hell on High Water‘ at the Australian National Maritime Museum. It celebrated 50 years of the race and invited the viewer to ‗step out of the spectators armchair and follow the fleet through Sydney Heads‘. In an interview, the curator Penny Cuthbert described the foundation of the race, the popular tradition, and how it became ‗an essential part of the Australian Christmas.20 A special race log was published to commemorate the anniversary. In the foreword, James Hardy again described the race as an Australian institution tied to a strong sense of maritime tradition: ‗Australia does not have many longstanding traditions in its short history. The annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race which starts each Boxing Day is however an institution and a tradition in this country‘.21 The 1998 Sydney-Hobart has since been remembered among ‗Australia‘s worst disasters‘, and linked to certain ideas of nationhood.22 Descriptions of the event in popular accounts of the event took on an ‗Anzac‘ like quality as a disaster of heroic proportions. Tom Griffiths has analysed the use of the battle metaphor when reporting and explaining the Black Saturday 2009 Victorian bushfires. Griffiths notes the tendency to describe fire in terms of tragedy and destruction: ‗Not only do we talk in crisis-language, we also use military metaphors and comparisons … We revere the heroism of the fire-fighters and compare them to Anzacs‘.23 Based on his experience of bushfires, Phil Koperberg, former Commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire Service, stated that ‗disasters shape nations‘. He observed that more often than not, disasters are recalled as the most significant moments ‗when a nation stopped in horror to watch the events that unfolded‘.24 The Anzac legend provides familiar narratives of loss and sacrifice that linked tragedy with national identity. John Rickard has suggested that ‗the theme, ultimately, of the Gallipoli legend is tragic: the death of innocence, and heroic sacrifice in the midst of stupidity‘.25 Catriona Elder has also

20 Penny Cuthbert, in ‗Hell on high water‘, Signals, number 29, December 1994-February 1995, pp. 4- 7. 21 James Hardy, ‗Foreword‘, Sydney to Hobart: The 1995 Golden Commemorative Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race Log, Tom Bain et al, MDL Publishing, Maroochydore, QLD, 1994, p. 7. 22 Malcolm Brown, Australia’s Worst Disasters, Thomas C Lothian, Melbourne, 2002; Richard Whitaker, Australia’s Natural Disasters, Reed New Holland, Chatswood, NSW, 2005. 23 Tom Griffiths, ‗―An Unnatural Disaster‖? Remembering and Forgetting Bushfire‘, History Australia, volume 6, number 2, 2009, p. 35.4. 24 Phil Koperberg, commissioner, NSW Rural Fire Service, April 2002, in: Malcolm Brown, Australia’s Worst Disasters, p. 3. 25 John Rickard, Australia: A Cultural History, Longman, New York, 1988, p. 120.

36 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race noted that through the Anzac legend powerful stories of birth and development of the nation, sacrifice, and service are created and reproduced.26 The story of heroic and adventurous yachtsmen ‗battling‘ the elements in the boisterous weather off the south east coast of Australia has long been a popularly celebrated characteristic of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race. Lynne Boultwood described the excitement in ‗A Fleeting Glimpse‘ in the 1978 race program. Three hundred and ten supporters had taken to the air in a 747 jet to catch a glimpse of the ‗sea-soldiers‘ entering Bass Strait. Many passengers had ‗no personal interest in the race‘ yet the excitement was contagious as the yachts came into view. Boultwood concluded: ‗We left with the vivid impression that … these were the men and boats battling for honours in one of the world‘s greatest and toughest ocean races‘.27 The battle metaphor was invoked when commentators described the struggle with the elements in 1998. The unexpectedly severe weather system that struck the Sydney- Hobart fleet was described as a ‗weather bomb‘. Dugard described the moment when a sailor and weather forecaster saw photos of the low-pressure system: ‗―Those people are sailing into a massacre,‖ he said softly, then stepped into another room and wept‘.28 Mundle described the war-like scene aboard an ocean racing yacht where the stronger crewmembers had to care for their boat and the sea sick crew: ‗Everything is sodden, people are vomiting and moaning, and this whole scene is being buffeted, bashed and belted by mountainous waves‘.29 He then quoted Foxtel-Titan Ford sailor Dave Haworth, who could have been describing a war experience: ‗Once the shit hit the fan – when we were hit by bombs – it just became chaos. It‘s just hell on board.‘30 The narratives of masculinity and battle and tragedy that appeared in 1998 completed the myths about yachting and Australian identity. In these reconstructions, the yacht sailors‘ ‗Australian‘ characteristics were regularly described. In Fatal Storm, Mundle described Don Micklebrough, for whom 1998 was his 34th ‗pilgrimage south‘, as a ‗carefree man with a permanent grin on his face‘. When asked why he kept doing it, Micklebrough said it was mateship: ‗I suppose if I couldn‘t sail to

26 Catriona Elder, Being Australian: Narratives of National Identity, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, 2007, p. 246. 27 Lynne Boultwood, ‗A Fleeting Glimpse‘, The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race: Past and present, Phil Martin, Project Publishing, Sydney 1978, p. 47. 28 Dugard, Knockdown, pp. 53, 58. 29 Mundle, Fatal Storm, pp. 119-120. 30 Dave Haworth, in Mundle, Fatal Storm, p. 120.

37 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

Hobart with my mates I wouldn‘t bother going‘.31 Martin Dugard described the Sydney-Hobart in the opening pages of his account of the 1998 disaster, Knockdown: ‗It‘s a race. An Australian race.‘ He went on to describe the modern Australian sailor:

The modern Australian sailor is a hybrid seen nowhere else on the planet, a combination of that oceangoing bent with the underdog mentality. Australian seamen are competitive to a fault, unwilling to back down in the face of danger, inclined constantly to prove personal worthiness, and bonded to their crew—their mates—by an overwhelming sense of loyalty.32

The Sydney-Hobart legend of the 1990s revealed a complicated set of themes that included old maritime traditions; the popular Boxing Day ritual; a story of adventure tragedy and sacrifice; and images of Australian identity. These themes also contribute to the foundation legend that describes ‗How it all began‘ in the post war context of 1945.

‘How it all began’ Authors who have sought to identify and describe the characteristics of Australian sailing since the 1960s have put great emphasis on the first Sydney-Hobart. This has helped to build the foundation legend of the first Sydney-Hobart that has been incorporated into a neat story where the popular tradition is shared and the ocean- racing sailor is imbued with celebrated Australian characteristics. Murray Davis attempted to account for the ‗sudden flowering of Australian yachting in the seas of the world‘ in Australian Ocean Racing (1967). He claimed that events held before 1945 ‗cannot be said to have influenced ocean racing in Australia‘.33 In The Sailing Australians (1973), Bob Ross said that the first Sydney-Hobart set out the ‗real pattern for ocean racing in Australia‘.34 Lou d‘Alpuget also focused on the Sydney- Hobart as the beginning of ocean racing in Yachting in Australia (1980). He claimed that the few ocean races held before 1945 had little influence on Australian yachting.35

31 Don Micklebrough, quoted by Mundle, Fatal Storm, p. 39. 32 Dugard, Knockdown, p. 2. 33 Murray Davis, Australian Ocean Racing, Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1967, pp. 2-3. 34 Bob Ross, The Sailing Australians, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973, p. 85. 35 Lou d‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia: Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Hutchinson Group, Richmond, Victoria, 1980, p. 188.

38 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

This foundation legend is prominent in the popular media and stories of the race. The legend was summarised in the 1981 official souvenir programme:

Although ocean racing in small yachts overseas goes back to the beginning of this century overseas, little interest was taken in deep water racing here until the formation of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. Both in Australia and New Zealand, one or two attempts had been made to stage ocean races, but it was not until the year after the formation of the CYCA that a definite step was taken. At this time the CYCA was lucky enough to have Captain J. H. Illingworth, R. N., as an Honorary Member. Illingworth, an authority on every aspect of blue-water racing and a committee member of the Royal Ocean Racing Club of Great Britain, gave a lecture to the Club one night after its usual dinner. At the end of his talk, Peter Luke said to Illingworth, ―Walker, Earl and I are going to cruise down to Hobart. Why don‘t you come along?‖ Illingworth replied, ―Why don‘t we have a race?‖ Said Luke, ―Okay, we‘ll make it a race.‖ And thus the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race was born.36

This simple story of the first Sydney-Hobart has been repeated in the race programmes for at least three decades. The story entitled ‗Ocean Racing in Australia‘ printed in the 1951 programme told much the same story but in a little more detail. The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia was formed in 1944 by a ‗small band of enthusiasts‘, but it was not until December 1945 that the newly formed club ‗inaugurated the now world famous Sydney-Hobart Race‘. Nine yachts crossed the starting line on Boxing Day, and after the victory of Captain Illingworth in his yacht Rani and the decision to hold the race annually, ‗Australia‘s greatest yacht race came into being‘.37 The story usually appeared at the beginning of the ‗Race History‘, the compilation of results from 1945 to the present that signalled an unbroken tradition of races. The race history linked the past and the present and proved the myth that the first Sydney-Hobart was the beginning of ‗how it all began‘. By 1983, the story had disappeared from the programmes. The history of ocean racing in Australia was now abstracted to the bold simple statement: ‗The results of 38 Sydney-Hobart Races are more than just placings and times; they are a history of ocean racing in Australia‘.38

36 Sydney Hobart Yacht Race Official Programme, Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Darling Point, NSW, 1981, p. 81. 37 ‗Seventh Sydney to Hobart Ocean Yacht Race‘, programme, Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, 1951. 38 Sydney Hobart Yacht Race Official Programme, Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Darling Point, NSW, 1983, p. 80.

39 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

The Sydney-Hobart was the icon of ocean racing in Australia, and all the meanings of identity that would go with that status. Captain John Illingworth is remembered as the ‗founding father‘ of the Sydney-Hobart race. The English yachtsman and officer in the Royal Navy not only initiated the idea of the race, but also then won it in spectacular circumstances. Illingworth was also a famous yachtsman in his own right. Douglas Phillips-Birt described him as ‗one of the most influential figures in international yachting‘ in the two post World War II decades.39 A letter from Illingworth was published in the 1971 race programme along with a short story of the first race under the heading: ‗The Man who started it all‘. It told the story of the first race, where Rani, the smallest and theoretically slowest yacht in the fleet, pushed on through a strong southerly gale. Front-page headlines reported Rani and another competitor Horizon ‗missing‘ over a number of days, describing fears for their safety. Then Rani appeared off the Tasmanian coast in first place and won the event with both line honours and a handicap win on corrected time: ‗We owe a lot to indeed to Captain Illingworth and the skippers and crews of the other yachts who competed in that first event‘ the article claimed.40 Illingworth‘s personal account of ‗The First Race to Hobart‘ published in the 1975 programme was introduced with the claim that Captain Illingworth ‗is the bedrock on which the Sydney-Hobart tradition is based‘.41 The stories of John Illingworth, the first Sydney-Hobart and the beginnings of Australian ocean racing are conflated in the popular accounts of Australian sailing and yachting. Illingworth has also become recognised as the ‗father‘ of Australian ocean racing. The story in the1975 programme continued to eulogise Illingworth‘s contribution to ocean racing: ‗Rani, Australian designed and built, represented the potential which Illingworth discovered and brought to light‘.42 D‘Alpuget described Illingworth as ‗one of the toughest off-shore buckoes who had ever driven a yacht through a seaway‘, and suggested that it was only after Illingworth persuaded Australian yachtsmen to race to Hobart that that ‗regular long-distance ocean racing events were organised in Australian waters.43 Davis claimed that the crews of the

39 Douglas Phillips-Birt, The History of Yachting, Elm Tree Books, London, 1974, p. 235. 40 ‗The Man who started it all‘, Sydney Hobart Yacht Race Official Programme, Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Darling Point, NSW 1971, p. 47. 41 John Illingworth, ‗The First Race to Hobart, Sydney Hobart Yacht Race Official Programme, Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Darling Point, NSW 1975, p. 16. 42 Ibid. 43 D‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, p. 188.

40 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race eight yachts to arrive in Hobart at the end of the first race ‗were glad simply to have arrived. … Except for Captain John Illingworth and his little ship Rani which arrived seventeen hours ahead of anyone else, there were few indications that the Sydney- Hobart yacht race would develop into one of the classic ocean races of the world‘.44 Bob Ross linked the Illingworth legend to the contemporary characteristics of Australian sailors. He wrote:

Besides founding a race that is today ranked as among the world‘s most important, Illingworth instilled in Australian offshore yachtsmen the hard- driving tradition that has made the Australian crews the toughest in the world; prepared to push past the limits of normal physical endurance in heavy weather.45

The story of the popular attention surrounding the Sydney-Hobart is also an important part of the foundation legend. In Norman Hudson‘s 1949 account of the race, the ‗enthusiasm engendered by the first event‘ secured the future of the race as a great tradition.46 It neatly explained how the popular tradition of the Sydney-Hobart emerged. D‘Alpuget made a similar observation. He claimed: ‗Newspaper editors, weary of four years of war news, saw in the ocean race all the elements of escapist adventure, ideally timed during the Christmas holiday period‘. Without this ‗astonishing publicity‘ few would have wanted to repeat the experience.47 Murray Davis also noted the popular tradition that emerged in the post-war context. He wrote: ‗Undoubtedly that first race to Hobart, coming so soon after World War II, provided an outlet for much of the frustration and restless emotion of the war years‘.48 The legend claimed that from the very first race, the Sydney-Hobart had captured the Australian imagination. Ray Richmond who sailed on Rani described his experiences of the first race in a lecture to the Naval Historical Society of Australia in 1999. He concluded: ‗There was no doubt that the imagination of all Australia had been captured by the dramatic completion of that first race‘.49 The history of the Sydney-

44 Davis, Australian Ocean Racing, pp. 2-3. 45 Ross, The Sailing Australians, p. 86. 46 Norman Hudson, ‗Hobart Race Already has A record of Adventure‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December, 1949, p. 2. 47 D‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, p. 188. 48 Davis, Australian Ocean Racing, p. 20. 49 J R W Richmond, ‗The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race1945‘, Royal Naval Historical Society Monograph, number 60, 1997, pp. 12, 18.

41 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

Hobart published in the anniversary log in 1994 explained the media sensation and the Illingworth legend:

The press and the public, still weary after five years of wicked war, were in need of fresh excitement and adventure. This daring 630 nautical mile voyage all the way to Hobart was a perfect panacea. Suddenly there was something new everyone could embrace… The first race provided the ravenous newspaper readers all the drama and excitement they wanted. It was front-page news. Headlines told of a head- on confrontation with a southerly gale: of the disappearance and presumed demise of Rani, Capt. Illingworth and his crew; and finally their miraculous resurrection where they sailed in out of the blue, reached Hobart and claimed the honours.50

Maritime traditions The end of World War II was not a sudden end to the privation and hardships of the war years. Rationing continued up to the 1950s and a shortage of building materials hindered new housing construction.51 Nor was there an uncomplicated flowering of new identities. New expressions of Australian identity emerged from the conflict and ‗threat to national survival‘, but ‗an orgy of Britishness returned to Australia‘ as well.52 In this context, the first Sydney-Hobart yacht race was not imagined as a beginning. In stark contrast to later accounts of the race, commentators looked back to the old traditions of the sea. In December 1946, when the second Sydney-Hobart fleet had been at sea for only two days, a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald read: ‗A Century of Deep-water Racing‘. It opened:

The Sydney-Hobart ocean yacht race, now an annual event, carries on a great tradition. For ever since that day in the dim past when some unknown genius first lashed a clumsy rag to a rough mast and harnessed the winds, the fascination of sail has eaten into the hearts of men. To the lure of sail, the thrills of deep-water racing have added an irresistible attraction to sportsmen all over the world.53

50 Sydney to Hobart…Race Log, p. 11. 51 Michelle Arrow, Friday on Our Minds: Popular culture in Australia Since 1945, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009, p. 15; Richard Waterhouse, Private Pleasures Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture since 1788, Longman, South Melbourne, 1995, pp. 199-200 52 Stephen Alomes, A Nation At Last? The Changing Character of Australian Nationalism 1880-1988, Angus and Robinson, London, 1988, pp. 112-135. 53 Marius Sanlaville, ‗A Century of Deep-water Racing‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 December, 1946, p. 12.

42 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

The article placed an uncertain fledgling yacht race in the context of a broader maritime culture. It described a history of ocean racing that went back over a hundred years to the first trans-Atlantic race in 1837, and the America‘s Cup in 1851. The yacht America had, after all, sailed across the ocean to challenge the fleet of English yachts at Cowes. Far from being the beginning of ocean racing then, the first Sydney- Hobart was incorporated into a longer narrative of progress and tradition. The article considered the early Newport to Bermuda ocean races in America that ‗resulted in great improvement in cruising craft and the men who sailed them‘. It also described the Fastnet ocean race in England where ‗taste of competition in cruising boats‘ that it provided led to the ‗fostering and promoting‘ of ocean races in the future‘. Now the article concluded: ‗The Sydney-Hobart Race will make this course a world famous run and add to the records and honours in the great classic races of the past‘.54 John Illingworth‘s involvement with the Sydney-Hobart was consistent with these broader traditions. Instead of being the heroic father of the Sydney-Hobart and therefore ocean racing in Australia, his role in the foundation of the race revealed the ongoing dialogue between Australian and British yachting cultures. Illingworth‘s history of ocean racing in the opening chapter of his instructional book Offshore, first published in 1949, references the broad international cultural antecedents of ocean racing, opening with the statement ‗there is of course nothing new about racing across oceans‘.55 It mentioned the same 19th century transatlantic races and the ‗modern‘ races of the 20th century like the Newport Bermuda and Fastnet races. Illingworth made the modern cruising antecedents to modern ocean racing clear. He defined modern ocean racing:

The essential ingredients are small yachts and amateur crews. And an indefatigable spirit of keenness mixed with an indefinable spirit of good sportsmanship. Shake up well in a big wet seaway for some days, and you have the essence of ocean racing as we know it today.56

The pattern for ocean racing in Australia was set by international trends. Douglas Phillips-Birt described ocean racing in England and America during the 1920s as a fringe activity: ‗ocean racing was yet an activity on the fringe of yachting, beyond the

54 Ibid 55 John Illingworth, Further Offshore (first published as Offshore 1949), Adlard Coles, London, 1969, p. 1. 56 Illingworth, Further Offshore, p. 1.

43 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race experience of the last century during which modern yachting had evolved‘.57 The Newport Bermuda yacht races began in 1906, promoted by Thomas Fleming Day, editor of the American yachting magazine Rudder. The races were held for five years initially before they were revived in 1923. It developed from a tradition that embraced sailing on the ocean in small seaworthy craft like those favoured by cruising yachtsmen.58 Day‘s promotion of ocean racing spread to Australia where, with the cooperation of the Geelong Yacht Club, a race for the ‗Rudder Cup‘ was held from Port Phillip Heads, starting like the Sydney-Hobart four decades later, on Boxing Day. Four yachts started the race, and it was won by Thistle of the Geelong Yacht Club, however the race was not repeated and the trophy was not rededicated until 1968.59 The resumption of the Newport Bermuda races in 1923 influenced the establishment of the English Fastnet yacht race in 1925 after an English yacht sailor living in New York returned home with enthusiasm for ocean racing. Through the platform of the English magazine Yachting Monthly, a race of a similar distance to the Bermuda was devised. The Royal Ocean Racing Club was established soon after with the charter to organise a race annually of not less than 600 miles around the Fastnet Rock.60 Again, the ocean race was founded on cruising traditions. Bob Fisher described the first yachts to compete in the Fastnet in 1925: ‗Seven boats answered the starters gun from an entry list of sixteen. All were deep-drafted cruising boats.‘61 Birt also described the old cruising boats of the initial Fastnet race that were based on working designs:

The fleet thus consisted of three converted pilot cutters, two Norwegian type yachts derived from working boats, a vessel built as a yacht on working boat lines nearly a quarter of a century before the race, and a cruiser built as a yacht … more than a quarter of a century before the race.62

The Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race also emerged out of the slow reconstruction of local cruising in Sydney as much as from the invention of ocean racing. The fleet of nine

57 Phillips-Birt, History of Yachting, p. 204. 58 Bob Fisher, Great Yacht Races, David Bateman, Buderim, QLD, 1984, pp. 68-69. 59 ‗Across Bass Strait‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 November 1929 p. 27; d‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, pp. 186-187. 60 Phillips-Birt, History of Yachting, pp. 202-206. 61 Fisher, Great Yacht Races, p. 45. 62 Phillips-Birt, History of Yachting, p. 205.

44 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race yachts was made up of deep drafted cruising boats, and one competitor, Mistral, even carried a square sail.63 Kathleen Gillet was built for maritime artist Jack Earl along the lines of a Norwegian pilot cutter with the intention of sailing around the world. Earl described it as a ‗great sea boat‘ after it recovered well from a large breaking sea near Long Reef on Sydney‘s Northern Beaches.64 Cruising had always been a part of sailing and yachting in Australia. Between the wars it emerged as a modern activity where the romance of sailing a small boat at sea was celebrated through the yachting media. By the late 1930s, cruising clubs were beginning to be established in Sydney but it was still on the periphery of mainstream sailing culture. A report in the yachting magazine Australian Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly described the Sydney Cruising Club formed in October 1937 as a ‗Bohemian aquatic organisation‘. The club was formed to host cruises, informal races, and to encourage social activities, ‗Plenty of pep, but no constitution‘ was its motto.65 No more mention of this club was made, however, in 1939, a club by the name of The Middle Harbour Cruising Yacht Association was formed, and some informal races were hosted up to 1941. All yachting and sailing stopped for five seasons during World War II in Britain, but the restrictions were less severe in Australia. Most yachting fixtures continued up to the formal suspension of racing in December 1940. The Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club in Sydney still planned to conduct ‗impromptu races occasionally for members only‘, and the Middle Harbour Cruising Yacht Association said that they would endeavour to carry out ‗a very modified programme‘ with two thirds of entrance fees donated to war funds.66 After 1941, the working class tradition of open boat racing remained the most prominent sailing activity on the harbour but their courses were restricted to certain areas. Many sporting fixtures, particularly those associated with the working class and spectatorship, had continued on the Australian home front throughout the years of conflict.67 Some yacht sailors continued to sail on Sydney Harbour by joining civilian and extra-military defence organisations such as the Volunteer Coastal Patrol and the Naval Reserve. For example, Jack Earl

63 ‗Sydney Hobart Contestants 1945-6‘, Seacraft, volume 1, number 1, July-August 1946. 64 Jack Earl, in Bruce Stannard, Jack Earl: The Life and Art of a Sailor, Weldon Publishing, Willoughby, NSW, 1991, p. 48. 65 ‗Sydney Cruising Club: A Bohemian Aquatic Organisation‘, International Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly, 10 September, 1938, p. 7. 66 ‗Topgallant‘, ‗Yachting in New South Wales‘, International Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly, 10 December, 1940, p. 28. 67 Michael Mckernan, All In! : Fighting the War at Home, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, Sydney, 1995, pp. 242-245; Waterhouse, Private Pleasures Public Leisure, p. 188.

45 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race remembers sailing Kathleen on missions as far north as Port Stephens and as far south as Eden during the war.68 The pre-war sailing cultures were reconstructed as the armed conflict moved further away from Australian shores. Stephen Garton notes that by early 1944, the majority of men and women in the services were at home or on Australian soil, and nearly 200 000 had been returned to civil life before the cessation of hostilities.69 In the winter of 1944, an account of an Easter cruise to the Hunter River by Peter Luke, a member of the Naval Auxiliary Patrol, revealed that coastal cruises were again taking place. Luke was able to report that ‗all hands enjoyed themselves‘.70 Norman Hudson, who crewed aboard Rani, remembered taking up cruising and racing towards the end of the war before he was invited to sail in the Sydney-Hobart race.71 Charles Cooper, a member of the Volunteer Coastal Patrol, also found time to cruise when he met Luke while sailing on Pittwater, a cruising ground to the north of Sydney Harbour. Luke, Cooper and six other yacht sailors, including a number of Sydney- Hobart competitors, founded the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in the winter of 1944. Jack Earl, a founding member of the club, remembers ‗At the end of the war a few of us formed this little club and we had short offshore races up to Broken Bay and back‘.72 The club history by David Colfelt reveals the new club‘s first ocean race was held during wartime in October 1944, when 20 yachts raced from Sydney to Pittwater for a social lunch.73 Ocean racing in England, America, and Australia boomed in the same post- war decade. Janet Cusack identified an increase in offshore and ocean racing in England: ‗Much postwar racing used offshore courses and races often lasted for a week or more. Ocean racing was not, of course, new in 1945. However, offshore and ocean racing increased after 1945.‘74 Changes in technology, rising personal income, and the loosening of social barriers contributed to the post-war growth of yachting in

68 Stannard, Jack Earl, p. 48. 69 Stephen Garton, The Cost of War: Australians Return, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996, p. 5. 70 Peter Luke, ‗An Easter Cruise to the Hunter River‘, International Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly, 10 July, 1944, pp. 12-23. 71 James Hill, ‗Hobart Hero: Norman Hudson, Rani Crew 1945‘, Offshore, Kodak Gold Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race 1994 edition, p.. 18. 72 Jack Earl in Stannard, Jack Earl, p. 48. 73 David Colfelt, From Ratbags to Respectability: A History of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Focus Publishing, Woolloomooloo, NSW, 2008 pp. 13-15. 74 Janet Cusack, ‗Yachting in Britain, 1890-1960‘, Exploiting the Sea: Aspects of Britain’s Maritime Economy since 1870, David J Starkey, and Alan G Jamieson (eds), University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1998, p. 171.

46 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

England.75 Australians also enjoyed greater affluence, low unemployment, a shift to the suburbs by the local born working class, and a move towards the purchase of a greater number of consumer durables.76 Despite complaints about high taxes on yachts and yachting equipment defined as luxury items yachting in general and ocean racing specifically prospered. The Cruising Yacht Club enjoyed prosperity in the decade after the war, and a number of different ocean races filled their programmes for the season. The boom was not confined to ocean racing. An article in a new yachting magazine claimed that Sydney clubs were being ‗swamped with applications for membership‘.77 The connections with international trends in sailing and yachting were strengthened in Australia. Tony Dingle revealed that British designs using new marine plywood and waterproof glues such as the Heron and Mirror dinghies became popular in Australia after World War II.78 Illingworth also reinforced British connections. With his experience of ocean racing and his association with the Royal Offshore Racing Club in England, Illingworth helped to organise the measurement and handicapping of the competitors. In the process, the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia adopted the rules of the parent club in England for the Sydney-Hobart. This was the beginning of an ongoing relationship between the two organisations over the formative years of the Sydney-Hobart, where the race was promoted as an imperial link. Rear-Commodore E R Petersen of the Royal Ocean Racing Club in England presented a trophy over an ‗Empire-wide B.B.C. hookup‘ during the 1946-47 prize- giving ceremony. He said ‗it is a great privilege to be able to send this trophy to our brethren in Australia‘, and his club‘s greatest contribution to ocean racing was the rating formula for the measurement of yachts that had been adopted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. Peter Luke, Vice-Commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club replied noting the ‗bond of fellowship‘ between the two clubs and stating his hopes that the Sydney-Hobart might become the southern hemisphere equivalent of the famous Fastnet race in England.79

75 Roger Ryan, ‗The emergence of Middle-Class yachting in the North-West of England from the later nineteenth Century, Recreation and the Sea, Stephen Fisher (ed.), University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1997, p. 150. 76 Arrow, Friday on Our Minds, p. 14; Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, pp. 199-222. 77 Seacraft, July/August 1946, p. 63. 78 Tony Dingle, ‗―I‘d Rather Be Sailing‖: The Postwar Boom in Dinghy Sailing‘, Great Circle, volume 21, number 2, 1999, pp. 121-127. 79 ‗Yacht Race as Empire Link‘, Seacraft, May-June, 1947, pp. 32-33.

47 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

Popular traditions Within the context of Empire, the Sydney-Hobart emerged as the symbol of development in Australian yachting. After nine yachts had contested the first race, 11 yachts entered in 1946, 21 in 1947, and 13 in 1948, and 1949 with numbers reaching a plateau in the high teens and low twenties during the 1950s. In 1948, despite the drop in numbers, the papers claimed that ‗to-day‘s Hobart race should be more strongly contested‘ than before. Australian ocean racing was making good progress and in three years Australians should be good enough to challenge the best overseas racers.80 The 1950 race, with 16 entries was once again forecast as the ‗best yet‘ and described as the ‗blue ribband of Australian yachting‘. The yachts were ‗better equipped‘ with modern sea-going aids, and crewed by experienced yachtsmen, some of whom had competed in all the events so far.81 The drama of the first race was engendered in the story of violent storms, lost yachts, and Illingworth‘s dramatic and unexpected victory. This partly underpinned the development of the popular tradition. Two days after the yachts left Sydney Harbour, reports appeared on the front pages of newspapers across the country when Rani and Horizon failed to be spotted by the RAAF Catalina flying boats that were locating the yachts as part of a training exercise. The headlines read: ‗Storm scatters yachts in race to Hobart‘ and: ‗Yachts Missing in Ocean Race. The sensational reports peaked when Rani was unexpectedly ‗discovered‘ in first place: ‗Dramatic End To Yacht Race: ―Missing‖ Rani Reappears And Wins Easily‘.82 The Sydney Morning Herald covered the race on the front page over five issues up to the 4th of January and the Mercury until the fifth. Other papers, including the West Australian, Advertiser, Cairns Post and Daily Telegraph, followed the events as they unfolded. D‘Alpuget‘s claim that no yacht race since the America‘s Cup had been brought to such popular attention was correct. Crowds assembled at Castray Esplanade in Tasmania to witness the finish of the race. The Mercury reported: ‗There was a line of cars for the whole length of the esplanade, and hundreds of people gathered during the day, some bringing a picnic lunch and eating it on the lawns

80 ‗Better Trained‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1948, p. 2. 81 ‗Sixth Sydney-Hobart Race Should Be ―Best Yet‖‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December, 1950, p. 2. 82 ‗Storm scatters yachts in race to Hobart‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 December ,1945, p. 3; Yachts Missing in Ocean Race‘, Canberra Times, 1 January, 1946, p. 3; ‗Dramatic End To Yacht Race: ―Missing‖ Rani Reappears And Wins Easily‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 January, 1946, p. 1.

48 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race nearby and under the trees fringing the water‘. A photo of the ‗crowd‘ still present to see Rani finish the race at 1:22 in the morning was published on the next page. About 600 people watched the Tasmanian competitor Winston Churchill finish the next day and ‗a large crowd‘ gathered at the slip yards where the yacht came to its moorings.83 But the disappearance of Rani did not secure the ultimate popularity of the race alone. A ‗special reporter‘ for the Sydney Morning Herald described the start of the first race in Sydney: ‗Hundreds of small craft – some the craziest and flimsiest of sailing canoes – followed the fleet through the heads into the challenging surge of the ocean‘.84 On December 27, the crews of the Sydney-Hobart were described as ‗veterans of the open water‘ in the Argus, suggesting that a pre-existing maritime culture was already popular before the news of the ‗lost yachts‘.85 Maritime traditions and the legends of the sea were also central to establishing a popular tradition. Old images of the sea appealed to the popular imagination and underscored early efforts to promote the race. Before the last yachts had finished the first Sydney-Hobart in early January 1946, the Mercury published a statement of support for an annual race. It claimed that it was the gruelling test on the seaworthiness of yachts and the seamanship of their crews had ‗captured the public imagination‘ and it was apparent ‗that the contest could be developed into an important national sporting event‘. John Illingworth made similar claims. He said the race was ‗just as tough‘ as the Fastnet and supported the proposal for an annual event.86 A photo of the crew of Kathleen Gillet also referenced seafaring legend. The caption read: ‗Bearded and grim like mariners of old, the men who battled the Kathleen against a strong northerly in the Derwent yesterday to bring her third across the line in the Sydney-Hobart ocean yacht race‘.87 In 1947 a Sydney Morning Herald article described the dramatic appeal of the struggle with the elements:

For though, except at the start, there will be no spectacle to delight applauding crowds, such a contest has a dramatic appeal of is own. The skill and daring of the men who go down to the sea in small craft are pitted, not only against the rival crews, but against the elements.88

83 Mercury, 2 January, 1946 p. 2; ‗Hobart Boat Second Over Line‘, Mercury, 3 January, 1946, p. 1. 84 ‗Yachts Leave Sydney in Race to Hobart‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1945, p. 4. 85 ‗Seagoing Yachts in 635-Mile Race‘, Argus, 27 December, 1945, p. 3. 86 Daily Telegraph, 7 January, 1946. 87 ‗Seadogs‘, Mercury, 4 January, 1946, p. 1. 88 ‗Ocean Yacht Race, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December. 1947, p. 2.

49 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

The romance of battling the elements was familiar to Australian readers. It was a fundamental part of the cruising literature that could be found in the yachting media and the stories of cruising exploits that found space in the mainstream newspapers. Beach culture also constructed narratives of men battling the elements through depictions of the surf. Ed Jaggard notes that body surfers and surfboat crews were eager to challenge the sea. He cited C. Bede Maxwell‘s vivid descriptions of ‗Mountaineering in Boats‘ where men tested themselves against the swells at Manly beach. ‗Whether it was the North Steyne bombora or big waves at a local beach, boatmen could never resist the lure of the sea‘ Jaggard wrote.89 For Maxwell, surf and sea were interchangeable. Whalers, sailor-men, and open boat sailors provided a maritime context for her descriptions of the beach. The popular image of the surf lifesaver was an example of maritime culture where the sea figuratively tested his masculinity.90 A Sydney Morning Herald article in 1909 claimed ‗Surf bathing is helping to build up a race of fine young hardy Australians, and everything should be done to encourage it‘.91 The media, boating industry and local communities stood to benefit from the establishment of the Sydney-Hobart and the promotion of popular images of yachting and the sea. Newspapers were already effective in promoting entrepreneurial and popular sporting events.92 This had been demonstrated with the close connections between Newport Bermuda and Fastnet ocean races with yachting magazines like the Rudder and Yachting Monthly. Norman Hudson who crewed aboard Rani profited from his account of the first race with John Illingworth. In 1946, he successfully launched a new yachting magazine, Seacraft, with an exclusive account of the first race and how it was won. The front cover had an illustration depicting the Sydney- Hobart yachts at sea. The back cover was an advertisement for Cadbury‘s Energy Chocolate, endorsed by a picture of Rani. The caption said that during the 36 hours of the race when cooking was impossible, the crew were thankful for their supply of drinking chocolate.93

89 Ed Jaggard, ‗Chameleons in the Surf‘, Journal of Australian Studies, volume 21, number 53, 1997, pp. 183-191, 186. 90 Kay Saunders, ‗―Specimens of Superb Manhood‖ the Lifesaver as National Icon‘, Journal of Australian Studies, volume 22, number 56, 1998, pp. 96-105. 91 A. W. Relph, ‗Surf –Bathing‘ quoted in Huntsman, Sand in Our Souls, p. 70. 92 John Goldlust, Playing for Keeps: Sport, the media and society, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne 1987, p. 61. 93 Seacraft, July/August, 1946, back cover.

50 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

The Sydney-Hobart appeared at a good time for the boating industry, which had been preparing for the end of the war and a shift from military to civilian production. The Halversen boat builders in Sydney shifted from a war footing back to the production of pleasure craft. In July 1945, an advertisement for Halvorsen yachts and cruisers the Australian Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly declared: ‗Halvorsen‘s facilities, expanded many times to meet urgent requirements of a nation at war, will be available to yachtsmen who are planning some day to own Halverson Boats‘.94 The tourism industry, in Hobart particularly looked forward to an annual visit from yachts and spectators. After finishing the first race, the skipper of Saltair claimed that the race would bring tourist dollars to Tasmania.95 The Premier of Tasmania promised Government support for ocean races at the completion of the 1946 Sydney-Hobart, and the Lord Mayor of Hobart said that the race was important to the ‗tourist‘ State in advertising it to Australia and the world.96 The Sydney Morning Herald also noted the boom in yachting that this new race promised. One article claimed that: ‗Sydney yachtsmen said last night that the race was bound to create a boom in yachting. Other big races would almost certainly be promoted in the near future.‘97 The organisers of the Sydney-Hobart quickly took advantage of these popular images and consolidated media and industry support. For example, three water police launches were employed at the start of the second race in 1946 to keep the starting area and fairway clear on Sydney Harbour. Spectator craft were encouraged to anchor in special parts of the harbour as marked out on a map in the Sydney Morning Herald.98 When the Australian Power Boat and Aquatic magazine previewed the race, it stated: ‗It is certain that this race will command more interest than any other aquatic event ever held in the Southern Hemisphere … The public will be kept informed on the position of the contestants by press and radio reports.‘99 In a preview of the 1947 race the magazine claimed: ‗The third Sydney- Hobart Ocean Race, which will commence in Sydney on Friday, December 26th next, promises to claim the attention of all Australians‘.100 Then, ‗Sydney went down to the

94 Australian Power boat and Aquatic Monthly, 10 July, 1945, pp. 4-5. 95 Daily Telegraph, 7 January, 1946. 96 ‗Government Will Support Ocean Races‘, Mercury, 7 January, 1947, p. 4. 97 ‗Yachts Battle in Heavy Weather‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 December, 1945, p3. 98 ‗Clear Start for Yachts‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December, 1946, p. 6; ‗Where to View Race Start‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December, 1946, p. 3. 99 ‗Tasmanian News‘, Australian Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly, 10 December, 1946, p. 6. 100 ‗Sydney Hobart Race‘, Australian Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly, 10 December, 1947, p. 4.

51 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

Harbour in force‘, to watch 28 yachts set out on the third race. One report claimed that ‗scores of motley craft‘ followed the yachts to the start, spectators watched from the shore and ‗peered from every available window‘, and ‗rows of cars from the heights near Rose Bay testified to the enthusiasm which the event had evoked‘.101 Newsreels celebrated the ‗record entries‘ in the ‗adventurous yacht race‘ and claimed that it was the ‗highlight of a picturesque yachting season‘. The crowds can be seen waving to the yachts from wharves and peering out to sea from South Head. One states that the now ‗internationally famous‘ race had ‗captured the public imagination as the yachts set out for their ‗long adventurous voyage‘ meeting the sea in all its moods.102 The Sydney Morning Herald also identified the growing maritime tradition: ‗Each year it is attracting increasing entries and arousing wider attention this … testifies to the popularity of a clean hard pastime which has always had a strong hold on the interest of Australians‘.103 The article concluded: ‗there is no call for surprise that the Sydney-Hobart yacht race should have caught the imagination of a sport- loving people‘.104 Entries for the following races dropped, but spectatorship and media attention boomed. In 1948, the Maritime Services Board and the Water Police continued to patrol the starting area, and spectators could now board a special ferry from Circular Quay to watch the start.105 Estimates stated that up to 70 000 people watched the start of the race in1949, 80 000 in 1950, and 40 000 in 1951.106 In 1949, a letter writer to the Sydney Morning Herald suggested that the boats carry large ‗number plates‘ on the mast-heads so that ‗spectators on the cliffs could understand what‘s going on‘ and that the spectator craft be turned back at the heads, so that spectators on shore could see the yachts.107 Nameplates had already been presented to the yachts on arrival at Hobart for the information of the public.108

101 ‗Sydney‘s Josephine Leading In Yacht Race To Hobart‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December 1947, p. 1 102 ‗Record entries in Adventurous Yacht Race: Sydney to Hobart‘, Moveitone News, 1948, National Film and Sound Archive, AVC019573/0030645-0005; ‗Sydney Hobart Race Highlights Sailing Season‘, Australian Diary, 1948, National Film and Sound Archive, AVC011883/001473-0014. 103 ‗Ocean Yacht Race‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December‘ 1947, p. 2. 104 Ibid. 105 ‗Yachts Ready For 680 Miles Dash To Hobart‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1948, p. 1. 106 ‗Warm Day for Holiday‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1949 p. 1; ‗Race Yachts Buffeted‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1950, p. 1; ‗Quarter of Million Outdoors‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1951, p. 1. 107 ‗Sydney-Hobart Race‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 29 December, 1949, p. 2. 108 ‗Program, Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 1947-1948‘, Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, Vaughn Evans Library, Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney.

52 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

It also took hard work to establish a popular tradition and capture the public imagination during the holiday period. In Sydney, spectators were drawn to the start of the race, but also to the beach, parks, and other sporting fixtures. The Sydney Morning Herald reported crowded trams, buses and trains at the end of the holiday in 1949. Nearly 50 000 people attended the Summer Cup meeting at Randwick, 7000 went to Taronga Zoo, Bondi Beach had around 10 000 people, Maroubra 20 000, Dee Why 12 000, North Narrabeen 8000, and 100 000 people at the central coast beaches.109 The holiday crowds in 1951 were estimated to be more than 250 000, with people attending the surf beaches, Randwick, Taronga Zoo, the Davis Cup, as well as the Sydney-Hobart.110

National traditions The old maritime traditions that buttressed the new Sydney-Hobart yacht race had been connected with popular ceremonies of colonial nationhood since the first half of nineteenth century. The Boxing Day start had symmetry with the Anniversary Regatta that took place exactly one month later. This tradition, now more than one century old, shared the characteristics of large spectator fleets and crowds ashore that were beginning to be associated with the Sydney-Hobart. The Sydney regatta was thought to be older than any other celebration of its kind in the British Empire.111 Tasmania also boasted a century of regattas. The Royal Hobart regatta celebrated its centenary with a huge carnival in February 1938. Both the regattas and the Sydney-Hobart were held during holiday periods, celebrated in the public spaces, beaches and waterways of the port cities. The dual themes of progress and tradition were linked to Australian identity through the ritual celebration of the sea. In 1938, reports of the sesquicentenary celebrations including the regatta in Sydney were described as ‗Australia‘s Birthday‘. The Advertiser in Adelaide for example reported that the celebrations in New South Wales ‗have a significance extending far beyond the borders of that State‘. The anniversary was ‗naturally a family affair‘ and ‗the younger States may be expected to display genuine interest and pride‘ the article continued.112 The Sydney Morning Herald reported the ceremonial events of the regatta under the headline ‗Traditions of

109 ‗Warm Day for Holiday‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1949 p. 1. 110 ‗Quarter of Million Outdoors‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1951, p. 1. 111 ‗Anniversary Regatta: Record of over 100 years‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January, 1938, p. 28. 112 ‗The Sesquicentenary‘, Advertiser, 10 January, 1938, p. 14.

53 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race the Sea‘. The Prime Minister was reported as stating that ‗Australians are becoming increasingly sea-minded and would extend British traditions of seamanship in the Southern Hemisphere‘. Regarding the choice of a regatta to celebrate the foundation of the colony another article asked: ‗Is it to be wondered that they, all sons of the sea or descendents of sons of the sea chose a regatta?‘113 This sentiment was also seen in a newsreel that claimed: ‗Our fathers were seamen. They came from an island world to an island continent. How fitting then, that the oldest pastime in Australia should be aquatic sport.‘114 The Governor of New South Wales, Lord Wakehurst, ‗hoped that 50 years hence, when the 200th Anniversary Regatta was being held, there would be additional indications of the growing prosperity and development of Australia and of its overseas trade and commerce, and that the regatta would be flourishing with undiminished vigour‘.115 The prize giving ceremonies for the Sydney-Hobart followed the familiar yachting traditions established at the regattas. Public figures would attend and present speeches praising the yacht race and the achievements of Australian sailors, which would then be published in the newspapers. At the prize giving for the 1946 Sydney- Hobart the Prime Minister, Premier, and Lord Mayor of Hobart were present when the Governor, Sir Hugh Binney, presented ‗pictorial souvenirs‘, framed and inscribed coloured photographs of the Derwent River, to the competing crews. He said ‗The Sydney-Hobart race shows that Australian yachtsmen are second to none in the bigger event of ocean sailing‘.116 The next year Binney combined the images of physical ascendancy with sacrifice for the nation when he praised Australian yachtsmen, commenting that ‗it was a tribute to the people of Australia that they should spend a hard earned holiday taking part in an arduous race‘.117 These statements were still framed by the image of British seafaring traditions. A report of the 1948 race stated that: ‗Contested in keeping with British Traditions of the sea, the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race is Australia‘s Bluewater Classic‘.118 After the 1948 race, the Premier of Tasmania, Mr Cosgrove, declared that the race had captured the interest and

113 ‗Anniversary Regatta: Record of over 100 years‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January, 1938, p. 28. 114 ‗Anniversary Day Regatta Climaxes a Day of National Rejoicing‘, Movietone News, 1938 National Film and Sound Archive, AVC00842/0029910-0003. 115 ‗Tradition of the Sea‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 January, 1938, p. 6. 116 Sir Hugh Binney, quoted in: Mercury, 7 January, 1947, p. 4. 117 ‗Ocean Race Big World Aquatic Event‘, Mercury, 8 January, 1948, p. 7. 118 ‗Sydney Hobart Race Highlights Sailing Season‘, Australian Diary, 1948, National Film and Sound Archive, AVC011883/001473-0014.

54 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race imagination of people throughout the Commonwealth and Australian yachtsmen were carrying on a tradition of the sea built up over the centuries in England.119 The popular traditions of the Sydney-Hobart were also located amongst shifting narratives of national identity. Stephen Alomes argues that the ‗threat to national survival‘ during World War II stimulated a powerful, but short-lived nationalist period. Australian life was popularly discovered, nurtured by war and the ‗organs of government publicity‘ that sought to build up national morale. Intellectuals and critical commentators ‗discovered Australia in its weakness as well as its strengths in their painting, writing and analysis‘. And the reorganisation of government for the war effort was directed at ‗building the institutions of a modern nation and, in some cases, a better society‘. Images of Australian culture in contrast to ‗imperial jingoism‘ were seen in the stories of ‗ordinary Australians‘ at war and on the home front‘, and ‗ironic Australian humour‘ was appreciated, the war gave Australians a sense of their literary and social traditions‘. But this flourishing nationalism faded in later years.120 Yachting and sailing contributed to stories of nation. During World War II, the Power Boat and Aquatic maintained that ‗more sailing means more training‘ of men for war.121 An article in the Power Boat and Aquatic, written by the Department of Information, Melbourne, said that seamanship could aid in air navigation and was good for seaplanes and flying boats.122 Monthly reports regarding the Volunteer Coastal Patrol in the Power Boat and Aquatic invited ‗boat owners who would like to serve in the national interest‘ to join. The stories also incorporated a sense of past and present success. The magazine, which was a Sydney publication that incorporated the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly amongst other publications, then changed its full name to the Australian Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly Magazine shortly before the end of the war. ‗The events of the last few years have brought the name Australia more prominently before the eyes of the world. Australians too have become aware of the very important place our fair land will hold in the reshaping of world affairs‘ the editor Frank West wrote before introducing the new title.123

119 ‗Yachtsmen carrying on Tradition‘, Mercury, 8 January, 1949, p. 2. 120 Alomes, A Nation At Last?, pp. 112-123, 129-130, 235. 121 ‗Boating Season‘, International Power Boat and Aquatic Monthly, August, 1942, p. 1. 122 Department of Information, Melbourne, ‗Sailing Helps Air Training‘, International Power Boat and Yachting Monthly, 10 June, 1942, p. 7. 123 Frank West, ‗Power Boat Changes its Name‘ Australian Power Boat and Yachting Monthly, 10 October, 1944, p. 1.

55 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race

The Sydney-Hobart represented continuing success in a peacetime setting. It proved that Australia could challenge the dominance or standard of American and British yachting. After the first race, Australian yachtsmen were said to be ‗equal to the world‘s best‘ and Captain Illingworth urged Australian yachtsmen to compete against English yachts in the Fastnet yacht race.124 The connections were made explicit in a 1946 preview of the Sydney-Hobart: ‗No other sporting event of the Christmas holiday season will stir the imagination of Australians in quite the same way as the ocean yacht race from Sydney to Hobart‘ it stated, an continued:

Our harbours and coastal waters have bred a race of sailing men as hardy and skilful as are to be found anywhere else in the world. Australians, for all that they inhabit a continent, have an inbred love of the sea and an abiding interest in ships. In war our navy, recruited for the most part from lads who learned the elements of their craft in the handling of small boats on harbours and waterways, has stood the test. The spirit of Bass and Flinders in their early exploratory voyages … and what ever nurtures and develops it is for the lasting good of Australia.125

In 1948 an article noted that today‘s Sydney-Hobart sailors are ‗better trained … Not only have crews shown a vast improvement in seamanship, but the craft they sail are much superior to those that competed in the first race in 1945‘. This successful training was associated with national success. ‗Australian ocean racing is making such good progress that within three seasons we should be strong enough to challenge the best overseas racers in either our own or foreign waters‘.126 Both a sense of old British traditions and national success contributed to the image of the Sydney-Hobart it its formative years.

Conclusion Norman Hudson told a different story of beginnings in the lead up to the 1949 race. Now yachting correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, Hudson claimed: ‗The year 1945, when the first of the Sydney to Hobart races was run, is a more important milestone in the history of ocean yacht racing in the southern hemisphere than any one year in the heyday of the old racing wool clippers‘. This statement swept aside

124 ‗Australians Equal to World‘s Best‘, Mercury, 9 January, 1946, p. 5. 125 ‗Ocean Yacht Race‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December, 1946, p. 2. 126 ‗Better Trained‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December, 1948, p. 2.

56 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race the broader maritime traditions of ocean racing, the sea and seamanship, and elevated the Sydney-Hobart yacht race into a neat confined legend. Hudson continued:

The average yachtsman looked on sea sailing as something only to be undertaken when it was essential to take his boat from port to port, or to cruise new estuaries and inlets. When a yacht was caught outside in a blow, the yarns related by the crew of how they staggered to port in high seas with green water sweeping the decks from end to end usually became legend. To the modern yachtsman this is just routine stuff. And so, while the invitation was always there, ‗Here is a grand sport, come and partake of it,‖ few saw it before 1945. The war, which stopped yachting for many years liberated at its end men who still yearned for high-seas adventure.

Hudson now described the proverbial ‗how it all began‘ in his short history of the race. He wrote about Illingworth‘s suggestion that the cruise to Hobart might become a race, and then recalled the dramatic disappearance and reappearance of Rani to win the first race. Hudson continued:

All the yachts finished safely; Illingworth had set a standard; and the foundation stone had been nicely laid for long-distance off-shore racing. So great was the enthusiasm engendered by the first event that the second race was immediately scheduled for the following year and 19 yachts started.127

The foundation legend of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race explains how a popular tradition was suddenly created by the dramatic circumstances of the first event in December 1945. This story argues that the Sydney-Hobart and the popular attention engendered in the media was the beginning of ocean racing in Australia where the ‗father‘ of the Sydney-Hobart, Captain john Illingworth, taught Australians how to race and instilled in them a hard driving tradition that is maintained to this day. The tradition that is now celebrated alongside the cricket test as the meaning of Boxing Day in Australia is heavily loaded on this foundational moment. However the foundations of the Sydney-Hobart as a popular icon were deeper than this. In the mid 1940s those first races carried on well-established traditions. They were as much the outcome of long and ongoing relationships with sailing, yachting and the sea as the

127 Norman Hudson, ‗Hobart Race Already Has A record of Adventure‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December, 1949, p. 2.

57 The Legend of the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race beginning of a new tradition. The sea was inherent in Australia‘s colonial culture and the traditions and ceremonies imported from Britain. The national celebrations held on the anniversary of British settlement looked towards the sea and sailing was already a fundamental part of these popular ceremonies. The sea was incorporated into images of battle and defence that shape nations. Yachting was already conflated with naval defence and cruising yachtsmen had sailed throughout the war in civilian defence organisations. Stories of yachting success and military success were subtly combined in the development of the post-war decade. The legend of the Sydney-Hobart gradually developed after its foundation in 1945. The meanings of the race slowly changed until it was celebrated for its own sake. The popular tradition was no longer explained by the popularity of old connections to the sea, but by the popularity of the event itself. The Sydney-Hobart was no longer representative of broader of maritime traditions and instead, the race had become a tradition that celebrated its beginnings not its heritage. The sea has been closely related to narratives of national and Australian identity throughout the burgeoning consciousness of history and progress in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and yachting and sailing have always been closely related to these stories.

58 Chapter 3 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

Sydneysiders celebrated the centenary of British settlement in January 1888 with a regatta. One hundred years after Arthur Phillip had raised the Union Jack at Sydney Cove, ‗flocks of white-winged sailing boats‘ now took to the harbour in a grand ‗Centennial Regatta‘ on the Anniversary Day holiday. The picturesque scenes of public celebration were described in the Illustrated Sydney News:

From an early hour the long reach of the harbour, with its numberless and radiant bays and coves, was covered with boats and yachts of every description; and the effect, as seen from the flagship, and other choice positions, was hardly to be surpassed for picturesqueness. Certainly, no preceding regatta went with the ―go‖ which distinguished this.1

‗Trident‘ described the regatta as an ‗unqualified success‘ in the Sydney Mail. The North Shore Ferry Company ferried nearly 4000 people back and forth from the ‗splendid Orient liner Orziaba‘ – which was flagship for the day. ‗A great number of distinguished visitors‘ were among the spectators including the Governor of New South Wales, Lord Carrington and the Governors of the other Australian colonies. Together they witnessed the proceedings from the Orziaba’s decks. But the celebration was not just for the colony‘s elite. The points on the harbour were crowded with thousands more interested spectators, and thousands took to the harbour in steamers, rowing and sailing boats of every possible description. Trident‘s report concluded:

The sight was magnificent and has probably never been surpassed in any part of the world. … It is certain that no such aquatic carnival ever was held in Australia before, and it is not probable that anyone who saw this will ever see another of surpassing grandeur.2

Although Australian colonists had enjoyed international success in other sports such as rowing and cricket that fostered early expressions of patriotism and nationalism, Ned Trickett won the World Sculling Championship in 1876 and the Australian

1 ‗The Centennial Regatta‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 22 February, 1888, p. 13. 2 ‗Trident‘, ‗New South Wales Centennial Regatta‘, Sydney Mail, 4 February, 1888.

Sailing and Yachting in 1888 cricket team enjoyed a successful tour in Britain in 1878, sailing and yachting were the ‗national sports‘ of New South Wales. They were the sports associated with the colony‘s milestones and anniversaries and with public holidays and place, as the residents of Sydney would take to the harbour and line the foreshores in shared celebration. Yet within the historiography of Australian sport and accounts of the centennial celebrations, little attention is paid to yachting, sailing and the regatta tradition. Anne Coote mentions the regatta in her study of the Anniversary Day celebrations in Sydney, and they are listed in the Bicentennial history of Australia edited by Graeme Davison. J W C Cumes looks at early sailing races in a history of sport in colonial Australia, and John A Daly mentions the regatta tradition in a history of sport in colonial South Australia.3 But the rich maritime culture of nineteenth century sailing and yachting, and the importance of these traditions to colonial Australia make up little of these accounts. This chapter documents the rise of a regatta tradition in the Australian colonies and its expression of Australian identity during the 1888 centenary. It looks at representations of sailing and yachting in the centennial year through public regattas and histories of yachting. It traces the origins of both sailing and yachting in Australia, focussing on the waters of Sydney Harbour. Through this history, it explores the themes of national identity in colonial Australia, history, progress, and maritime traditions. All of these factors contributed to a robust regatta tradition and laid the foundations for the ongoing development of sailing and yachting as an Australian sport over the next one hundred years.

1888 Centenary celebrations and national identity The Centennial Regatta in Sydney was one event in a week of processions, banquets, speeches and sermons that commemorated the centenary of New South Wales.

3 Anne Coote, ‗―This is the people's golden day‖: Anniversary Day press coverage and national consciousness in New South Wales‘, Journal of Australian Colonial History, volume 12, 2010, pp. 39- 54; Anne Coote, ‗Celebration of Anniversary Day to 1900‘, Sydney Journal, June 2009, pp. 22-28; Anne Coote, ‗Imagining a Colonial Nation: The development of popular concepts of sovereignty and nation in New South Wales between 1856 amd 1860‘, Journal of Australian Colonial History, volume 1, number 1, April, 1999, pp. 1-37; Graeme Davison, J W McCarthy, and Alisa McLeary (eds), Australians 1888, Fairfax, Syme and Weldon, Broadway, NSW, 1987, pp. 1-4; J. W. C. Cumes, Their Chastity Was Not too rigid: Leisure Times in Early Australia, Longman Terry Hills, NSW: Cheshire/Reed, 1979; John A Daly, Elysian Fields: Sport, Class and Community in Colonial South Australia 1836-1890, John A Daly, Adelaide, 1982.

60 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

Graeme Davison, J W McCarthy, and Alisa McLeary described ‗Sydney‘s week of celebrations‘ in the Bicentennial history of Australia: Australians 1888. It began with a tribute to the British throne when more than 50 000 Sydneysiders turned out for the unveiling of a new statue of Queen Victoria at the northern end of Hyde Park. On Anniversary Day, the first of the public holidays, Centennial Park was opened as a ‗Peoples Park‘ to the south of the city, and during the evening a thousand ‗eminent gentlemen‘ sat down to a state banquet. The regatta was held the following day. On Saturday, the foundation stone was laid for a new Trades Hall, and 13 000 of the city‘s trade unionists marched down George Street. On Sunday, Australians attended a number of church services. Most sermons sought simply to build up their own institutions and few attempted to imbue Australian nationalism with the spirit of religion. The week ended with the laying of a foundation stone for a new Parliament House, a ‗symbol of Australia‘s independence and the peoples liberties‘.4 Maritime themes were conspicuous in the ceremonies, reflecting the nature of Sydney as a ‗seaport town‘. The harbour was a site of picturesque decoration. Visiting ships were covered stem to stern with bunting, contributing to the spectacle of the regatta. The Sydney Mail suggested that ‗every conceivable flag was brought into requisition‘.5 Hundreds of ‗healthy cheerful men‘ wearing straw hats and ‗looking every inch heroes of the sea‘ in the Seaman‘s Union marched down George Street in the Trades and Labour Demonstration and the scene was described through maritime metaphors in the Sydney Mail. The seamen displayed allegorical figures representing Britannia, Neptune and Commerce that ‗amused and delighted the crowds‘ of spectators. Shipwrights carried model boats, and the street was decorated with Rows of ‗Venetian masts‘, and ensigns that fluttered high above the housetops.6 According to the Illustrated Sydney News, a ‗Sailors Festival‘ featuring about 2000 ‗Jack Tars‘ at the Exhibition Building ‗accentuated‘ the Centennial week. Sketches of visiting Russian sailors presenting a bouquet to Lady Carrington, the Governor‘s wife, added to the cosmopolitan and maritime image of Sydney‘s celebrations.7 Sydney Cove was remembered as the maritime locus of settlement and progress in the ‗Reminiscences of Old Sydney‘ printed in the centennial issue of the Illustrated Sydney News. The maritime quarter occupied by ‗British Jack‘ was

4 Davison, McCarthy, and McLeary, Australians 1888, pp. 10-18. 5 ‗The Harbour‘, Sydney Mail, 4 February, 1888, p. 268. 6 ‗Trades and Labour Demonstration‘, Sydney Mail, 4 February, 1888. 7 ‗The Sailors‘ Festival‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 22 February, 1888.

61 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 imagined as the ‗seal of conquest and the signature of civilisation‘. By the late nineteenth century, the British seaman ‗Jack Tar‘ ceased to be a feared disruptive influence in port and was now ‗a respectable symbol of empire‘.8 The article read:

Every maritime city – where ships come and go, and disgorge or swallow their cargoes – has a quarter especially dedicated to those who ‗occupy their business in great waters;‘ – a place which ‗Jack‘ can effect – where ‗Jack‘ can wander at will, like a nautical ticket-of-leave man – where he is fed accommodated and clothed, amused and sometimes ‗taken in and done for.‘ In the case of a colony which British Jack has founded, this quarter generally indicates the spot where he first left his footprint – as the seal of conquest and the signature of civilisation. At all events this rule holds true so far as Sydney in concerned, for when British Jack arrived, just a hundred years ago to plant a settlement on these shores, he settled himself on the fringe of the new continent, where land and water meet, the forest not permitting inroad farther inland at the time.9

‗Jack‘ was romanticised, just as the itinerant bush worker would be in the following decade. A strong maritime alternative to the bush shaped the expression of Australian experience and ideas of history, heritage and progress. The ‗Reminiscences of Old Sydney‘ continued:

No ―up the country‖ for Jack, but where he first left the impress of his advent in the strange, new Austral land, there we find him, or his descendants, a century after; always within sight of the great cobwebs of rigging, among whose meshes some nautical spiders are clinging; always within the sound of the music that the wind fingers out on those harp-strings of the sea; always within smell of the rising incense of pitch, and tar, and brine!‘10

Sailing was part of this maritime milieu. As products of a successful colony, sailing boats were markers of progress, civilisation, industry, trade, and leisure on one hand and history by association with maritime settlement on the other. Small sailing boats were nearly always pictured in the images of Sydney‘s harbour suburbs printed in the Illustrated Sydney News, imprinting Europe on the natural landscape.11 An illustration in the 1887 Christmas Supplement depicted the ‗old country‘ and the ‗new‘. The image of a snow-covered forest in winter represented the old British Christmas, while

8 Mary A Conley, From Jack Tar to Union Jack: Representing Naval Manhood in the British Empire, 1897-1918, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2009, pp. 1-4. 9 ‗Reminiscences of Old Sydney: Sydney Cove and its Associations‘, Illustrated Sydney News, February 22, 1888. 10 ‗Reminiscences of Old Sydney‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 22 February, 1888. 11 See: ‗Sydney: Its Harbour and Bays‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 27 September, 1888-6 June, 1889.

62 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 a picturesque harbour-side beach with two sailing boats floating idly on the water represented the new.12 Sailing was already beginning to represent the accommodation to the antipodean summer and admiration of the landscape. This was in marked contrast to early images of Australia as a place of exile. Instead, Australia was imagined as an idealised Arcadian society with fresh air, sun and abundant nature.13 Progress and history were the two overwhelming themes of the Centennial ceremonies and celebrations. Davison, McCarthy and McLeary described this narrative of national success where a sense of the past demonstrated the material and social progress of the nation. They argued that white Australians celebrated a combined past and the potential of a federated future:

Through all the ceremonies and celebrations, all the speeches, sermons and histories of 1888, there runs a single refrain: the material and social progress of the nation. Confident that they stood on a pinnacle of enlightenment and civilisation, the public men of 1888 looked back on earlier times as a series of stepping stones towards an independent, prosperous and federated Australia. With the advantage of hindsight, they endowed past events with an inevitability that was invisible to those who took part in them. They forgot all the detours and setbacks, all the time-consuming and heartbreaking events of everyday life that did not fit the contours of the national success story.14

Over the centennial year a number of Australian histories were also commissioned marking a turning point in Australian historiography and a new awareness of Australian history. Brian Fletcher noted that the Centenary stimulated a great volume of historical writing, in books, newspapers, journals and periodicals that contributed to a sense of Australian nationalism. Fletcher argued:

By 1888 the population consisted predominantly of local born men and women who saw Australia as their home. Cultural and intellectual life might still be overshadowed by British influences, but a sense of nationalism had emerged, that was already evident in literature and art and that was to feature in coming debates over federation.15

12 ‗Christmastide‘ Illustrated Sydney News, (Christmas supplement), December, 1897 13 Richard White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980, Allen and Unwin, North Sydney, 1981, pp. 29-34. 14 Davison, McCarthy, and McLeary, Australians 1888, pp. 18-21, p. xv. 15 Brian H Fletcher, The 1888 Centenary Celebrations and New Developments in the Writing of Australian History, University of Sydney, Sydney, 1988, p. 2.

63 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

History was a witness to the progress identified in 1888. By looking at the past Australians could measure the present, and project upon the future. A ‗patriot‘, quoted in Australians 1888 proclaimed: ‗If we are to become a great people it would only be by feeling that we had a history‘.16 David Roberts identified the link between history and progress: ‗commemorating the founding moment [of British settlement] also involved escaping it‘ recognising what had been, or could be achieved.17 Regarding the Anniversary Day celebrations, Anne Coote noted that when Sydney newspapers invoked the convict past on Anniversary Day, they did so only to emphasise contemporary achievements.18 Any potential of a burgeoning Australian national identity in the 1888 celebrations was qualified by deeper tensions and contradictions within the colonies. Other Australian colonies were reluctant to celebrate the anniversary of New South Wales because of its convict history. Ken Inglis argues that ‗to celebrate 26 January outside New South Wales would have been to recognise a continuity from the penal days to the present‘. The Australian colonies had their own flags, traditions and foundation legends that were celebrated on different dates.19 Anne Coote has also noted that Anniversary Day was traditionally the national day of New South Wales and the sense of national community generated around that day was colonial not continental in scope.20 David Roberts also identified anxieties about convict heritage that limited celebrations across the continent. He argued that the 1888 Centenary was a ‗Sydney Experience‘ and the other colonies did not enthusiastically embrace the date as a day of celebration. Roberts continued:

Other colonies were prepared to acknowledge 26 January as ‗the first stage in Australian colonisation‘ and endorse in principle the ‗substantial oneness‘ of all Australians under the British inheritance, but they disapproved of the ‗idea of Australia‘ embodied in the history of New South Wale, given ‗the unpleasing circumstances of early occupation‘.21

16 William Foster, quoted in Davison, McCarthy, and McLeary, Australians 1888, p. 27. 17 David Andrew Roberts, ‗Arrival of the First Fleet‘, Turning points in Australian History, Martin Crotty and David Andrew Roberts (eds), University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2008, p. 39. 18 Coote, ‗Celebration of Anniversary Day to 1900‘, pp. 22-28. 19 Kenneth Stanley Inglis, Australian Colonists: An Exploration of Social History 1788-1870, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, VIC, 1993, p. 143. 20 Coote, ‗Celebration of Anniversary Day to 1900‘, pp. 24-25. 21 Roberts, ‗Arrival of the First Fleet‘, pp. 38-42.

64 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

The reticence of the Australian colonies to celebrate a combined past reveals the complicated nature of colonial identities. Alan Atkinson reminded an audience at the Tasmanian Historical Research Association that ‗nations were different things on those days‘, suggesting that historians might argue as to just what ‗national‘ meant. He complicated the idea that Australian history began in the 1880s and 1890s by considering earlier iterations of national identity. Atkinson cited the early work of Henry Reynolds, and Anne Coote‘s study of ‗colonial nationalism‘ to argue that nations existed within nations, a multiplicity of nations. Tasmania, for example, had an ambiguous identity. It was been part of Australia but also imagined as an island nation like New Zealand.22 Anne Coote argued that a process of imagining New South Wales as a sovereign colonial community existed long before Federation was even a debatable possibility for most colonists. This sense of ‗colonial nationalism‘ was considered distinct from trans-continental Australian nationalism. Coote considered the way that colonial press contributed to a sense of shared identity and interest in relation to land reform and parliamentary debate.23

Regatta traditions Public regattas adopted maritime themes in popular celebrations of progress and history in a number of Australian colonies. The regatta tradition was a strong indication of colonial nationalism, but it also revealed a shared culture. Despite the differences between the colonies, the centenary of British settlement in 1888 was officially recognised and marked by a public holiday in all of the Australian colonies except South Australia. Sports and picnics were generally the order of the day outside of the cities. In the cities, regattas were a common form of celebration with regattas in Sydney, Hobart, Fremantle, and Hobson‘s Bay, Victoria.24 Regattas were so closely associated with the Centenary celebrations that when the Victorian Premier, Duncan Gillies announced his proposal for an international exhibition in 1888, the Bulletin responded with a satirical cartoon of Gillies and his New South Wales counterpart racing in small boats, with the wind being taken out of Jennings‘ sails.25 The image

22 Alan Atkinson, ‗Tasmania and the multiplicity of nations: 2005 Eldershaw Memorial Lecture‘, Papers and Proceedings Tasmanian Historical Research Association, volume 52, number 4, December 2005: pp. 189-200. 23 Coote, ‗Imagining a colonial nation‘, p. 2. 24 Davison, McCarthy, and McLeary, Australians 1888, p. 21. 25 Bulletin, 11 December, 1887, in: Davison, McCarthy, and McLeary, Australians 1888, p. 4.

65 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 suggested that the sense of competition between the colonies existed alongside with shared regatta traditions. The regatta in Sydney was a well-established event that had taken place annually on the Anniversary Day holiday since 1837.26 The Sydney Morning Herald noted the significance of regattas in New South Wales: ‗All along the coast the fishing boats are known for their seaworthy qualities, and at every important centre an annual regatta is held‘.27 Unlike the Sydney Mail, which stated that no such carnival had ever been held in Australia after the spectacle of the Centennial Regatta, the Illustrated Sydney News reminded readers of the old traditions on which it was based:

Our National Regatta, held on the 27th ultimo, was not a new thing. The Anniversary Regatta has, for many years past, been a feature in the history of our harbour sports; and this year‘s display was only a stronger and brighter and more attractive edition of what had gone before.28

As was traditional, the Centennial regatta appropriated a broad range of Sydney Harbour‘s traditions. Yachting events represented wealth and leisure, while events for sailing boats drew upon the working practices of the port. The ultimate race was for most prestigious and expensive ‗first class‘ yachts. They competed for a prize of £500 donated by the New South Wales Government. Smaller ‗second class‘ and ‗third class‘ yachts crewed by amateurs filled out more of the events. The sailing program was completed with competitions for the open boats. These were small boats with no deck derived from the working boats of the harbour and as well homemade canvas dinghies sailed by boys under sixteen catered to the less wealthy. Rowing and sculling events for manual labourers and amateurs were also included in the extensive program of events. Races for merchant ships‘ boats, man-of-war whalers and other working vessels such as watermen‘s gigs and fishing boats were a further reminder of the working traditions of the harbour.29 According to the Illustrated Sydney News, these were some of the most interesting events of the day, and they remained part of a longstanding tradition in the regattas.30

26 Inglis, Australian Colonists, p. 139; Coote, ‗―This is the People‘s Golden Day‘‖, p. 44 . 27 ‗The Origin and Progress of Australian Settlement‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January, 1888. 28 ‗The Centennial Regatta‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 22 February, 1888. 29 N. S. W. Centennial Regatta: Official Programme, John Sands, Sydney, 1888 (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney). 30‗The Centennial Regatta‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 22 February, 1888.

66 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

The Hobart Regatta in Tasmania was another old colonial tradition. It celebrated its fifty-year jubilee on ‗a beautiful Tasmanian summer day‘ in January 1888. This significant anniversary was combined with the Centenary celebrations, marked by a public holiday. A report in the Mercury described the regatta as ‗one of the most characteristic of Australian holidays‘ as well as the ‗national holiday of Tasmania‘. Sailing boats, rowing boats and sculls took to the water, and a number of sideshows and stalls amused the onlookers on shore and contributed to the festival atmosphere. The holiday was not for one section, a class or the town, but for all Tasmanians including ‗our country cousins‘ who came into town and filled the hotels once a year for the spectacle. The report in the Mercury specified that both sexes, both rich and poor and the purist and the idle pleasure seeker all looked forward to the holiday. These were familiar scenes on the Hobart waterfront and the report continued with a sentimental sense of history and tradition:

The scene becomes a very familiar one as the years roll on, and in some respects time makes no changes in it. The children appear to blow the same penny trumpets or exhibit the same toys they have drawn from the lucky bags; the refreshment booths, skittle alleys, games of skill and chance, side shows, gingerbeer and fruit stalls, with the cries of the vendors and proprietors, and the shouts of the programme boys, are precisely what they were a dozen years back. There are the same holiday faces and dresses of a contented and prosperous people, the same laughter and greetings. The noble river is ever the same, and bunting, bending sails, and the rowers in their uniforms, exhibit no change in the colouring of the familiar scene.31

The maritime ritual reflected the beginnings of a European ‗claim of proprietorship‘ by suggesting permanent links to place with the unchanging river. David Day notes that this moral claim usually develops over an extended period of time.32 The regatta in Hobart suggests that this process began early with a sentimental attachment to the waterways. The annual regatta in Fremantle similarly straddled a sense of tradition, colonial identity and continental nationalism. The event was described as a local tradition in the West Australian. The ‗profusion of bunting both on land and sea‘ was considered usual on public holidays. Now in 1888, the regatta was one of the three ‗chief events‘ held in Western Australia to celebrate the foundation of the Australian

31 ‗Hobart regatta‘, Mercury, 27 January, 1888. 32 David Day, Claiming a Continent: A History of Australia, Angus and Robinson, Pymble, NSW, 1996, p. 3.

67 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 colonies. With races for working and recreational craft, the colony‘s ‗leading residents‘ observed the festivities from the flagship in Fremantle. The report suggested that this regatta was meant to be shared with the other ‗sister colonies‘ as the ‗national holiday of Australia‘. But the author was sceptical of the centenary, and suggested that the regatta revealed more about the different characteristics of West Australians:

Compared with the many and varied festivities with which the sister colonies have celebrated what in the future is to be regarded as the national holiday of Australia, the centennial has elicited few demonstrations of rejoicing, and we have taken our pleasure in that quiet mild way characteristic of West Australians.33

South Australia also had a regatta tradition that dated back to 1838, with races for both professional watermen and amateur sailors. John A Daly explains that the commemoration of South Australia‘s anniversary day with a regatta became a regular celebration: ‗On the fifth anniversary of the colony the regatta at ―the Port‖ was such an auspicious event‘ that settlers residing in the country were encouraged to attend.34 But the colony was in an economic depression at the time of the centenary and many of the larger yachts had been sold, and a regatta or any celebrations were not considered appropriate. The regattas continued at the end of the centennial year when yachts from England, France, America, and other Australasian colonies were invited to participate in the Victorian International Regatta. A few months earlier, the progress of the colony had been measured against the progress of other nations in a grand International Exhibition and as an extension of this event the contest was to be taken to the waters of Hobson‘s Bay on Port Phillip. Whist only one yacht, Arkana, a keelboat from New Zealand, entered from overseas, the event was deemed a success in the local newspapers.35 The bay was crowded with spectator craft and eminent citizens, including the Governor, took their place aboard the flagship. In excess of £2300 was raised for the Victoria International Regatta and the long list of patrons

33 ‗The Australian Centenary‘, West Australian, 27 January, 1888. 34 Daly, Elysian Fields, pp. 42-44, 130. 35 See ‗The Victoria International Regatta‘, Argus, 26 November, 1888, p. 5.

68 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 was published in the Australasian.36 The regatta program reflected the port‘s diverse sailing traditions. Events for working boats and yachts revealed the importance of sailing to the material needs of the colony and events for private sailing boats and yachts displayed wealth and leisure. Ten licensed watermen, five ‗bona fide‘ fishermen, and six man-of-war‘s boats sailed on the first day of the regatta as well as a number of private keel yachts and skiffs. On the second day eight trading vessels, from fourteen to twenty-five tons dwarfed the smaller private yachts in races for £100 or £30 depending on tonnage. Four sailing boats belonging to merchant ships also raced for a relatively small prize of £10. All up, 77 boats raced on day one and 96 on day two with a minority racing on both days.37 The various regattas revealed a set of shared maritime rituals between the Australian colonies where the yachts and working boats of the port cities were included in the popular celebration of anniversaries and milestones. But they also highlighted the differences between the colonies. In Sydney and Hobart, the regattas were very much part of local traditions, and they were considered celebrations of those particular waterways. The Fremantle regatta demonstrated the ‗quiet mild way‘ characteristic of West Australians. The Victorian International Regatta placed Victoria in the international spotlight at the end of the year after Sydney‘s centenary celebrations in the context of competition. Macintyre noted that Melbourne‘s business class were confident and assertive, ‗they assumed their capacity to guide social progress and took pleasure in sport and display‘.38 The movement towards federation over the following decade would be ‗marred‘ by these ‗colonial rivalries‘ and Western Australia would only agree to join at the last minute.39 Indeed, intercolonial and interstate rivalry in yachting would remain strong over the following decades particularly between Sydney and Melbourne.

Sailing and yachting history

36 ‗International Regatta Carnival‘, Australasian, 18 February, 1888; Victorian International Regatta 1888 Official Programme, (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney); Australasian, 24 November, 1888. 37 Victorian international Regatta 1888: Official Programme. 38 Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia (second edition), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, p. 110. 39 Stephen Alomes, A Nation at Last: The Changing Character of Australian Nationalism 1880-1988, Angus and Robinson, North Ryde, NSW, 1988, p. 29.

69 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

Sailing and yachting were also included in the accounts of history and progress that marked the centennial celebrations. The day after the Centennial Regatta in Sydney, the Town and Country Journal introduced ‗Yachting in Port Jackson‘ as the only sport mentioned in its history and description of New South Wales. The tradition of Anniversary Regattas‘ on Sydney Harbour was the ‗most appropriate way‘ to celebrate the foundation of British settlement. It was a clever turn of logic to celebrate the maritime foundation of European settlement and conveniently ignore the ‗convict stain‘, the idea that transportation had marred the social and moral foundations of the colony. Yachting and the harbour provided a respectable alternative that colonists could be proud of:

In every way Sydney harbour seems to have been FASHIONED BY NATURE for yacht sailing … No wonder then, that with these advantages any history of New South Wales must involve a history of yachting as connected with the great harbour which has made her capital city what it is.40

The Sydney Morning Herald also published a ‗Centennial Supplement‘ that outlined ‗the origin and progress of Australian settlement‘ on the 24th of January, just three days before the public holiday and regatta. Its aim was to bring ‗salient points in our history and progress‘ before the eyes of Australians and the world. A history and description of yachting and sailing in New South Wales was included in this mission. ‗Yachting and Sailing‘ appeared prominently under its own subheading ahead of the description of the Turf. Other sports – cricket, football and rowing – appeared later still, grouped under the one general heading: ‗Athletics‘. The Herald outlined the progress of sailing and yachting from its beginnings in Sydney, where it was seen as an important and prominent sport in the colony, closely linked with national celebration. The paper claimed: ‗From the very foundation of the colony sailing as an amusement has held a prominent position amongst our sports‘, reminding readers that the Anniversary Regatta is an older institution than the Constitution. It concluded by suggesting that the regatta ‗should prove a fitting beginning to our second century of aquatics‘.41 A few months later, Walter Reeks wrote an article for the Illustrated Sydney News entitled ‗Yachting and Sailing‘ that summarised the state of yachting in New

40 ‗Yachting in Port Jackson‘, Australian Town and Country Journal, 28 January, 1888. 41 ‗The origin and progress of Australian Settlement‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January, 1888, p. 8.

70 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

South Wales at the end of the 1887-1888 sailing season.42 Reeks was an English-born yacht designer. He was trained in the science of naval architecture before settling in Australia, where he designed race-winning yachts and other craft.43 His history of yachting in New South Wales began with a description of the old traditions of yachting dating back to the restoration of King Charles II in England where the love of the sea was underpinned by an expression of British race identity. This explained the popularity of the pastime in New South Wales. He wrote:

So it was of yore, so it always has been, and so it will continue wherever can be traced one drop of the old blood. No matter how many generations intervene, there will be found true love of ocean joys, and the keen spirit of rivalry and competition. In such sources lies the secret of the popularity of yachting and sailing. No sooner had the pioneers of this now great country surmounted the hardships and difficulties of establishment, than with their first leisure came the burning desire for aquatic pursuits.44

As a naval architect, Reeks was also keen to promote the success of Australian designs. He expressed his enthusiasm for yachting as a measure of Australian honour in his yachting history. Reeks considered that a successful ‗Australian type‘ of sailing yacht might be designed:

We are already abreast the times in yachting and sailing, and with the desire for improvements so deep rooted in the hearts of our aquatic men, and with Australia‘s honor as our reward when we succeed, surely we shall soon lead the world, cease to speak of the American type and the English type, and have a type of our own, which other countries will look at with envious eyes, and call Australian.45

The early histories of yachting and sailing tended to be New South Wales focussed. The references to the ‗colony‘, ‗nation‘, ‗constitution‘, and ‗Australia‘ referred solely to New South Wales and Sydney Harbour. Ironically, the only history to consider a continental sense of nation in 1888 came from South Australia, the only colony that did not celebrate the centenary with a public holiday.

42 Walter Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 31 May, 1888, pp. 6-10. 43 A. M. Prescott, ‗Reeks, Walter (1861-1925)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, volume 11, Melbourne University Press, 1988, pp. 346-347. 44 Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, p. 6. 45 Ibid, p. 10.

71 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

A well-known South Australian yachtsman, W. H. Bundey published his Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Year’s Yachting in Australia at the end of 1888.46 It was an eclectic volume, made up of Bundey‘s personal sailing experiences, his moral interest in ‗manly sports‘, health-giving activities, charts, sailing directions and yachting lore. He suggested that the ‗advantages,‘ ‗excitement,‘ ‗health-giving capabilities,‘ and ‗manly qualities‘ of the ‗noble pastime‘ of yachting were well known, but he was still keen to promote them.47 A review of the book described Bundey as ‗the father of yachting in South Australia‘ who writes in the interests of a pastime he loves.48 Although English-born, Bundey was Australian-educated and he enjoyed a privileged public profile as a lawyer and politician.49 Bundey now wrote for an English readership, aiming to demonstrate that yachting had not been forgotten and in fact, was making great strides under the Southern Cross. He wrote:

Possibly, therefore, it may be of some interest to English yachting men in showing them that their Australian cousins have no more forgotten the fine old pastime than they have cricket and rowing; that yachting under the Southern Cross is as ardently pursued as amongst themselves, and that in the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria it is making great strides. Many of us live in hope to see it ere long revivified amongst our wealthier men in South Australia also.50

A glowing review in the American magazine Forest and Stream recommended the book to ‗those who wish to learn more of Australian yachts and yachting, and also to all who delight in a sailorman‘s story of rough water cruises in small craft‘.51 Bundey was proud of his locally built yachts in south Australia. He claimed that all of his yachts had been built and designed in Port Adelaide and that they were as good as any British or American yachts. He wrote: ‗It would have given me much less pleasure to have purchased successful English or American ones. I do not see why Australians should not be able to build and handle yachts as well as any other people‘. This sentiment was applied to the other Australian colonies. A large section of the book

46 ‗Neptune‘, ‗Notes by Neptune‘, Australian Town and Country Journal, 4 August, 1888, p. 38 47 W H Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Years Yachting in Australia: An Essay on Manly Sports, A Cruise on Shore, &c., &c., E S Wigg and son, Adelaide, 1888, p. xi. 48 ‗Review: Yachting in Australia‘, South Australian Register, 18 August, 1888, p. 6. 49 Robin Millhouse, ‗Bundey, Sir William Henry (1838-1909)‘, Australian Dictionary of Biography, volume 3, Melbourne University Press, 1969, pp. 296-297. 50 Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Year’s Yachting in Australia, p. xi. 51 ‗Review of Yachting in Australia‘, Forest and Stream, in: ‗Yachting‘, Advertiser, 19 February, 1889, p. 6.

72 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 was dedicated to the ‗progress‘ of yachting in the colonies detailing the history of the sport from the 1860s. Bundey considered New South Wales the ‗nursery‘ of yachting in Australia, but yacht clubs and sailing clubs could be found in all of the Australian capitals by 1888. Correspondents from the various colonial yachting centres contributed to Bundey‘s account of yachting making it the first history of Australian sailing that encompassed the continent.52

Sailing and regattas Despite the rhetoric, sailing was not one of the first leisure activities of the convict colony of New South Wales. Gambling, drinking, bloodspots and horseracing were all older pursuits than competitive sailing.53 The significance of sailing and yachting to the national holidays of New South Wales, shared celebrations, and narratives of progress can be attributed to their position among the first sports that were abstracted from the violence that characterised earlier recreation. Richard Waterhouse has demonstrated that the pastimes patronised by free settlers attempting to establish a colonial gentry were not always consistent with the moral order that the colonial government sought to impose. Prize fighting and cockfighting were organised by the gentry, demonstrating ‗their commitment to patriarchy and paternalism, risk and style, coolness and courage‘. But the pastimes did little to combat the disorder of convict administration.54 The colonial authorities, on the other hand, soon embraced sailing as a respectable pastime. Recreational sailing had its antecedents in the working traditions of Sydney Harbour where ship‘s boats were raced in the early nineteenth century. J. W. C. Cumes has identified documentary evidence of challenge matches competed by the respective crews of visiting ships from 1819, and Richard Cashman has made reference to ‗boat races‘ held as early as 1810.55 Ken Inglis also identifies sailing amongst the popular sports of the colonies by the 1840s.56 Early sailing and rowing races were organised by ships‘ captains, and competed by their crews. A colonial

52 Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Year’s Yachting in Australia, p. xiii, 92. 53 J W C Cumes, Their Chastity Was Not too rigid: Leisure Times in Early Australia, Longman Terry Hills, NSW: Cheshire/Reed, 1979; Richard Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture Since 1788, Longman, South Melbourne, 1995, p. 15. 54 Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, pp. 12-20. 55 Cumes, Their Chastity Was Not too Rigid, pp. 157-159; Richard Cashman, Paradise of Sport: The Rise of Organised Sport in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 18. 56 Inglis, Australian Colonists, p. 126.

73 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 yachtsman, James Milson remembered rowing and sailing races, ‗crew against crew‘ in ships‘ boats with temporary keels to increase their stability.57 The ships‘ officers would find their sport in a gentlemanly wager placed on the outcome of the race.58 The first recorded regattas in the Australian colonies were held in Sydney and Hobart in 1827.59 Like the early challenge matches, the first regatta to be held on Sydney harbour reflected the working maritime traditions of the port. While both working sailors and private individuals appeared to compete for the prizes, naval and working practices dominated the event. Captain Sterling and Captain Rouse of HMS Rainbow and HMS Success initiated a series of rowing and sailing matches. Lieutenant Preston‘s Black Swan won the sailing race for a prize of fifty Spanish dollars donated by the ships‘ officers.60 Most remarkable about the 1827 regatta in Sydney was the public involvement in the event that pre-empted the public regatta tradition. The Sydney Gazette reported that the foreshore was ‗crowded with spectators of all ranks and denominations‘ and the harbour filled with all types of spectator craft. The flagship Success was ‗gay with bunting‘, ladies and gentlemen enjoyed the day from its decks and were entertained by the band of the 73rd regiment.61 Lady Forbes remembered the regatta and doubted that any subsequent regatta had caused more ‗universal interest‘ among the inhabitants of Sydney.62 The day may well have been a party organised for and by the colony‘s elite, but it also provided the rare chance of a holiday for the public with an air of official sanction. The Sydney Gazette commented on the worthy nature of the amusements, ‗abstracted from the semblance of cruelty‘. The paper stated that sports of the regatta type might promote the building of ‗genteel‘ boats by watermen, and hoped that the first would not prove to be the last regatta on the harbour.63 Within ten years of the 1827 regatta, rowing and sailing races were held on or near Anniversary Day as part of the annual popular public celebrations of the colony. The precise date of the first Anniversary Regatta is not clear; they appear to have been

57 ‗Sailing‘, Sydney Mail, 30 January, 1897. 58 Cumes, Their Chastity Was Not too Rigid, pp. 157-159. 59 ‗The First Australian Regatta‘, Sydney Gazette, 30 April, 1827; E H Webster and L Norman, A Hundred Years of Yachting, Government of Tasmania, Hobart Marine Board and Hobart City council, Hobart, 1936. 60 ‗The first Australian Regatta‘, Sydney Gazette, 30 April, 1827; Cashman, Paradise of Sport, p. 20. 61 ‗The First Australian Regatta‘, Sydney Gazette, 30 April, 1827. 62 Lady Forbes in: George Forbes, ‗The First Australian Regatta‘, Pioneers of the Australian Commonwealth, (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney). 63 ‗The First Australian Regatta‘, Sydney Gazette, 30 April, 1827.

74 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 held intermittently during the mid 1830s.64 A ‗Sydney Regatta‘ was held in early January 1834, and the Sydney Monitor claimed that the scale of this regatta ‗eclipsed everything of the kind which has yet been attempted in the colony‘.65 Sources agree that the Anniversary Regatta was held annually on or near 26 January since 1837. 66 This reflected the new social structure and ‗progress‘ of the colony. Convict transportation to New South Wales was waning, free settlement and trade was on the rise. Sydney‘s emerging middle class was searching for appropriate pastimes.67 Pleasure boating provided the order and respectability associated with civilised societies. The Sydney Morning Herald suggested that the regatta promised to be moral and respectable when it optimistically remarked that there ‗was not so much drunkenness and riot as we have been in the habit of seeing‘ at the 1838 Jubilee Regatta.68 The Anniversary Regatta retained the hallmarks of the early colonial regattas as it became established as a popular ritual. The event included a wide section of the community and officially marked the public holiday of the colony. Anne Coote notes that before long government departments, large merchant houses, and many city ships were observing the Anniversary holiday, and the Herald described the regatta as an amusement for ‗persons of all classes‘. Fort Macquarie, Dawes Battery, and Mrs Macquarie‘s Chair were the popular vantage points where crowds would gather, buy food and drink from allocated booths, and where fraudsters would spruik dubious games of chance.69 The public would watch the event from the foreshores while the elite would watch from the safety of the flagship as part of the formal ceremonies. Material progress was also conspicuous. The Anniversary regatta was organised by a committee of gentlemen citizens rather than by visiting naval officers, as seen in the challenge matches between ship‘s crews and the 1827 regatta organised by Captain Rouse and Captain sterling. Private boats graced the waters of the harbour in greater numbers as well, and amateur events were held alongside the races for working sailors and watermen.

Yachting traditions

64 ‗The origin and progress of Australian Settlement‘, p. 8. 65 ‗Sydney Regatta‘, Sydney Monitor, 10 January, 1834, p. 3. 66 Inglis, Australian Colonists, p. 139; Coote, ‗―This is the People‘s Golden Day‘‖, p. 44. 67 Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, pp. 32-50. 68 Sydney Morning Herald, 29 January, 1838. 69 Coote, ‗Celebration of Anniversary Day to 1900‘, p. 22.

75 Sailing and Yachting in 1888

As the social structures of the colony changed, respectability took on different meanings. Looking back in 1888, regattas and sailing appeared to grow out of the working maritime culture of the port cities fostering a local sense of community. But these traditions were not considered the beginnings of yachting, which was remembered as an imported tradition. The Town and Country Journal suggested that the very first settlers ‗took kindly‘ to the waters of Port Jackson for business and pleasure, ‗But sailing in real yachts of any size grew very gradually‘.70 The Sydney Morning Herald observed that: ‗The yachts have followed more or less the traditions of the mother country … and from lessons taken from imported models, that we have come to the yacht of to-day.‘71 Walter Reeks‘ narrative of progress detailed the transition from when yachts were first imported to their construction in the colony. He wrote:

Without going tediously through the rise and progress of Yachting in Sydney Harbour, suffice to say, that the first few yachts, properly so called, were imported from England, either in frame, and erected here, or complete. Then arrived men able and willing to build them here, without outside help.72

The private pleasure boats that had been built in Australia since at least 1827 when Sydney Merchant James Campbell had a small open boat constructed were not considered ‗real‘ or ‗proper‘ yachts because they failed to meet the standards of wealth, respectability and leisure associated with yachting as an elite pastime. The imported definitions of yachting, as a sport popularised amongst the noble and wealthy after the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, contributed to the image of the sport in the colonies.73 British and American yachts were symbols of status, wealth, and respectability. Benjamin Boyd‘s eighty-four ton luxury schooner Wanderer was the first yacht in the traditional sense of the word to arrive in the Australian colonies. It had the traditional black hull, shining brass work and full professional crew carried by British yachts and it displayed the white ensign of the Royal Navy, an honour bestowed on yachts belonging to the elite Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes. Thirteen guns protected 200 000 pounds in capital for investment

70 ‗Yachting in Port Jackson‘, Australian Town and Country Journal. 71 ‗The Origin and Progress of Australian Settlement‘, Sydney Morning Herald. 72 Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, p. 6. 73 Janet Cusack, ‗The Rise of Yachting in England and South Devon Revisited, 1640-1827‘, Recreation and the Sea, Stephen Fisher (ed.), University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1997, pp. 103-106.

76 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 in the colony and Boyd held a royal warrant to establish the Royal Bank of Australia. The local newspapers had been reporting its imminent arrival for more than a year and the yacht was met with fanfare when it finally appeared in July 1842. The Sydney Harbour shoreline was crowded with onlookers, and her companion ship, Velocity, made her presence known by firing a salute in the Wanderer’s honour.74 Australian colonists with the necessary wealth and leisure began to import yachts after the 1850s. James Milson returned from England in 1855 with a 12-ton Cutter, Mischief. Another Sydney yachtsman, Sydney C Burt brought Presto, a shallow American centreboard yacht to Sydney, which then beat Mischief. The frames of an English yacht, Era were also imported and then built in the colony.75 Others like the Eclipse and Annie Ogle were built locally, but based on British designs.76 William Walker a solicitor and politician holding the Legislative Assembly seat for Windsor purchased a seventy-one ton iron-hulled schooner yacht named Chance in 1862.77 The yacht was registered with the Royal Thames yacht club in England, and a professional crew delivered her to Sydney in the first half of 1862.78 Chance was described as an English yacht of some celebrity and the Herald invited gentlemen with an interest in shipbuilding to inspect its lines when it was in dry dock shortly after arrival.79 Extracts from its log published in Hunt’s yachting magazine suggested that the Chance was faster than the clipper ships on the Australian run.80 The arrival of Chance, a large and prestigious yacht led to the establishment of the elite Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron one month later. Nineteen Sydney yachtsmen met in William Walker‘s office and signed a document inaugurating the new yachting institution initially labelled ‗Royal Australian Yacht Club‘. P. R Stephensen, who wrote the club history in 1962, explains that the use of Royal without proper sanction was considered presumptuous and soon dropped. Squadron was dropped for club, and Australian for Sydney. The following year, with a royal warrant the prefix was reinstated. Stephensen argued that the patronage, received less than twelve months

74 Marion Diamond, Ben Boyd of Boydtown, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, VIC, 1995, pp. 1-30. 75 ‗Sailing‘ Sydney Mail, 30 January, 1897. 76 P. R Stephensen, Sydney Sails: The Story of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s First 100 Years (1862-1962), Angus and Robinson, Sydney, p. 26. 77 Vernon Crew, 'Walker, William (1828–1908)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/walker-william- 4790/text7977, accessed 6 October 2011; Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 32. 78 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p.. 32. 79 ‗Ships‘ Mails‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 July, 1862, p. 4. 80 Chance log, 1 February, 1862, in Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 32.

77 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 after the club‘s first meeting was ‗a clear indication of the good standing of its members‘ and the increasing importance of the Australian colonies as units of the British Empire.81 The Prince Alfred Yacht Club established in Sydney in October 1867 catered for smaller boats and maintained an imperial connection. It was named in honour of Prince Alfred Duke of Edinburgh, the first royal visitor to Australia in HMS Galatea. Yacht clubs were established across the Australian colonies at around the same time, including the Port Phillip Yacht Club established in 1853, the Perth Yacht Club established in 1865, and the South Australian yacht club established in 1869, as well as numerous sailing clubs. The Sydney Amateur Sailing Club was formed in 1872, the St Kilda Sailing Club hosted races from the early 1870s, the Derwent Sailing Boat club was formed in 1880, and the Brisbane sailing club was formed in 1885. Many of these early sailing clubs would later become yacht clubs with royal warrants, but they did not claim such status when they were formed. The increase in sailing and yachting reflected trends in Britain. Roger Ryan notes that in the mid 1850s there were only twenty-two yacht clubs in the British Isles. This number had increased to sixty-four by 1874 as yachting developed as a more accessible form of recreation for the middle class.82 British symbols indicated the status of yachting as an elite sport in the colonies. John A. Daly notes that the yachts of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron were fitted out regardless of expense by owners determined to ‗emulate in spirit at least, the more ambitious aquatic contests of the mother county‘, and the various regattas in the colony were to the rules of the royal yacht clubs in England.83 As at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes, membership of many Australian yacht clubs was restricted by requirements for minimum size of yacht, and centreboard boats were excluded from some clubs. The clause that ‗no yacht used as a working boat, or which shall at any time be let for hire, or in the Opinion of the Committee of the club be otherwise unfit, shall be admitted to, or allowed to continue in the club‘ ensured the proper status of Sydney‘s yachts and their owners. Potential members

81 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, pp. 32-47. 82 Roger Ryan, ‗The emergence of Middle-Class Yachting in the North-West of England From the Later Nineteenth Century‘, Recreation and the Sea, Fisher, pp. 150-181. 83 Daly, Elysian Fields, pp. 130-131.

78 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 could be rejected by ballot and the rule that ‗one black ball in fife shall exclude‘, was also imported from the elite British clubs.84 Vice-regal and naval connections were also maintained through the elite yacht clubs. In 1887, Lord Brassey visited the Australian colonies aboard his yacht Sunbeam. The Sunbeam was enormous by the standard of colonial yachts, a luxury sailing schooner with auxiliary steam engine.85 Descriptions and illustrations of the yachts graced the pages of local newspapers. The Bulletin sardonically reported the arrival of the ‗millionaire Governor‘ saying that many people like to read about Lords‘ bedrooms and bathrooms.86 W.H. Bundey on the other hand, praised Lord Brassey and the ‗magnificent Sunbeam‘. He had seen the vessel on a visit to England, and during Brassey‘s 1887 visit. He referred to Brassey‘s patronage of the South Australian Yacht Club:

The members of the South Australian Yacht Club have good reason to remember, and they do remember with pleasure, the ―Sunbeam‘s‖ visit to Port Adelaide. They were treated with much courtesy and kindness by both Lord and Lady Brassey, and they have to thank Lord Brassey for his liberal generosity in presenting the Club with a handsome prize for competition by their yachts.87

Brassey was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes, civil lord of the Admiralty between 1880 and 1884 and its secretary between 1884-1885. Later in 1895, he would accept the position of governor of Victoria.88 Continuing the naval connection, a retired captain of the Royal Navy commanded the Sunbeam. As he travelled from port to port, Brassey spoke about the defence of the colonies, the Empire, and the bond shared between English speaking nations.89 In Victoria, he suggested that a naval reserve made up of yachtsmen should be formed as a strategy

84 Prince Alfred Yacht Club, General Rules, Sailing Regulations and Code of Signals of the Prince Alfred Yacht Club, Sydney, 1886, (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney); Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, Rules of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, Sydney, 1883, (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney). 85 ‗The ―Sunbeam‖‘, Illustrated Sydney News, August 15, 1887. 86 The Bulletin, April 4, 1887, p. 4 87 Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Year’s Yachting in Australia, p. xiv. 88 B R Penny, 'Brassey, Thomas (1836–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brassey-thomas- 5339/text8947, accessed 13 March 2012. 89 Captain S Eardly-Wilmot, Voyages and Travels of Lord Brassey, K.C.B., D.C.L. From 1862 to 1894, Longmans Green, London, 1895.

79 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 for defence.90 A yachtsman from Queensland, Thomas Welsby, recalled Brassey‘s visit to the Brisbane Sailing Club in 1887. The members welcomed Brassey and said that it was ‗a source of satisfaction to find one of the representative yachtsmen of England endeavouring to establish the fact that yachting is something more than a pleasant pastime‘. 91 The idea that yachting was useful to the nation also came from Britain. The private yachts of landowners and aristocrats belonging to the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes, England, performed ‗evolutions‘ and paraded in formation as a squadron under the signals of their commodore. Yachting was often justified as being in the public interest, improving naval architecture, and maintaining a reserve of skilled mariners in case of war.92 Sir Edmund Sullivan wrote in a popular volume on yachting, that: ‗One of the objects of the Royal Yacht Squadron, when it was originally founded, was to encourage seamanship‘.93 An English instructional book aimed at the elite amateur ‗Corinthian Yachtsman‘ published in 1881 summarised the higher purpose of yachting in its first chapter entitled ‗national sports‘. The author Tyrrell E Biddle linked yachting and seamanship to the power of the Empire:

Depending as Great Britain does upon its maritime supremacy for its position as a great power, it is of the first importance to encourage a taste for salt water among the population … Remember what Captain Marrgat said, ―The security of the Kingdom is increased by every man being more or less a sailor.‖ Which sentiment appropriately enough forms the motto of the Yachting Magazine.94

Yachting was described as a national sport in the colonies because it was a national sport in Britain. The Sydney yacht clubs replicated British traditions and celebrated its heritage. On opening days in Sydney, the yacht clubs would perform similar ‗evolutions‘ under the command of the Commodore. They would parade up and down the harbour, following a complex set of orders relayed by flag from the flagship. In 1877, the RSYS had no less than 1930 different signals included in the back of its

90 ‗Yachting in Victoria‘, Australian Town and Country Journal, January 7, 1888. 91 Thomas Welsby, History of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club, Watson, Ferguson and Company, Brisbane 1918, p. 184. 92 Cusack, ‗The rise of Yachting in England and South Devon Revisited, 1640-1827‘, Recreation and the Sea, Fisher, pp. 101-149. 93 Sir Edward Sullivan, ‗Introduction‘, Yachting, Longmans Green, London, 1910, p. 4. 94 Tyrrel E Biddle, The Corinthian Yachtsman, or Hints on Yachting, C Wilson, London, 1881, p. 2.

80 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 rulebook.95 The members were required to wear pseudo naval uniforms, blue coats with brass club buttons, and navy style hats. The Commodore and Vice-Commodore were distinguished by rows of bronze cord around each cuff. Royal patronage and the permission to fly the Blue ensign of the Royal Navy also gave the yachts of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron a semi naval status. The aspects shared of yachting and sailing culture across the Australian colonies in the 1880s, tended to be those more closely aligned with elite yachting culture and empire. For example the values shared by members of the ‗royal‘ yacht clubs allowed Lord Brassey to patronise yachting in South Australia, Victoria, and Queensland during his 1887 visit. Shared values allowed Bundey to present a report of his observations of yachting in Britain to the members of the south Australian yacht club, which was later published in his reminiscences. Intercolonial sporting competitions promoted rivalry between the colonies, but also necessitated cooperation.96 The establishment and organisation of intercolonial sailing was similarly weighted towards yachting in the nineteenth century. The Victorian yacht Janet travelled to Sydney to race the local yachts Magic and Waitangi in January 1887. The Illustrated Sydney News suggested that ‗no event has excited more general interest than the Intercolonial Yacht Race‘ held in January 1887. The article framed the competition within the European maritime heritage fostered in the Australian colonies. It continued:

It is hardly likely that the fascinations of yachting will ever pall upon a community who have more or less of the old Viking tendencies engrained in them, especially when all facilities for the full indulgence of the delightful amusement are so accessible.97

On November 15 1887, a picture of a large English racing sloop shortening sail before a squall was included in the Illustrated Sydney News. It again made the connection between that tradition, and the sailing tradition ingrained in the ‗national constitution‘. It described the way that the ‗Viking spirit‘ fostered the development of yachting and

95 Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, Rules of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, 1877, (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney). 96 Richard Cashman, Sport in the National Imagination: Australian Sport in the Federation Decades, Walla Walla Press, Sydney, 2002, p. 56. 97 ‗The First Intercolonial Yacht Race‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 15 February, 1887.

81 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 boating in the Australian colonies. The spirit of ‗British communities‘ was then seen from a colonial perspective. The description read:

THERE is always enough of the old Viking spirit about our British communities to keep the popular pastime of yachting in the fore-front whenever aquatic facilities offer. … Here the love of yachting and boating is engrained in the national constitution. From the festive urchin who paddles in the pond shallows at Moore Park, intent on piloting his toy craft successfully, to the lordly yachting Croesus who is a ―bright and shining light‖ in the Royal Yacht Squadron, all admire the sport and luxuriate in the pastime. On Saturday afternoons, your clerk or artisan hires his centre-board skiff, or heavier half-deck, and, Marchioness-like, ―makes believe‖ he is a yachting magnate.98

Yachting culture was prefigured within the context of British national identity. It became a national sport in the Australian colonies because it was associated with the general concepts of progress, prosperity and shared British heritage. This represented an old established sense of identity through race and maritime culture. It represented general ideas associated with nations and not just the Australian colonies. This meant that it could be negotiated and adapted as a national sport.

National types and the America’s Cup The America‘s Cup, a competition that took place far from Australian shores, also influenced the image of yachting in Australia as a national sport. It began as an adjunct to the Great International Exhibition in London, 1851, when an American schooner yacht named America sailed across the Atlantic to challenge the English yachts at Cowes. The English boats were defeated, and the long-standing challenge for the America‘s Cup was initiated. Paul James explains that alongside the Crystal Palace as a symbol of nascent modernity, the America‘s Cup became a symbol of the vigour of competitive capitalism and the surpassing of the old by a ‗new nation‘. The social and political changes that occurred at the time of the first race – the industrial revolution, rise of ‗official nationalisms‘, organisation of sport, and the extension of transport and communication – ‗were central to embedding the America‘s cup as tradition‘. It became a competition between nations that drew upon the aristocratic

98 ‗Racing sloop Yachts Shortening Sail Before a Squall‘, Illustrated Sydney News, November 15, 1887.

82 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 tradition while reformulating it.99 The race was also understood as a challenge between ‗types‘. The American type was designed differently to the traditional English yachts known for their shallow draught, wide beam and exceptional speed. The defeat was well represented in the Australian press and the Pride of the Sea, a clipper ship built by the designer of the America worked on the Australian run. Sydney residents were most interested in her revolutionary design as it was moored in Circular Quay in 1854.100 The 1888 histories of yachting identified the Sydney-built yachts Xarifa, Australian, and Alic as some of the first yachts of an ‗Australian-type‘.101 A local yachtsman Richard Harnett designed and built the Australian in the 1850s. The unique radical design was considered years ahead of its time, an example of colonial freethinking, vindicated by the science of yacht design in the 1880s. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote about the significance of the Australian:

This is a notable vessel, for she was constructed on lines altogether different from the then accepted form. Instead of the cod bow and mackerel tail, she was built on the principle of segments of a circle, and it is a remarkable fact that both in Great Britain and here the present accepted model approaches very closely to that curious machine which was 30 years ahead of the times.102

The story of the Australian also described the defeat of the imported English yachts in Australian waters. Bundey‘s correspondence from New South Wales considered the ‗progress of yachting‘ and listed a number of yachts that had been imported from the mother country, Inca, Katinka, Spray, Vivid and Chance, before stating that the Australian-type, Xarifa, had defeated them all.103 The story of an ocean race between Chance and Xarifa would become legendary in later accounts of Australian yachting where the colonial boat defeated the English yacht in America‘s cup like circumstances. Twentieth century authors, H C Dangar, P. R Stephensen, and Lou d‘Alpuget would tell these stories. But for now, yacht types appeared to be coming together. Reeks suggested that designers had ‗succumbed to the dictates of natural

99 Paul James, ‗The Ideology of Winning: Cultural Politics and the America‘s Cup‘, Power Play: Esays in the Sociology of Australian Sport, Geoffrey Lawrence and David Rowe, Hale and Iremonger Sydney 1986, pp. 136-139. 100 Frederick Garling, ‗Circular Quar‘, Watercolour, circa 1854, (Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (ML88). 101 Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, p. 6. 102 ‗The Origin and Progress of Australian Settlement‘, Sydney Morning Herald. 103 Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Year’s Yachting in Australia, p. 94.

83 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 laws and built accordingly‘.104 The Sydney Morning Herald conceded that scientific English designs were superior in 1888:

Still the local builders and designers have done good work, and both as regards speed and good workmanship in many, as boats built and designed in Sydney have held their own with imported boats. It must be admitted, however, that at present British designs are to the front…105

Nevertheless, yachting maintained a high status as an international sport where progress could be measured and compared. Victoria had invited yachts from around the world to compete alongside the international exhibition in an international regatta. It was a sign of colonial confidence even if a lone competitor from New Zealand represented the rest of the world outside of the Australian continent. Walter Reeks even travelled to America and England to prepare for an Australian challenge for the America‘s Cup funded by a group of Sydney yachtsmen towards the end of the centennial year.106 The campaign fell off due to lack of funding, but again, it demonstrated the strong links between yachting, national display, and colonial confidence.

Conclusion Public regattas reflected the working maritime culture of ‗British Jack‘ and the local traditions of Australian waterways, by the 1888 centenary celebrations. Both of these contributed to the status of sailing and yachting as ‗national sports‘ in New South Wales and other Australian colonies. Sailing was associated with civilisation and progress as an early recreational activity in Sydney. It took on a significant status through the Anniversary regatta, which associated sailing with the public holiday and popular celebrations of the colony. Yachting was a conspicuous display of wealth and leisure. Its status as a national sport came from imported traditions. In Britain, yachting was an elite sport associated with the State through the Crown and Royal Navy. As these traditions were replicated in the Sydney yacht clubs, the sport became a measure of civilisation and progress in the Australian colonies as well as their heritage and connections to the mother country. While this sense of progress was

104 Walter Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, pp. 6-7. 105 ‗The Origin and Progress of Australian Settlement‘, Sydney Morning Herald. 106 ‗Yachting in America‘, Advertiser, 27 December, 1888, p. 5; ‗Aquatics: The challenge for the America Cup‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 28 December, 1888, p. 9.

84 Sailing and Yachting in 1888 sometimes revealed in the celebration of local yachts, British traditions were more often shared between the colonies. The regattas of 1888 revealed three identities connected with sailing and yachting. A strong sense of colonial nationalism inherent in the regatta traditions and the histories of sailing and yachting published in Sydney. A burgeoning continental identity can be identified. Most colonies celebrated the centenary, and many with a regatta. Bundey‘s account of Yachting in Australia presented the progress of the sport in all colonies to a continental and international audience. Finally, British nationalism and empire provided an overarching logic to the ceremonies and traditions of sailing yachting and regattas across Australia. These different expressions of national identity were not mutually exclusive. They existed at the same time, and one naturally informed the other. The depth of these connections to different expressions of identity and the broad spectrum of social groups that the public regattas included from working boats to elite yachts, established strong foundations for the ongoing status of sailing and yachting in the Australian imagination.

85 Chapter 4 The Open Boat Legend

The Illustrated Sydney News described the view from the crowded decks of the flagship Australia at the 1886 Anniversary Day National Regatta. The commodious steamship of the Pacific mail service was lying with its broadside towards Circular Quay and the finely dressed ladies and gentlemen could survey the harbour scene resplendent with white sails and colourful bunting. The competitors‘ boats could just be seen in the background of the full-page illustration. It read:

Smaller points of brilliant bunting, intermingled with the white canvas on which they hung, and the boating suits of the crew below moved in a kaleidoscopic dance over the dark-blue water. Every class of boat had its representative present – the many types of sailing craft with their white clouds of swelling sail, in which the canvas dinghies – those dashing Arabs of our watery racecourse – challenged the competition of the stately yachts; and the trim, light, outriggers and gigs, in which deft skill and efficient training came out from the rowing-sheds to do battle for coveted honours.1

The canvas dinghies, ‗dashing Arabs‘ of the ‗watery racecourse‘ were unusual boats. Their hulls were clad in canvas that was stretched over wooden frames - a cheap alternative to cedar planking. They carried enormous sails for their size and no fixed ballast. A large crew were needed to counteract the force of the wind in the sails and balance the boat. A galvanised iron centreboard in the middle of the boat could be lowered once in deep water and this helped with stability and steering. As there was no deck to keep the water out, it was still possible to capsize if handled incorrectly, or simply be swamped with water and founder. But they maintained a great reputation. Naval architect Walter Reeks recalled his first impressions of a canvas dinghy on Sydney Harbour. The sails looked like those from a far larger yacht, and the boat was only just big enough to stay afloat. The small boat sailed past at speed and left Reeks stunned. He remembered:

The spectator sees something coming which impresses him that a five tonner‘s sails have got adrift and taken a jaunt on their own account, for as the thing approaches, naught but sails and spars are visible, but when it is abreast of him, he beholds a boat just big enough to seat and float her crew, with a boom

1 Illustrated Sydney News, 15 February, 1886, pp. 12, 14.

The Open Boat Legend

twice as long as herself, gaff as long, bowsprit about the same, and mast as if all other spars were added together (such is the first impression) tearing up the foam and water leaving a liquid wall a foot high above the lee gunwale and a sea off the quarters fathoms wide; it is gone, but ‗it passed so swift, scarce the eye could say that such a thing had been,‘ and he breathes again, and after ascertaining that he is awake and sober, realises that it was a real boat, and that such is the Sydney Amateur Canvas Dinghy Sailing.2

Open boats, centreboards, skiffs, or dinghies generally referred to small sailing boats with no deck. The sailing craft were derived from the working boats carried on the decks of all large ships, waterman‘s skiffs and fishing boats that plied their trade on the harbour. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, some open boats in Sydney had developed into a distinctive type of racing craft. The canvas dinghies that ‗challenged the competition of the stately yachts‘ were at the extreme of this ‗Sydney type‘. The Sydney Morning Herald’s account of sailing and yachting in 1888 identified the local characteristics of these boats in contrast to the imported yachts. The paper stated: ‗Our open boats are a type peculiar to ourselves, but our yachts hail from all parts‘.3 Walter Reeks confirmed that ‗centreboards are essentially the Sydney type‘ in his account of sailing and yachting on the harbour.4 The descriptions of the open boats in 1888 recorded the beginnings of an open boat legend that developed over the next two decades. Descriptions of sailing in Sydney Harbour continued to detail the spectacular and unique sailing qualities of these craft, as new sailing clubs appeared in the harbour-side suburbs of Pyrmont, Balmain and Woolloomooloo. At the same time, open boat racing became commercialised as a professional spectator sport and the image of Sydney‘s open boats became an icon of Sydney Harbour. Open boats remained a Sydney icon in the 1890s, but writers and popular historians of sailing and yachting have looked back to the open boats of Sydney Harbour as an ‗Australian‘ type. Daniel Hardie identified open boats and surfboats as the two examples of local boat design. He made a similar claim to the nineteenth century writers that: ‗yachting was to be the domain of imported technology while the local tradition survived in the open boats‘.5 Bob Ross identified ‗Skiffies‘ amongst a number of types in The Sailing Australians. The modern skiff of the 1980s could trace

2 Walter Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 31 May, 1888, p. 8. 3 ‗The Origin and Progress of Australian Settlement‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January, 1888. 4 Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘. 5 Daniel Hardie, Forgotten Fleets: Boats of Sydney in the Days of Sail and Oar, Australia Street Studio, Camperdown, NSW, 1990, p. 44.

87 The Open Boat Legend its heritage and institutions back to the open boats of the 1890s. The boats still had large sails, and enjoyed the reputation for exciting sailing, high speeds and spectacular capsizes. Their designs had changed by a process of evolution, and some of the same clubs such as the Sydney Flying Squadron, Sydney‘s oldest remaining open boat club, maintained the racing program over the sailing season. Ross looked back nostalgically to the old ‗roaring days‘ of sailing on the harbour. He wrote:

Skiff sailing began as a sport for the battlers of old Sydney town who couldn‘t afford the pleasures of yachting as practiced by the gentlemen. … For more than eighty years, the open sailing skiffs, treading a watery tightrope with gunwale only inches clear of the water rushing past, a cloud of sail overhead threatening to drive them under, have thrilled tourists and Sydneysiders alike. … There‘s certainly nothing like them anywhere else in the world.6

Lou d‘Alpuget described the open boat sailors of the 1890s as typical working men in Yachting in Australia. They were ‗wild headed waterfront characters – wharf labourers, out-of-season-footballers, slaughtermen, fishermen, professional boatsmen‘. He said that they had a natural talent for bravado, little consideration for maritime etiquette, drank beer, fought in brawls, and used obscene language. Only then was the statement qualified with the admission that there were some businessmen, and white-collar workers within the ranks.7 Open boat sailors took on the image of another archetypical workingman when they became ‗Bluewater Bushmen‘ in Bruce Stannard‘s account of Sydney‘s open boats. Stannard published a book of photographs of open boats from the late nineteenth century to the 1930s where he compared the open boat sailor to the bush worker. Bushmen were not found literally hanging off the side of an open boat, soaked in the spray of Sydney harbour, but the characteristics of open boat sailors were presented as those of their ‗country cousins‘. Stannard wrote:

In many ways the open boatmen might be described as bluewater bushmen. That may sound like a contradiction in terms, but in fact the rough and ready Sydney Harbour sailors did embody many of the characteristics which were so readily ascribed to their country cousins. Their courage and daring, their reckless have-a-go spirit, their rough language, their intense personal loyalty

6 Bob Ross, The Sailing Australians, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973, pp. 49-50. 7 Lou d‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia: Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Hutchinson Group, Richmond, Victoria, 1980, p. 152.

88 The Open Boat Legend

and mateship, their willingness to fight at the drop of a hat, their love of a sporting contest, their hard-drinking and their appetite for gambling all seem to confirm the relationship.8

By the time that Margaret Molloy wrote the history of the Sydney Flying Squadron in 1991, a century after its establishment, the story of Sydney‘s open boat sailors was firmly located in a narrative of national celebration. Molloy identified ‗typically Australian‘ characteristics in the open boat sailor of Sydney Harbour. ‗He‘ was framed by the ‗average Australian of 1890‘, a man, unsentimental, egalitarian and resentful of authority. Molloy described a working man who had fought to establish ‗a nation‘ in opposition to the ‗British stock‘ in manners and language, identifying dissent and irreverence in his unique character. She continued:

He had an inbuilt capacity to withstand discomfort and hardship and an abiding interest in physical pursuits. He was a different breed from the British stock from which he sprang. Even his language bore little resemblance to the mother tongue that spoke of ‗home‘ to the gentry. A hundred years of fighting to establish a nation, had given him an independence of spirit and the strength of character to support it.9

This chapter considers how a popular legend emerged out of the open boat culture of Sydney Harbour in the 1890s. It draws a comparison between the values and characteristics identified in legends of the bush and the bushman and those that were applied to open boat sailors. This chapter argues that the local and working class values identified in Sydney‘s open boat culture have made it possible to later romanticise open boats as ‗typically Australian‘. However, although the characteristics of the open boats and those who sailed them were set up in opposition to an established and inherited yachting culture, there was little evidence that the open boats were, or would become a national type. In the 1890s, open boat sailing was rarely imagined as a national legend, the boats remained a ‗Sydney type‘ and the working class aspects of the sport were rarely celebrated as such in the popular accounts of open boat sailing at the time.

Australian legends

8 Bruce Stannard, The Bluewater Bushmen: The Colourful Story of Australia’s Best and Boldest Boatmen, Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1981, p. 2. 9 Margaret Molloy, A Century of Sydney’s Flying Sailors, Sydney Flying Squadron, Milson‘s Point, 1991, p. 9.

89 The Open Boat Legend

Molloy and Stannard‘s descriptions of open boat sailors were reminiscent of the itinerant bush worker, described by Russell Ward in the Australian Legend.10 Ward‘s ‗typical Australian‘ was a bush worker, rough, ready, egalitarian, loyal to his mates, a heavy drinker and gambler, honest though irreverent. The Australian legend claimed that the characteristics of this bushman had come to define the ethos of Australian identity by the end of the nineteenth century. Ward identified the 1890s as an apotheosis where the up-country ethos of the bushman was adopted as the popular image of Australian identity. There were two driving forces behind this shift – the appropriation of the bush as an image of Australia by popular writers and the growth of trade unionism. Ward wrote:

Between 1880 and 1900 the slow evolutionary process by which the up- country ethos became the core of the national outlook was vastly accelerated by two events. One was the birth and rapid growth of the industrial trade union movement, the other the somewhat belated discovery of the bushman by accredited literary men.11

Legends of the bush were created in the art, poetry and literature of a mostly native born, urban, intelligentsia in the 1880s and 1890s. Artists in the Melbourne Heidelberg School of painters created images of bush life in a local Australian style. Catriona Elder has described the work of the Heidelberg artists: ‗they often focused on men at work in the bush. They painted scenes of pioneer life – building houses and fences – and bush industry – droving, shearing and farming. This was their story of the nation.‘12 Australian landscape painting is presented as an important story of place where Australian difference was recognised and represented through distinctive colour and light. Artists depicted a society that was seen as fundamentally different to European society.13 An Australian literary tradition emerged at the same time. Writers and cartoonists regularly published in the Bulletin adopted the bush as the setting for their stories of Australian characteristics. Richard White argues that in the bush legend that these writers created, ‗a basic distinction was made between the image of

10 Russel Ward, The Australian Legend, Oxford University Press, (second edition), 1966. 11 Ibid, p. 212. 12 Catriona Elder, Being Australian: Narratives of National Identity, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, 2007, pp. 189-193. 13 See: Anne Gray, ‗Art and the Environment‘, Australia’s Empire, Deryck M Schreuder and Stuart Ward (eds), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008, pp. 103-137; Chris Wallace-Crabbe, ‗The Escaping Landscape‘, Intruders in the Bush: The Australian Quest for Identity, John Carroll (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992, p. 158.

90 The Open Boat Legend

Australia created by Europeans, and that created by Australians themselves‘. The Bulletin writers openly rejected the old values of the British cultural establishment and that irreverence provided the starting point for the new image of Australia.14 Considering the contexts in which the bush legend was created has challenged the notion that this bush setting created Australian identity and exposed its status as ‗historical fiction‘.15 For example, Graeme Davison noted that the writers of the bush legend were mostly located in Sydney, in a ‗transitional zone‘ between the waterfront railway and central business district. The bush Legend was a ‗projection onto the outback of values revered by an alienated urban intelligentsia‘.16 Ironically, these new images of Australia remained trapped in European forms of representation; the idea of France or bohemia was one reference point for a revolt against the values of the cultural establishment and the invention of the bush, mateship and egalitarianism was another.17 Alternative legends can also be identified. John Hirst had argued that those who feel that Australia has not been made according to the bush legend should consider the other legends, stereotypes and symbols Australians have made or adopted.18 More recently, Richard Waterhouse has looked at the complex representations of the bush, and the changing relationship between urban and rural Australia that considers not one legend, but a number of Australian legends.19 The open boat legend provides a maritime context where stories of Australian identity have also been formed.

Local traditions The open boat legend of the 1890s was a legend of difference where open boat sailing was cast as a local tradition in opposition to the imported British forms and traditions of elite yachting culture. These were also found in an urban context. The working class culture of the harbour suburbs fostered the large crews, sails, relatively

14 Richard White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1981, p. 85, 92. 15 See for example: Graeme Davison, ‗Sydney and the Bush: An Urban Context for the Australian Legend‘, Intruders in the Bush, Carroll, pp. 109-130; Penny Russell and Richard White (eds), ‗Introduction‘, Pastiche I: Reflections on Nineteenth Century Australia, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards NSW, 1994, p. 3; Richard Nile, ‗Introduction‘, The Australian Legend and its Discontents, Richard Nile, University of Queensland Press, 2000, pp. 1-7. 16 Davison, ‗Sydney and the Bush‘, pp. 109-130. 17 White, Inventing Australia, p. 97. 18 John Hirst, ‗The Pioneer Legend‘, Sense and Nonsense in Australian History, Black Books Inc Agenda, 2006, pp. 174-196. 19 Richard Waterhouse, ‗Australian legends: representation of the bush‘, 1813-1913‘, Australian Historical Studies, volume 31, number 115, 2000 pp. 201-221.

91 The Open Boat Legend inexpensive boats, and exciting racing that came to be celebrated by some and criticised by others. The spectacle of small boats with large sails tearing recklessly across the harbour was woven into popular images of the waterway. Romantic stories of courage, daring, and manliness were associated with the image as it took great skill to avoid capsizing. This, combined with their distinctive design meant that the harbour itself was imagined as the place that fostered these manly qualities. Reeks described how open boats reflected the natural conditions of Sydney harbour in contrast to yachting culture:

Turning from the majestic and graceful yacht to the slippery, quick-motioned, excitement-giving half-deckers and open boats, we find them legion. They are a wonderful class of boats, and despite their faults, we have reason to be proud of the boats themselves in the first place, and the amazing skill which they are the means of imparting to those who sail them, in the second. Quickness of eye, agility of body, and strength of nerve are necessary in the highest degree; and probably in no other community are these essentials to good sailors more fully developed than amongst the small sailing boat fraternity of Sydney harbour. Some of the rivers with heavy tides, and short, choppy seas in England, and the very broad skimming dish in America, go far to produce the hanging out and ‗into her‘ style of sailing; but Sydney boys do as much sailing of that kind in a month as is done in other places in a year.20

The Herald’s account of sailing and yachting in 1888 noted the wonder expressed by visitors when confronted by the sight of Sydney‘s open boats. It read: ‗Open-boat sailing has long been a feature of the harbour, and much wonder has been expressed by visitors at the craft with enormous sails and no other ballast but the line of men hanging out on the weather gunwale‘.21 The American circumnavigator Joshua Slocum, who arrived in Sydney Harbour in 1896 during his three-year voyage of the world, described the boats that he saw on the harbour. Slocum wrote: ‗The typical Sydney boat is a handy sloop of great beam and enormous sail-carrying power; but a capsize is not uncommon, for they carry sail like Vikings‘.22 An article entitled ‗Yacht types in Australian waters‘ in Southern Cross described yachts and open boats, suggesting that the Sydney sailor is wed to his ‗shallow centreboard of the old

20 Walter Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, Illustrated Sydney News, pp. 7-8. 21 ‗The Origin and Progress of Australian Settlement‘, Sydney Morning Herald. 22 Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World, Sheridan House, New York, 1954, (circa 1898- 1900), pp. 170-172.

92 The Open Boat Legend skimming dish model‘.23 ‗Tom Tug‘ recommended that the visitor to Sydney sail an open boat in an article in Australian Country Life, provided he was not afraid of ‗semi immersion‘ and ‗moderately violent exercise‘. The ‗Yachtsman‘s guide to Sydney Harbour‘ published in a yachting magazine told its readers that to many Sydney men sailing consists of hanging out over the side of an open 22-footer. The open boat sailor could see nothing but the ‗plunging sail‘ above, and a ‗green foaming abyss beneath‘. As the water came tearing along, ‗he wonders for five seconds whether he is still above the water, or whether he should strike manfully out for the shore‘.24 The 22-footer was the iconic open boat of Sydney Harbour in the 1890s. It was the most popular type and stunned visitors to the city. The 22-footer embodied all the characteristics – big sails, large crews, and exciting sailing – that were seen in open boats ranging from the small six-foot canvas dinghies up to the big 26-footers. An account of ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘ in the Evening News, described the 22- footer, and placed great emphasis on the local builders and colonial timbers. It read:

The 22-footer is a marvellous production of the local builders and designers. Built of half-inch red cedar, with bent hickory or spotted gum ribs and keel, stem and stern-post of hardwood, she is, and must be, a triumph of strength combined with lightness.25

Stuart Allen, a visitor from a neighbouring colony, described the ‗marvellous 22- footer for which Sydney is so justly renowned‘ in 1899. A young open boat sailor from Balmain had invited Allen on a trip down the harbour on a Saturday afternoon. The 22-foot boat was just over 10-foot wide, with an 18-foot bowsprit, 36-foot mast and 35-foot boom, an enormous rig for the size of the boat. The terrifying sailing experience, which included being sat upon by the crew of human ballast, nearly falling overboard, and watching the ‗Disher‘ constantly bail water out of the open hull was enough to convince Allen to catch the ferry home from Manly. After the experience Allen concluded: ‗I could not help admiring the wonderful pluck and seamanship of those young fellows in that 22-footer, and I think the Sydney lads deserve the reputation they have of being the finest boatmen afloat‘.26

23 Reginald Mallory, ‗Yacht Types in Australian Waters‘, Southern Cross, 12 December, 1898, p. 31- 35. 24 ‗Yachtsman‘s Guide to Sydney Harbour and its Neighbourhood‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 19 December, 1896, p. 2. 25 ‗Lanyard‘, ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘, (number 4), Evening News, 16 November, 1907. 26 Stuart Allan, ‗A Trip in a 22-Footer‘, Southern Cross, 1 October, 1899, pp. 405-408.

93 The Open Boat Legend

Readers who were interested in open boat sailing were alerted to an interesting display in the aquatic columns of a Sydney sports newspaper, the Referee, in November 1892. A one-third model of a 22-foot centreboard fishing boat made by local boat-builder George Barnett could be viewed in a shop window in the Royal Arcade, Pitt Street. The seven-foot model boat destined for the Chicago Exhibition was built entirely out of colonial timbers, cedar, rosewood, Huon pine, and Tasmanian Blackwood. The sailing and yachting correspondent, ‗Backstay‘ wrote: ‗She should prove an interesting exhibit, and it will show our American friends what can be done here in the way of boat building‘. The display revealed the close connections between the local waterway, working maritime culture, and open boat sailing. George Barnett also built race winning 22-footers for Sydney‘s open boat sailors.27 In contrast to open boat sailing, yachting embodied mobility and a shared culture in the 1890s. The relative wealth of yacht-owners made it possible to send their vessels to race in another colony, they could import vessels from abroad, and the wealthiest of international yachtsmen could cruise around the world. In November 1890, yachtsmen from a number of the Australian colonies met to discuss intercolonial racing at the Australian Intercolonial Yachting Conference. As the 1891- 1892 sailing season began, the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron proposed a set of universal rules for intercolonial yacht racing competitions, which included a requirement to carry a royal warrant.28 One month later, as the yachts of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron opened their sailing season on the harbour, the White Heather, an enormous yacht of the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes was moored under the shadow of Government House in Farm Cove. It was part way through a leisurely circumnavigation of the world. Illustrations and descriptions of the vessel, the bedrooms and bathrooms, marble bathtubs and commodious saloons filled the pages of the local papers, very much as they had done when Lord Brassey had arrived in the Sunbeam. But some of the most newsworthy of yachting events during the nineteenth century referred to yachting beyond the shores of Australia. Illustrations and descriptions of yachts belonging to the British aristocracy, as well as the German Emperor‘s yacht Meteor, could be seen in the Sydney Mail and Illustrated Sydney

27 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 23 November, 1892. 28 Sydney Mail, 12 September, 1891.

94 The Open Boat Legend

News. The contests between these craft were reported in the daily papers and Australian colonists were kept up to date with the racing in Cowes and the news from the Royal Yacht Squadron.29 The America‘s Cup, an event that took place far from these shores, and the means of Australian yachtsmen, dominated the ‗Aquatic‘ pages of the colonial newspapers when it took place. The Australian Town and Country Journal claimed that ‗a great deal of interest has been taken in the international contest for the America Cup‘. Illustrations of the American yachts Vigilant and Pilgrim were printed alongside the English challenger Valkyrie in 1893.30 Open boat culture was generally less mobile and more local. The unique qualities of Sydney‘s open boats became problematic when intercolonial competitions began to be organised. Some of Sydney‘s ‗crack‘ 24 and 22-footer sailors raced each other for the right to represent the colony against a challenge from Hobart sailors in 1893. ‗Derwent rules‘ were adhered to and the boats that may have carried twenty or more crew were restricted to six hands.31 The challenge failed when it was discovered that the Derwent boats were too different to the Sydney half deckers for fair competition. The Sydney Mail reported:

From what we hear of the Hobart Champion, Viking, she seems to be more like out our 2½ raters [small yachts] than our half deckers. … In smooth water our 28 and 22 footers are too much for a boat of this class.32

Intercolonial races between the 22-footers of New South Wales and Brisbane were eventually established with the aid of discounted travel and freight. But the differences rather than the similarities between the boats were highlighted in the local newspapers. The Brisbane Courier reported that the Sydney boats wore tremendous spreads of sail and carried large crews, compared to the smaller sails of their local boats.33 A report from one of the Sydney competitors, published in the Daily Telegraph and reproduced in the Brisbane Courier, said that the boats were similar, but then described the differences in rig and design in detail.34

29 Dee for example: ‗Yacht Racing Prospects in 1894‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 August, 1894, p. 5. 30 ‗The America Cup‘, Australian Town and country Journal, 14 October, 1893, p. 28, 40. 31 ‗Backstay‘, Referee, March 29, and April 5, 1893; ‗Sailing Notes‘, Sydney Mail, 1 April, 1893. 32 Sydney Mail, 5 April, 1893. 33 ‗Tell Tale‘, ‗Aquatic Carnival‘, Brisbane Courier, 19 March, 1894, p. 5. 34 J Fitzsimmons, Brisbane sailing carnival report, Daily Telegraph, quoted in: ‗Intercolonial Sailing Races from a Sydney Point of View‘, Brisbane Courier, 3 April, 1894, p. 7.

95 The Open Boat Legend

This was not unique to Australia. Open boats and small working boats were more likely to be sailed on the one waterway and to reflect the local conditions of that place. Henry Coleman Folkard described the sailing boats of the British Islands in his treatise on sailing boats from around the world in 1906. He said that for a sailing boat to be serviceable, it ‗must be adapted to the waters and locality in which it is to be employed‘. North-country cobles were contrived to meet the dangers of navigation on the north east coast. Long shallow open yawls were employed off the shoals and shallow sands of Yarmouth. Similar to Sydney‘s open boats, the seamanship displayed by the ‗hardy, fearless class‘ who sailed the fast Yarmouth salvage yawls apparently astonished visitors. The boats had distinctive features; Folkard explained that they were up to sixty feet long with three masts and that their ballast stored in bags would be thrown overboard on approaching the beach so that they could be carried up and away from the surf quickly.35 The centreboard that characterised Sydney‘s open boats first became popular in American waters. A centreboard was like an unweighted keel that could be raised and lowered. Folkard explained that by raising the centreboard the boat might be sailed in shallow water, whereas a deep-keel boat would have to wait for the tide.36 Centreboards were developed in fishing and trading craft adapted to the shallow waters of Chesapeake Bay, Albemarle Sound, and numerous inlets up and down the east coast of America. The centreboard and shallow hull then became a feature of American yachts as well as smaller working boats.37 ‗Sandbaggers‘ were American working boats from Boston. They were similar to the open boats of Sydney, being shallow wide centre-boarders, with relatively large sails, but instead of carrying a large crew, a moveable ballast of sandbags were shifted from side to side during races. It took some time for a local type to emerge in Australian waters. Sailing boats initially reflected a shared maritime culture across the port cities when the crews of visiting ships would compete in regattas and sailing matches in the ship‘s boats – small open boats and half-deckers – carried on the decks of large vessels. Similar boats raced in the first regattas in Hobart Melbourne and Sydney before yachting was established as a pleasurable pastime. By the mid nineteenth century, the boats of local

35 Henry Coleman Folkard, Sailing Boats from Around the World, Dover Publications, Mineola NY, 2000 (circa 1906), pp. 15, 52-53. 36 Folkard, Sailing Boats from Around the World, pp. 168-169. 37 Douglas Phillips-Birt, The History of Yachting, Elm Tree Books, London, 1974, p. 37.

96 The Open Boat Legend maritime workers, watermen, and fishermen were beginning to reflect the local conditions. As pearling increased in Darwin, for example, the pearling luggers were said to have revived the annual Darwin Regatta during the 1890s as the ‗most exciting event of the day‘.38 In Victoria, the design of the ‗Couta boat‘ was determined by the local conditions. This type of boat was designed for Barracouta fishing, but they were also used for a variety of commercial purposes. Some were hired for pleasure cruises on the bay, and others were converted into private yachts. Couta boats had enough deck area to deal with rough seas without being ‗swamped‘ with water, and a manageable sail plan that two crew could handle as well as a distinctive hull shape.39 The open boat legend identified the working boats of Sydney as the historical antecedent to the open boats of the 1890s. A special Sailing supplement in the Sydney Mail claimed that ‗genuine centre-board open-boat sailing‘ became one of the attractions of sailing on Sydney harbour in the late 1860s. Before this, most open boats had deep keels. Racing between amateurs and professionals developed in the fishing boat class that used a single drop centreboard.40 ‗Lanyard‘ suggested that deep-keeled working boats ‗gave way‘ to smaller open boat and skiffs of the 22-footer type in the 1860s and 1870s. The account of ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘ read:

Now, the sailing boats of the sixties were deep-keeled 16 and 22-footers, without deck or half deck, which carried big lead ballast and big crews … They were undoubtedly dangerous boats, and they gave way to the 16 foot dingey, the 22-foot skiff, and the 24-foot so-called fishing boat, all centreboarders.41

Looking back, Lanyard romantically described the early open boat sailors as the ‗Bohemians of boating‘ who were distinguished from yachting culture by hard driving traditions. The description drew on a strong sense of place where the men were shaped by the local environment and characterised by their lack of social grace. The pretensions that characterised yachting, revealed in the strict rules that maintained class and respectability in the royal yacht clubs, were apparently absent in the open

38 Northern Territory Times and Gazette, August 28, 1896, quoted by Melissa Hammond, ‗Against the Wind: The Tradition of Regatta Day in the Northern Territory until 1911‘, Journal of Northern Territory History, number 9, 1998, p. 48. 39 ‗The Couta Boat‘, Australian Register of Historic Vessels, Australian National Maritime Museum in association with Sydney Heritage Fleet, www.anmm.gov.au/arhv/, accessed 28 January 2012. 40 ‗Sailing‘, Sydney Mail, January 30, 1897. 41 ‗Lanyard‘, ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘, (number 1), Evening News, 11 October, 1907.

97 The Open Boat Legend boat sailors who gave no indication of the social position of their parents. Lanyard wrote:

On board the Kingfisher, the Sea Breeze, the Coryphene, the Wyvern, the Sylvia, and others of the class, you met a lot of pleasant, jovial, reckless, young fellows, who formed a delightful camaraderie of their own. Burnt brown by the sun, their faces roughened by exposure to the weather, barefooted, careless in their attire, they gave no indication of the social position their parents occupied. They ran their boats harder than the yachts were run; they loved the open sea, and many a fight with the elements was won only through their skill, pluck, and determination.42

Some of the most exciting racing was found in the old 24-footers. Big fleets sailed mostly by professional skippers would beat down the harbour and run home with square sails set. Lanyard noted the characteristically big sails and the ever-present possibility of capsize: ‗There was no restriction to sail area, and the possibility of catastrophe was always imminent‘. 43 R H Goddard described aspects of skill and daring seamanship displayed Sydney‘s open boat races during the 1870s in A Century of Yachting. He quoted a Sydney sailor, John Want who remembered an open boat race in a black nor‘easter in 1878. A sense of manly skill and adventure associated with the open boat legend can be read in the description. Want remembered:

At the lightship the crew of the Wyvern with every stitch of canvas set – mainsail, huge square sail and topsail – and in almost a gale of wind, manfully jibed their boat. As the huge mainsail swung gracefully over, the long squaresail boom slid out as if by magic, and without a tremor or bucket of water, she bounded off on the other tack as if nothing had happened. It was the most magnificent thing I have ever seen done and reflects credit on every man who had a hand in it. The honour and glory of it was but poorly recompensed, for about a quarter of a mile further on, between Shark Island and Chowder, the immense press of canvas drove her clean under, sent her crew into the gutter and fifteen heads bobbing up and down like the corks of a net were all that remained of the stately little barkie that had come so manfully through the worst of the wind…‘44

The open boat boom

42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 John Want quoted in RH Goddard, A Century of Yachting: Record of a Great Sport 1837-1937, no date.

98 The Open Boat Legend

Open boat sailing boomed in Sydney in the 1890s with the appearance of a number of new sailing clubs catering for open boat sailors in the harbour-side suburbs of Balmain, Pyrmont, and Woolloomooloo. ‗Great interest‘ was taken in the first event of the Johnstone‘s Bay Sailing Club on January 4, 1891 and it was said to have caused ‗a revival of sailing around that part of the harbour‘.45 From the 1890s to the 1930s, Johnstone‘s Bay, located in the middle of the working harbour, between Balmain and Pyrmont, remained at the centre of open boat sailing in Sydney. The East Sydney Sailing Club was formed earlier in the same season, catering for the private and hired boats from Woolloomooloo to Rushcutter‘s Bay. Existing clubs that catered for open boats, such as the Port Jackson Sailing Club and the Balmain Sailing Club also continued to thrive during this period. Yachting stagnated at the same time. For two seasons running, the opening ceremonies of the yacht clubs were met with less than enthusiastic support. ‗Only‘ nine yachts turned out for the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron‘s opening ceremony for the 1890-1891 sailing season, and ‗Backstay‘, writing for the Referee suggested that yacht owners ought to do their best to attend with their boats the following Saturday for the opening manoeuvres of the Prince Alfred Yacht club.46 The following season ‗Backstay‘ reported that only eight out of twenty-three yachts were present for the Yacht Squadron‘s opening ceremony, suggesting that it ‗does not say much for the interest taken in the Squadron by the respective yacht owners‘.47 The boom in open boat sailing was localised, concentrated in working class suburbs of Sydney next to the harbour. The Balmain, Johnstone‘s Bay and Port Jackson clubs met in the suburb‘s hotels, and their boats sailed from its bays and boatsheds .The maritime suburbs were the homes of shipwrights, boat-builders and sail makers, and watermen. Frank Broeze noted that some seamen who had embarked on long ocean voyages as crew were likely to settle down in harbour-side maritime trades.48 Bruce Stannard described his grandfather Henry Stannard, as a highly skilled professional open boat sailor. Henry was born in London, the son of a Thames waterman. He sailed twice to Sydney in ships of the Royal Navy before returning to

45 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 31 December, 1890; ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 7 January, 1891. 46 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 1 October, 1890. 47 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 14 October, 1891. 48 Frank Broeze, Island Nation: A history of Australians and the Sea, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards NSW, 1998, p. 203.

99 The Open Boat Legend the harbour as a waterman and boat builder.49 Jacky Robinson, the father of, a famous twentieth century open boat skipper, moved his family from Pyrmont, where he worked, to Balmain in 1888. During the 1890s, Jacky‘s week revolved around the working harbour. He would row across Johnstone‘s Bay to work during the week, and then sail a 22-footer on the weekends.50 ‗Chris Webb‘, a famous open boat skipper who raced for nearly fifty years from 1891 worked as a night watchman for Sydney Ferries Limited.51 James Middleton lived in Pyrmont. He was a quarryman by trade, but also a part time Mail Officer. Middleton would sail a 22-footer Violet singlehanded, to collect the mail at Sydney Heads and deliver it to the city while the mail boat proceeded to quarantine. He then sailed 16-foot open boats on the weekend.52 Open boat culture was shaped by the social structures of these waterside suburbs. Balmain was a relatively genteel suburb, where working class residents were more likely to own their homes, and be in stable employment than in other working class suburbs of Sydney.53 Mort‘s Dock, in Balmain was the colony‘s largest private firm, and employed skilled maritime workers such as ship builders, repairers and engineers.54 It was also an important site of working class politics in New South Wales.55 The first Labour Electoral League was established in Balmain in 1891, and all four Labour candidates nominated in Balmain that year won their seats.56 This contrasted with the unstable casual work available to wharf labourers on the ‗Hungry Mile‘ near Darling Harbour, or the life of nomadic seamen living in boarding houses in The Rocks.57 In other respects, the working class residents of Balmain were likely

49 Stannard, Bluewater Bushmen, p. 4. 50 ‗Sailing in the Twentieth Century‘, Interview with Wee-Georgie Robinson, in Tony Stephens and Annette O‘Neill, Larrikin Days: 100 Years of Growing Up in an Australian Suburb, Nicholson street Public school Parents and Citizens Association, Balmain, 1983, pp. 27-32. 51 Chris Cunneen, ‗Webb, Chris‘, The Oxford Companion to Australian Sport, Wray Vamplew, Ian Jobling and Katherine Moore (eds), Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1992, p. 377. 52 Sydney Amateur Sailing Club Historical Committee, The Amateurs: A documentation of the first 100 years of sailing on Sydney Harbour as seen by Sydney Amateur Sailing Club 1872-1972, Sydney Amateur Sailing Club, Sydney, 1972 p. 130. 53 R W Connell, and T H Irving, Class Structure in Australian History: Documents, Narrative and Argument, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1980, p. 189. 54 Max Solling and Peter Reynolds, Leichhardt on the Margins of the City: A social History of Leichhardt and the former municipalities of Annandale, Balmain and Glebe, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1997, p. 122; pp. 137-138. 55 Connel and Irving Class Structure in Australian History, p. 131. 56 Solling and Reynolds, Leichhardt on the Margins of the City, p. 139. 57 Winifred Mitchell, ‗Home Life on the Hungry Mile: Sydney wharf Labourers and their Families, 1900-1914‘, Labour History, Number 23, November 1977, pp. 86-97; Charlie Fox, Working Australia,

100 The Open Boat Legend to share a sense of common identity through the collective ethos of unionism and labour politics. Margo Beasley argues that unions provided a sense of community for wharf labourers in the nineteenth century.58 Winifred Mitchell‘s study of home life at the ‗Hungry Mile‘ found that the union provided picnics and holiday amusements for members.59 Connell and Irving also identified the close-knit nature of suburban working class communities. They cited open boats amongst working class sports such as dogs, trotting, and football. The pubs, sports and the press built up the supportive local networks on which class action was based‘.60 Class struggle between capital and labour also underscored the social and cultural fabric of Australia in the 1890s. The Maritime strike was as a turning point in Australian history.61 Frank Broeze identified the strike as the biggest and most dramatic yet seen in Australia that occupies a special place in Australian history and mythology.62 Stuart Macintyre identified the strikes as divisive. He argued: ‗An illusion of harmony gave way to open antagonism as the two sides faced each other across the barricades of class warfare‘.63 The strike originated from a dispute between shipowners, and officers over freedom of contract. This was different from previous union activity as the issue of union membership itself overshadowed the usual issues of pay and conditions that had dominated union activity. The effect of the strikes was felt far beyond maritime Australia as sympathetic unions soon showed their support. The general strikes included most of Australia‘s transport industry and many rural workers, especially represented by the shearers union. A widespread sense of class- consciousness and collective solidarity were seen in the strikes that signalled a shift in industrial relations. Although the strikes were unsuccessful, they pre-figured the entry of organised labour parties into Australian politics. The bush legend reflected these broader class divisions in Australian society. The archetypal bushman was set up in opposition to the establishment and British capital in the political cartoons published

Allen and Unwin, North Sydney, 1991, p. 63; Frank Broeze, ‗The Seamen of Australasia‘, Push from the Bush, Number 10, September 1981, pp. 78-105. 58 Margo Beasley, Wharfies: A History of the Waterside Workers’ Federation of Australia, Halstead Press, Rushcutters Bay, NSW, 1996. 59 Mitchell, ‗Home Life on the Hungry Mile‘, p. 90. 60 Connell, and Irving, Class Structure in Australian History, p. 189. 61 See: Mellissa Bellanta, ‗16 August 1890 The Maritime Strike Begins: On Utopia and ―Class War‖‘, Turning points in Australian History, Martin Crotty and David Roberts (eds), University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2008, pp. 74-86. 62 Broeze, Island Nation, p. 206. 63 Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, (second edition), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, p. 124.

101 The Open Boat Legend in the Bulletin. ‗The Labour Crisis‘ published during the maritime strike in the 1890s depicted a capitalist, ‗Mr Fat Man‘ opposed by a trim manly rural worker.64 The trend of suburban working class communities towards cooperation in the face of the economic depression and industrial action was reflected in the collective nature of the open boat clubs. The membership fees for the Johnstone‘s Bay club were low, and all sailing crew were required to join. A report of the club‘s first race in the Referee stated that its principles were similar to the Port Jackson Sailing Club, ‗every man who sails in a race having to be a member of the club, the subscription being merely a small sum‘.65 Most other open boat clubs maintained this membership standard.66 The large number of crew carried by the open boats meant that many members could share relatively few sailing boats. The East Sydney club was formed with 12 boats belonging to about 250 paying members. The big crews for each boat meant that they could then carry the large sails that they were so renowned for. Open boat clubs also catered for hired boats, which allowed professionals, and those who could not own their own boats to participate in sailing. The Johnson‘s Bay club claimed that it would hold a race for any class of dinghy if sufficient numbers join.67 The prominent object of the club was described in an early history. It was:

…to encourage best and best racing in all classes, to remove the distinction that up to then had existed between hired and privately-owned boats, and to place amateur and so-called professional boat sailors on the same footing.68

This object was based on the standard set by Port Jackson Club. The Sydney Mail remembered ‗it was in this club that the hired boats were first brought into racing prominence, with the result that to-day the hired and private boats meet on an equality‘.69 The Sydney Mail also commented on the boost to boat hire associated with the establishment of the East Sydney club. The club was to embrace the private and hired boats of Woolloomooloo and ‗increase the wholesome craft which are now built for letting-out purposes‘.

64 Livingstone Hopkins, ‗The Labour Crisis‘, Bulletin, 16 August 1890 in Nick Dyrenfurth and Marian Quartly, ‗ ―All the World over‖: The transnational world of Australian radical and labour cartoonists‘, Drawing the Line: Using Cartoons as Historical Evidence, Richard Scully and Marian Quartly, Monash University ePress, Clayton VIC, 2009, Fig 6.11. 65 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 7 January, 1891. 66 ‗Sailing Notes‘, Sydney Mail, 1 November, 1890. 67 ‗Sailing Notes‘ Sydney Mail, 3 January, 1891. 68 ‗History of the Clubs‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 26 January, 1898, p. 14. 69 ‗Prospects of the New Sailing Season‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 September 1894, p. 10.

102 The Open Boat Legend

Open boat racing attracted spectators from the beginning of the1890s boom, which also fostered professionalism. The spectacle of open boat sailing, previously associated with regatta days and the ‗fishing boat‘ class, now became a regular event. Week after week, reports in the local press would include comments on the ‗large amount of interest‘ taken in the Johnstone‘s Bay races and matches and detailed descriptions of the matches would appear in the aquatic columns. Spectators could watch the races from steamers hired by the clubs, or from the shore. One report in the Referee commented on the popularity of the club in 1891. It stated: ‗The Johnstone‘s Bay Sailing Club races attracted a large amount of interest judging from the number of spectators both ashore and on the steamer following‘.70 The ‗disappointment‘ of spectators when steamers did not arrive the previous week was also noted. Two steamers were chartered in 1892 for the opening race of the Port Jackson Sailing Club, and the visitors from Balmain and Pyrmont were disappointed when one of them failed to arrive.71 The steamers were important to the economy of the clubs, the revenue from the Johnstone‘s Bay Club steamer, ‗packed to her utmost carrying capacity‘, one Saturday in 1892, was said to have exceeded the prize money.72 Gambling was part of the grass-roots culture of sport in the Australian colonies. John O‘Hara argues that betting and gaming were entrenched in colonial culture by the 1880s. Sporting contests including ‗boxing, pedestrianism, sculling, yachting and cricket‘ provided plenty of opportunities for betting as well as horse racing. The economic depression during the 1890s reduced working-class opportunities for material advancement, and betting provided the opportunity of a large return from a small investment.73 Richard Waterhouse also argues that gambling was integral to the culture of the working classes. It was a ‗―rational‖ recreation, based on a detailed study of the form‘ that provided entertainment, relief from work, and a small chance of rich gains.74 Betting was closely associated with open boat sailing as a working class sport. Sweepstakes races for all classes of open boats from eight to 24-feet were a regular feature of the season‘s sailing calendar. Private matches between the harbour‘s ‗crack‘ professional sailors were also organised

70 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 18 March, 1891. 71 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 25 February, 1891. 72 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 30 November, 1892. 73 John O‘Hara, A Mug’s Game: A History of Gaming and Betting in Australia, New South Wales University Press, Kensington NSW, 1988, pp. 68-74, 93-94. 74 Richard Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture Since 1788, Longman, South Melbourne, 1995, p. 82.

103 The Open Boat Legend through the Johnson‘s Bay club. A challenge would typically appear in the Referee, and the parties would then meet at a local Balmain pub, where the terms and wager would be set. This could sometimes be a large sum of money, up to £100. The gambling was not limited to the sailors, but also to the spectators. In a letter to the Referee, an influential member and patron of the Port Jackson Club explained the importance of gambling to the economy of open boat sailing. In order to pay out adequate prize money to professionals, the public must be attracted to the sport. ‗Ladies and other casual visitors‘ must be able to make up sweeps, enjoy the day and ‗pay over their little gambling debts‘.75

Popularising the open boat legend Recent histories of open boat sailing place great attention on another open boat club established in Sydney in the early 1890s, the Sydney Flying Yacht Squadron (later Sydney Flying Squadron). This club sought to further popularise open boat sailing when it was formed in 1891, and professionalise competitive sailing on the harbour as a business venture. Its founder Mark Foy, and his older brother Francis were entrepreneurs. Together, they established a retail shop in the name of their father ‗Mark Foy‘s‘ on Oxford Street in 1885, and gained a reputation for shrewd and innovative business. The store was known for its competitiveness and low prices that attracted a working class clientele, particularly during its highly anticipated Mark Foy‘s Fair sales.76 Francis was also a popular turf identity who imported racehorses and sent mares to stud in France.77 Mark Foy‘s venture in open boat racing thus combined the entrepreneurial and sporting interests of the brothers. Foy identified an economic opportunity in open boat racing. Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz note that substantial middle class interests promoted professional sport in the late nineteenth century making a return on gate sales. This laid the foundations for the social and economic development of sport.78 Foy publicly criticised a perceived lack of public interest in general sailing and yachting in the lead-up to

75 Mark Foy, letter to the editor, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 11 February, 1891. 76 Michael Lech, 'Mark Foy's', Dictionary of Sydney, 2011, http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/entry/mark_foys, viewed 28 January 2012. 77 G P. Walsh, 'Foy, Mark (1865–1950)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/foy-mark-6367/text10721, accessed 28 January 2012. 78 Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, One-Eyed: A View of Australian Sport, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards NSW, 2000, pp. 68-70; Also see: O‘Hara, A Mug’s Game, pp. 94-102.

104 The Open Boat Legend beginning his new club. In a manifesto, simply entitled ‗Sailing‘, Foy made his case. He wrote:

Really now! – What a very tame milk and water – what a very uninteresting sport the sailing programme of a Regatta is! Some interest may, perhaps be centred in the appearance (so majestic) of the big yachts; or, perhaps, a little excitement may be fanned into the spectator over the appearance of a fleet of boats at starting; but as regards to the progress of a race, the many and various clever manoeuvres of the boats to weather or outsail each other, or the excitement that should attend a finish – all these things are lost in the fathomless depths of indifference. Who cares who wins when no one knows?79

The problems with sailing from a spectator‘s point of view were numerous. Foy complained that for much of the race boats were out of sight and mixed up with other pleasure boats, so that it was nearly impossible for the spectator to distinguish them. For example, the Johnstone‘s Bay ‗Manly course‘ involved sailing the length of the harbour to Manly at its north, then rounding Pinchgut off Bennelong Point, and returning to Johnstone‘s Bay to finish. Similarly, when races were competed under handicap, spectators and sailors would often have to wait for the Monday newspaper to discover which boat had won. Foy wrote ‗I heartily pity the utterly miserables who frit away their day‘s holiday imprisoned on a flagship‘.80 The solutions to this perceived problem were ingrained in the rules of the Sydney Flying Squadron. The rules were presented in an imaginary future conversation between a ‗Melbourneite‘ and a ‗Sydneyite‘ in Foy‘s pamphlet. The Sydneyite explained the success of the new ‗Australian Rules‘ to his Melbourne counterpart: ‗Oh, yes, we have turned old fossilised boating rules topsy-turvy as regards to regattas, although we have still the old family pleasure boat, and our new Australian Rules have awakened what was dead in boating‘. All boats were to receive their handicap at the start of the race. The handicapped starts meant that spectators and competitors could instantly identify the winning boat at the end of the race. The first to cross the finishing line was declared the winner. The sailing course was a short triangle, from Garden Island to Pinchgut, Mosman Bay, Clark Island and return, and three heats were to be sailed in an afternoon of racing. The short courses meant that the whole race could be observed from a single point on the harbour, and a number of

79 Mark Foy, ‗Sailing‘, Pamphlet, (Mitchell Library, state Library of New South Wales, Sydney) circa 1891. 80 Ibid.

105 The Open Boat Legend heats could be seen in a day. Boats were to finish before the wind, with the largest and most spectacular sails set. Finally, boats were to carry coloured sails, with each alternate cloth being dyed a bright and distinctive colour so that the spectator could instantly and easily identify them. The ‗Australian rules‘ were for the benefit of the sport-watching ‗public‘. Foy‘s imaginary conversation continued:

Well, you know, everything that is comes from the public, and the public are to be first considered. If the sport is well patronised every little trouble will find its solace. The yachtsmen are more than satisfied by the enormously enlarged prize money, which makes a professional yachtsman‘s position a very enviable one – for, as in a few years back, they only had a miserable recompense for years of experience – their services are now besought by all, and £10 for even a losing race is far from an uncommon thing; boats are always kept in better order and the demand for new boats and sails makes a boat-builder‘s and sailmaker‘s life a happy one. As for the crews, they are satisfied, they have good turnouts, and my eye, how they do put on frill before the many gentle eyes that watch their gallant seamanship – why a clever yachtsman is quite a hero in a lady‘s eyes.81

Foy envisaged ‗thousands‘ of spectators, paying a small fee to witness the racing from Clark Island. Potential prizes of up to £100 were considered possible. Drawing a comparison to horse racing, Foy argued that popularising open boat sailing was in the interests of the boating industry. He continued:

The public it is who pay Tom Corrigan, the trainers, and the jockeys, who in our amusement or sport are represented by the men who keep and let out boats, the sailmakers and boat-builders, all of whom eke out a bare living, while horsey men make money by handfuls and spend it like princes…82

The new sailing club would be run in a similar way to the proprietary pony racing clubs that emerged at the same time in the 1890s. The proprietary clubs were private companies run for profit and based on gambling, which attracted a working class audience and contrasted to the gentlemanly values of thoroughbred racing.83 Foy‘s attempts to promote sailing as a popular and professional spectator sport built upon the structures established by the existing open boat clubs. The image of large sails, crews and spectacular sailing was sold to an audience who could watch and gamble

81 Ibid. 82 Ibid. 83 O‘Hara, A Mug’s Game, pp. 103-104; Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, p. 79.

106 The Open Boat Legend on the outcome. This venture also served to commercialise the image of the open boats. Foy‘s manifesto, and the creation of his new club were radical in their challenge to the yachting and sailing establishment. The coloured sails symbolised working class dissent and irreverence, a break from tradition, and a waning dominance of yachting culture over recreational sailing. The prize money and gambling represented working class independence as no patronage from the yachting fraternity was required to maintain the sailing events. To call an open boat a ‗yacht‘ and a professional sailor a ‗yachtsman‘ was disrespectful to the established elite traditions of the yacht clubs, which maintained their status by debarring such boats that were hired out, with moveable ballast and open decks. The Referee, perhaps mistakenly, added the prefix of ‗Royal‘ to the Sydney Flying Yacht Squadron when reporting of the establishment of the harbour‘s newest sailing club, further adding to the insult.84 The opening ceremony of the club also appeared to mock the pseudo-naval yachting traditions. The open boats were to preform a series of evolutions under the command of ‗Commodore Foy‘, and parade their coloured racing sails for all to see. Due to strong winds, the evolutions had to be cancelled. The Herald reported on the official opening and registered its distaste for the ‗disfigured‘ sails:

The official opening of this new club took place on Saturday last, but for various reasons was anything but a success. It was intended that the boats should be put through evolutions under the direction of the Commodore, but owing to the high westerly wind blowing, these were not carried out. Eight boats, viz., Kanaook, Volunteer, Grace Darling, Violet, Ghost, Cygnet, Regina, and Flyaway, turned up with their usually snow white sails disfigured by coloured designs, Some painted, others with coloured cloths, and if the opinions expressed on Saturday are taken as a criterion, these disfigurements of the sails will certainly not become popular.85

Later reports of the club‘s first races contained less criticism of the coloured sails, and more curiosity regarding the future success of the new ideas. Other papers reported the Sydney Flying Squadron events, and appeared relatively optimistic for the future success of the club. The papers could not afford to be too critical of a club that sought to popularise sailing, and potentially increase the readership of the aquatic columns.

84 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Sailing‘, Referee, 14 October, 1891. 85 Sydney Morning Herald, 19 October, 1891.

107 The Open Boat Legend

The two regattas of 1892 Two regattas, the National Regatta and the alternative Australian Regatta held on Anniversary Day 1892, illustrate the polarisation of sailing cultures represented by the yachting establishment and the Sydney Flying Squadron. The official 1892 National Regatta followed familiar patterns similar to the Centenary Regatta four years earlier, and the long tradition of regattas before that. In the lead up to the day the Referee reminded its readers that the regatta had always been ‗the most important means of celebrating the anniversary of the colony‘.86 Yachts, rowing boats, and sailing boats, competed in a number of events on the Harbour. The Sydney Mail reported that the 5500-ton Oriental, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company was flagship for the day, decorated stem to stern in bunting, with a number of spectators ‗equal to any previous regatta‘. The Referee also reported ‗a large number of visitors, who seemed to take great interest in the events‘. The warships in the harbour and the vessels at the wharves were also decorated for the day. Eminent gentlemen, the Mayor, Alderman Manning, flanked by the Governor, Lord Jersey, and Admiral Lord Charles Scott as well a list of public men toasted the Queen and the Governor, and celebrated the success of the colony. A better day for sailing could not have been wished, and the press declared the regatta a general success.87 None of the boats of the Sydney Flying Squadron boats were permitted to enter because the National Regatta committee banned boats with coloured sails from competing. The imposition of the controversial ruling can be traced through the reports of the Committee meetings, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the weekly Sydney Mail. In December, 1891 the Herald reported a preliminary meeting of gentlemen interested in holding the Anniversary Regatta: ‗A notice of motion was given through the chairman to add a rule prohibiting the use of coloured sails or coloured designs on the sails of competing boats‘.88 Despite appeals from a deputation of interested boat owners, and suggestions from the press that the committee might settle the matter by putting a race on the card for these boats, the motion was not rescinded.89 The ruling excluded open boats that raced with the Sydney Flying

86 ‗National Regatta‘, Referee, 28 January, 1891. 87 ‗The National Regatta‘, Sydney Mail, 30 January, 1892; ‗Backstay‘, ‗National Regatta‘, Referee, 27 January, 1892. 88 Sydney Morning Herald, 1 December, 1891. 89 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December, 1891; ‗Aquatics‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 2 January, 1892.

108 The Open Boat Legend

Squadron. However, as the same boats were known to sail with a number of open boat clubs, the ban had broader implications for the Sydney open boat community. Supporters of the coloured-sails boats, which included the committee member from the Johnstone‘s Bay Club, protested that the ruling excluded at least 600 men from the regatta.90 To ban such a large section of the sailing community from the Anniversary Regatta was without precedent. Social divisions were well established and formalised within the sailing community, but the Anniversary regatta was a public event, traditionally open to all Sydney harbour sailors. Through the annual regattas, gentlemen committee members, who often belonged to the exclusive yacht and sailing clubs had usually displayed their patronage towards working class sailors through the programme of events. The ruling against coloured sails represented the shift in the social structure of sailing in Sydney after the establishment of the new, and increasingly independent, open boat clubs. Prize money was gleaned from spectators and gambling as opposed to the philanthropy of colonial gentlemen and working class sailors no longer relied upon the patronage of the wealthy and the elite. An outraged Mr Hornman, on the 1892 National Regatta Committee, was reported as saying ‗that the coloured sails were the sign of a club the object of which was to introduce gambling into boat racing‘. He suggested that ‗at all future regattas an effort should be made to debar the men who supported the opposition regatta from entering‘.91 Cooperation was replaced by conflict. This was the first time that the authority of the regatta committee was met with open defiance. In protest of the ban on coloured sails, 57 boats of the Sydney Flying Squadron, joined by 26 sympathetic open boat crews from other clubs, formed the Australian Anniversary Regatta.92 Open boats from eight to 26-feet in length competed in well-contested handicap events that were ‗remarkable for the number of capsizes‘.93 While the programme of the Australian Regatta was limited, the large crews of the open boats meant that more sailors competed in the Australian event. The Illustrated Sydney News reported that the ‗National‘ had about 520 competitors in their rowing and sailing events, while the ‗Australian‘ drew 670 competitors in their seven sailing races. The paper optimistically suggested that: ‗The strength of the boating classes and the supporters

90 Sydney Morning Herald, 7 January, 1892. 91 Ibid. 92 Sydney Morning Herald, 27 January, 1892. 93 ‗Australian Anniversary Regatta‘, Sydney Mail, 30 January, 1892.

109 The Open Boat Legend of aquatics of Sydney Harbour can be gauged by the result of the rival Anniversary Regatta held on Tuesday last‘.94 The Australian Anniversary Regatta was deemed a great success by the Sydney newspapers. Eight hundred visitors watched the sailing races from the flagship, the Cintra and they were also joined by Alderman Manning, who appears to have been present at both events.95 A further 2000 spectators witnessed the various events from Clark Island. The Referee reported that ‗the entries were numerous, and the racing afforded a great amount of amusement‘.96 The coloured-sails boats were not banned from any subsequent regattas and the image of an insignia on the sail of an open boat remained an important mark of an open boat from Sydney harbour.

Conclusion It has been easy for public historians and yachting journalists writing about the open boats in the 1980s and 1990s to romanticise the irreverence and dissent of the Sydney Flying Squadron as ‗typically Australian‘ in a similar way to the types made up by the bush legend. In the history of the Flying Squadron, Molloy sets up the division between open boats and yachting culture in the two 1892 regattas: ‗In 1892 The Anniversary Day Regatta committee reinforced the derision of the Establishment yachtsmen towards coloured sails…‘ The Australian regatta was then presented as a brave and successful protest.97 Stannard‘s account of the open boat sailors as ‗Bluewater Bushmen‘ also links Foy to irreverence and dissent. He wrote: ‗In typical fashion, Mark Foy retaliated by running a rival function, which was so successful that in the following year the Squadron boats were allowed back‘.98 Mark Foy is also cast as the purveyor of Australian values despite being a wealthy businessman. Molloy described Foy as an egalitarian man: ‗Mark was a forthright, determined Australian who believed in the rights of the individual to be whatever his talents dictated‘.99 D‘Alpuget cast Foy as a rebel against the British ‗establishment‘. He wrote:

It was he [Foy] who first thought of carrying coloured symbols on the mainsails instead of identifying numbers … in his younger days Foy had

94 ‗Aquatics‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 30 January, 1892. 95 ‗Australian Anniversary Regatta‘, Sydney Mail, 30 January, 1892. 96 ‗Backstay‘, ‗Australian Anniversary Regatta‘, Referee, 27 January, 1892. 97 Molloy, A Century of Sydney’s Flying Sailors, p. 12. 98 Stannard, Bluewater Bushmen, p. 13. 99 Molloy, A Century of Sydney’s Flying Sailors, p. 11.

110 The Open Boat Legend

rebelled against the yachting establishment and by threatening to run rival functions (he held one in 1892), had bludgeoned the committee of Sydney‘s Anniversary Regatta into accepting the entries of his squadron‘s boats, in spite of the outlandish coloured signs on their sails.100

But in contrast to these romanticised descriptions, the popular legend where Sydney became famous for its apparently unique sailing craft was the result of efforts to popularise and professionalise the sport. This was a selfish attempt to promote the sport, and make money in a commercial venture, not an attempt to define any Australian characteristics. Attempts to promote open boat sailing as ‗Australian‘ sport were limited in the 1890s context to a few comments about their local characteristics and Foy‘s label of ‗Australian Rules‘. The gradual shift in the profile of open boat sailing as a national pastime that revealed Australian characteristics happened later, after Federation and in the context of new images of nation. The real power of the open boat legend came from the characterisation of open boat sailors as the ‗battlers of old Sydney town‘ and ‗wild headed waterfront characters‘, placing them within the trope of the ‗working man‘. Catriona Elder argues that ‗ the valorisation of the manual labouring working man as the quintessential Australian … has played a large part in shaping stories of what it means to be Australian‘. The working man represented the apparently unique and positive characteristics of Australian identity. Those who were not manual labourers could take on the characteristics of working men in a story of egalitarianism.101 The open boat sailors of Sydney Harbour have become ‗Bluewater Bushmen‘ because both the sailor and the bush worker have become icons of the working man, not because there was a direct link between the harbour side workers and their ‗country cousins‘. Writers looking back on open boat sailing have identified the working class characteristics of open boat sailing as evidence of ‗Australian‘ culture for two reasons. Firstly, the local Sydney traditions fostered in the 1890s have taken on new meaning where that which is ‗local‘ has been identified ‗Australian‘, particularly in contrast to imported cultures such as yachting. Secondly, the open boat legend has become a story about values as well as place. The open boat legend has become an archetype for imagining an Australian sailing culture in contrast to established yachting culture in the 19th century. The white-collar workers that joined in the

100 D‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, p. 152. 101 Elder, Being Australian, pp. 40-46.

111 The Open Boat Legend predominantly working class sport of open boat sailing that d‘Alpuget‘s identified in Yachting in Australia could be imagined as more ‗Australian‘ than the yachting gentlemen that Ross described in contrast to the open boat sailors in The Sailing Australians. So when Australian yachtsmen, funded by an extremely wealthy businessman, won the America‘s Cup in 1983, the sailors were again typified as mates, working men, and larrikins. The open boat legend is a strong story of Australian sailing. The danger is that the process of imagining the open boats as ‗Australian‘ also ignores much of Australian sailing culture in the late nineteenth century. For all the popularity of the open boats in the 1890s, there was also significant resistance. Not all spectators were enamoured with the crews heaped upon the gunwale below an enormous cloud of canvas and what this might say about Australian society.

112 Chapter 5 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers

The Anglo-Australian Shield displayed in the clubhouse of Sydney Flying Squadron on the north shore of Sydney harbour could have been the sailing equivalent of the Ashes urn, or an Australian version of the long running America‘s Cup contest between England and America. The ‗hideous trophy‘ was created in 1898 for a challenge between Irex, an iconic 22-footer from Sydney Harbour, and the Maid of Kent, a fully decked centreboard sloop from the Medway Yacht Club near London. Had Irex won the contest, the story would be remembered as yet another example of Australian sporting success. It would have been a watershed moment like Australian sculler Edward Trickett‘s world championship on the Thames in 1876 or the cricket test victory in 1882.1 But the English challenger convincingly defeated Irex in the first three of five planned matches. So instead of a grand legend of Australian sporting success, the story of Irex and the Maid of Kent is remembered as a curious anecdote in the histories of Sydney‘s open boats.2 Lou d‘Alpuget revealed the ‗peculiar circumstances‘ in which Mark Foy, Commodore of the Sydney Flying Squadron acquired the shield for the club in Yachting in Australia. Foy was in England on a business trip where he was apparently boasting about the sailing qualities of the Australian boats when his friend James Macken purchased the old 22-footer, Irex in Sydney and sent it with all of its equipment to Foy in London. D‘Alpuget explains Foy‘s enthusiasm for the boat:

Foy was inordinately proud of the boat and ignored the fact that Irex was badly strained, leaked like a basket, had sails that were stretched out of shape, and was of a hull form that had long been superseded. He challenged the British to put up a boat for a match race against Irex…3

1 Richard Cashman, Sport in the National Imagination: Australian Sport in the Federation Decades, Walla Walla Press, Sydney, 2002, pp. 106-107; J L Stewart, 'Trickett, Edward (1851–1916)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/trickett-edward-4747/text7885, accessed 22 September 2011. 2 Lou d‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia: Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Hutchinson Group, Richmond, Victoria, 1980, pp. 152-154; Bruce Stannard, The Bluewater Bushmen: The Colourful Story of Australia’s Best and Boldest Boatmen, Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1981, p. 14; Margaret Molloy, A Century of Sydney’s Flying Sailors, Sydney Flying Squadron, Milson‘s Point, 1991, pp. 13-15. 3 D‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, p. 152.

Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers

The ‗English‘ agreed to challenge Irex on River Medway near London and nominated the Maid of Kent. Newspaper articles reveal that that boat was built specifically for the race and although the two boats were about the same length, they were vastly different designs. The Maid of Kent was half the weight of Irex, carried roughly half as much sail and a small crew of six in contrast to the minimum of twelve needed to balance the Sydney 22-footer. Mrs Maud Wyllie, wife of the head of the syndicate that owned the English boat would skipper it. Foy replied that he would hesitate to defeat a lady but accepted the challenge nonetheless. D‘Alpuget explained the defeat, revealing how the English sailors had outclassed ‗Foy and his crew of live ballast‘:

If the poor deluded fellow had made a few inquiries he would have learned that there was no need for pretty speeches. Maud Wyllie was not only one of the best helmswomen in Europe but also few men were her equal on the tricky tidal waters of the Medway. She gave Foy and his crew of live ballast, who were requited largely from Australians living in England, with little sailing experience, a dreadful drubbing. Maid of Kent won by 10m 53s, by 3m 25s, and by 22m. Irex blundered around the courses. Only in the second race, on one windward leg, when she led at one rounding mark, did she show any promise.4

After graciously accepting defeat, Foy asked for a rematch. Back in Sydney, he had a small yacht similar to Maid of Kent constructed and then shipped to England where further rules for the Anglo-Australian trophy were debated. For various reasons the challenge was not accepted by either the Medway club or any other British yacht club. Some accounts refer to a letter from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron stating that the challenge from Foy was not made with their approval, thus preventing the yacht clubs from accepting. D‘Alpuget mentions another rumour that English yachtsmen were fearful that Foy would bring a crew of professional Australian sailors to handle his boat, and that the English would not accept a challenge that they might lose. Letters sent between Foy and his friend James Macken suggest that a more pragmatic dispute over whether the contest should be sailed on the tidal waters of the Medway or the more open waters of the Solent prevented further challenges.5 Eventually after five years, and apparently under pressure by King Edward VII, the shield was sent to the Sydney Flying Squadron in default, and Foy maintained on his deathbed that his

4 Ibid, p. 154. 5 Letters quoted in Molloy, A Century of Sydney’s Flying Sailors, pp. 14-15.

114 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers new boat would have defeated the English in reasonable circumstances. The Shield now stands as a permanent memorial to Foy as founder of the club. The story of Irex and the Maid of Kent has developed into a story of how the Australians challenged the British establishment, and were robbed of the chance of victory. D‘Alpuget noted that ‗over the years a series of baseless legends has grown about Foy‘s efforts‘. He says that ‗old timers‘ standing before the historic trophy relate the stories their fathers told them about the acquisition. Many of these included far-fetched stories of how the English may have cheated in the initial event or were too fearful of defeat to stage another race. Bruce Stannard describes the story in the Bluewater Bushmen, where Foy is presented as ‗a brash and boastful man‘ proud of the ‗great open boats‘ who ignored the fact that Irex was past her prime and that he was defeated in an old boat with an inexperienced crew. On the subsequent challenge Foy was ‗sunk by the Australian yachting Establishment‘ who advised the English clubs that he was ‗an-upstart Sydney draper‘ without the support of the yachting community.6 The account in Margaret Molloy‘s history of the Sydney Flying Squadron also refers to Foy‘s ‗tremendous confidence in the boats which were sailing at the Squadron‘. Although Irex was an old boat, ‗Foy remembered her as a former champion of Australia. He immediately issued an open challenge to British yachtsmen to race him.‘7 But in the 1890s, the yachting press viewed the defeat of Irex differently. The matches between Irex and Maid of Kent took place amidst bitter debates concerning the safety, seaworthiness, and suitability of Sydney‘s open boats. The open boat represented an underlying concern about progress and modernity, it implied that Australians were backwards and behind the ‗rest of the world‘. This chapter explores a paradox of Australian sailing history. The interpretation of open boat culture as uniquely Australian makes it easy to present the challenge between Irex and Maid of Kent along national lines, much like challenges for the America‘s Cup. However, open boats did not reflect desirable Australian characteristics in 1898. They challenged, and were challenged by, a middle class sailing culture that did not celebrate all that was local and national in Sydney‘s open boats. This chapter considers the criticism of Sydney open boat culture published in a new aquatic magazine, the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist towards the end of the 1890s, and

6 Stannard, The Bluewater Bushmen, p. 14. 7 Molloy, A Century of Sydney’s Flying Sailors, pp. 13-15.

115 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers the promotion of a respectable keelboat in its place. It argues that the ‗modern type‘, a small decked-in keelboat represented by the Maid of Kent and other English and American designs, were more compatible with an image of Australian progress and modernity than the open boats that represented the ‗antiquated‘ features of Australian culture. Irex was already cited as an example of the failings of open boat design in the ‗Yachtsman‘s Guide to Sydney Harbour‘ published in 1896. While the guide recognised the craft as a popular Sydney type, the authors could not understand why. They wrote:

Comfort lieth not in a twenty-two-footer. See Irex smashing to windward against a black nor‘-easter – there is nothing more beautiful in this world; but see her mainsheet man five seconds too late in the jibe round Bradley‘s, and you will get a fine view of that famous boat‘s bottom, which is beautiful, no doubt, but better out of sight. Why the centreboard skimming-dish has attained such a popularity in Sydney, we cannot understand. Wet, easily capsized, expensive to buy and maintain, we doubt if they have even the saving virtue of extreme speed.8

The main objections were based the need for a large and thoroughly trained crew and the inherent risk of capsize. The Guide warned ‗a single duffer may easily capsize her if he gets mixed up with the mainsheet or spinnaker‘. One could never dare go single- handed and there was the constant fear of a sudden hard puff of wind. It maintained that the finest 22-footers of Sydney harbour were dangerous in any hands other than those of a consummate seaman.9 When Irex was defeated for a third time in England, the Australian newspapers quoted criticisms from ‗yachtsmen‘ that Irex was an ‗antiquated type, unsuitable for sailing in English waters‘.10 One article in the South Australian Register quoted a well-known English yachtsman who stated that beyond a little excitement the race served no purpose. Another yachtsman said that from a colonial point of view the matches were an ‗unmitigated failure‘ and that altogether English yachtsmen were not impressed by the Sydney-type of craft with its open

8 C McLaurin, and W L Hunt, ‗The Yachtsman‘s Guide to Sydney Harbour and its Neighborhood‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 19 December, 1896, p. 2. 9 McLaurin and Hunt, ‗Yachtsman‘s Guide‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 19 December, 1896, p. 3. 10 See for example: ‗International Yacht Race‘, South Australian Register, 19 September, 1898, p. 5; ‗Yachting‘, West Australian, 23 September, 1898, p. 5; ‗Yachting‘, Advertiser, 23 September, 1898, p5; ‗Irex v. Maid of Kent‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 September 1898, p. 5.

116 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers decks, large sails and live ballast.11 An editorial in a new Australian yachting magazine, the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, printed a scathing criticism of the open boats. It noted the ‗caustic criticism on Irex passed by the outspoken yachtsmen of the old country‘, but warned that ‗before we burst into a storm of indignation‘ we should consider what our ‗friends‘ mean when they call Irex an ‗antiquated type‘. The editor claimed:

We are so accustomed to being told by our own politicians that we are moving at the forefront of modern civilisation, that it comes as a somewhat rude and sudden shock to find that an independent outside opinion is not altogether disposed to agree with such a dictum. …Now, the English saw in Irex a broad, shallow boat with great square centre-board and plumb stem and stern, no overhang, huge unwieldily sail-area and a colossal crew. She possessed every quality that they consider wrong in a boat, and that has long been abandoned elsewhere but here is it therefore to be wondered at that they call her antiquated? Against her they put a fleet little craft of modern design, moderation everywhere, in sails, kites, centre-board, beam, depth, and overhang; and, to crown all, they seem to have felt so sure of victory that they allow a woman to sail her. … It was a battle between a modern type and one that has retained the qualities abandoned by the rest of the world nearly twenty years ago; and of course the modern type won. The fact is that we are years behind the times; let us do something to get up with them again, and do not rest quietly on our conservative oars.12

Any sense of national pride inherent in the editor‘s comments was not revealed in support for Foy‘s challenge, but in a sense of embarrassment that the challenge took place. Alternatively, the small decked-in keelboat represented the ideals of restraint and moderation in modern design. This was the type of boat that Australian ‗yachtsmen‘ were encouraged to develop in order to ‗get up‘ with the rest of the world. These ideas were informed by broader debates in colonial society that concerned class, morality, and nation.

Yachting and morality Yachting and sailing maintained the status of a special sport in the 1890s. This was not only because it was closely associated with narratives of national progress as revealed by the regatta tradition, but also because of the imagined moral values that accompanied the sport. W H Bundey was an outspoken supporter of the physical and

11 ‗Yachting‘, South Australian Register, 29 October 1898, p. 11. 12 ‗An Antiquated Type‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 1 October, 1898, pp. 1-2.

117 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers moral benefits of yachting. His reminiscences of yachting and sailing in 1888 celebrated their ‗health giving advantages‘ and ‗manly qualities‘. It was a ‗noble‘ and ‗unselfish‘ pastime, a ‗panacea for worry‘ and ‗more than ―mere amusement‖‘. He believed that ‗in yachting pure and simple there is nothing but what tends to give a man strength of mind and body, two necessary qualifications for the battle of life‘.13 In 1894, Bundey addressed the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron, with a talk entitled ‗Intellectual and Physical Advantages of Yachting‘. This was published three years later over a number of issues in the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist.14 Here, Bundey claimed that yachting had ‗an intellectual status beyond most other amusements‘. He systematically considered the physical benefits of a number of sports, including horseracing, football, rowing and cricket, but only yachting could be followed from early youth to old age. It promoted intellectual development in the learning of seamanship, and moral values in the responsibility for one‘s crew. The natural solitude of the sea provided an experience of sublime power not felt in other sports. Bundey argued:

…the yachtsman constantly experiences the sublimity and power of one of nature‘s grandest forces, when he escapes for a time from the petty smallness and irritation of daily life. … It is generally admitted that all the British outdoor sports tend to manliness of character … and in none more so than yachting.15

Underlying Bundey‘s support of the ‗advantages‘ of yachting was the subtle fear of moral and physical decline in the Australian environment. Bundey cited a contemporary argument proposed in a British medical journal that the ‗manly vigour‘ of the British race might deteriorate in the Australian climate. Doctors and physicians were concerned about the effects of the antipodean environment on the British body. Warick Anderson writes that physicians feared that the climate ‗sapped the race‘s reserves of energy, caused blood to deteriorate, and unbalanced the nervous system. By the late nineteenth century, these ideas were aligned with public debates about morality and citizenship: ‗Once primarily an environmental discourse, with some moral overtones, medical science by the 1880s had come mostly to provide a

13 W H Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-five Years' Yachting in Australia, E S Wigg and Son, Adelaide, 1888, pp. xi-xiii. 14 W H Bundey, ‗Intellectual and Physical Advantages of Yachting‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist June 5, 1897, to June 26, 1897. 15 Ibid, pp. 6-7.

118 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers vocabulary for discussions of civic responsibility and social citizenship‘.16 The restorative qualities of yachting became a moral imperative. Bundey argued that the sea and yachting were natural remedies for the danger of physical decline: ‗it is no use shutting our eyes to the fact that our climate does tend to relax one‘s vigour, and there is no pastime in my opinion so well calculated to restore it than yachting‘.17 The Sydney Mail feature on ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, published in 1897, maintained a similar perspective. The large illustrated supplement reviewed the history of sailing in Sydney, interviewed old yachtsmen, the ‗Ancient Mariners‘ of the harbour, described cruising grounds, and accounted for the current state of the sport. Sailing was elevated to a special status as a ‗natural and national sport‘ above other popular pastimes because of the qualities that it was thought to instil in participants. These moral features of sailing and yachting were highlighted in the qualities of amateur competition. The supplement began:

Of the many pastimes in which men indulge there are very few which effect so much direct and indirect benefit to the participant as the pursuit of sailing. And this for many reasons. The Cricketer acquires knowledge of a game which to him is of direct physical benefit, but knowledge of cricket does not serve the emergencies of life. The footballer develops his physique, learns quickness of eye and movement, and control of temper, and, if the discipline under which he plays is a proper one, attains the benefit which comes of all discipline. The tennis player gains physical dexterity, and acquires a pleasant recreative exercise; but there are no specially useful lessons to the man and the citizen. With the sailing man and the yachtsman it is otherwise. … As a yachtsman he must be always prepared for emergencies, always ready to make good the damage weather or accident may cause, always resourceful. And this quality and habit of ―handiness‖ is one that once acquired sticks to its fortunate possessor through life, and comes to his aid in emergencies and conditions. … Then there is the sociability and goodfellowship which yachting involves when it is conducted by amateurs and with amateurs. The wholesome emulation and rivalry, the laudable ambitions, the keen pleasure of contest which brings victory, and the determination to persevere when the contest has brought temporary failure, are all wholesome features of yachting. … Nature contemplated when she made these deeply indented bays that men who dwelt on their fringe should utilise them to their full, and corrective can there be to the enervation of a tropic clime than the invigorating life of the sailor‘.18

16 Warwick Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, VIC, 2002, pp. 23-26, 69. 17 Bundey, ‗Intellectual and Physical Advantages of Yachting‘, p. 6. 18 ‗Sailing‘, Sydney Mail, January 30, 1897.

119 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers

A complex set of moral values, broadly consistent with the rise of middle class and respectable cultures in the nineteenth century, underpinned these attitudes towards yachting. Lawrence James argued that in the Victorian age, the middle class dominated British society. With a ‗compelling faith in its own capacity to make the world a cleaner, healthier, more secure and better-educated place,‘ the British middle class built infrastructure and civic amenities. It embarked on massive programmes of regeneration and modernisation and enhanced the image of Britain as a progressive and civilised nation.19 The middle class similarly directed the construction of a modern Australian nation towards the end of the nineteenth century. For example, John Hirst details the progressive moral ideology that underpinned Federation in 1901 as a ‗sacred cause‘ pursued by middle class politicians and public men.20 For Linda Young, ‗gentility‘ was a product of control and discipline that prescribed the correct way for the middle class to behave. The middle class at once yearned for aristocratic culture and yet moralised it as decadent and unproductive.21 James suggests that the middle class cultivated an image of itself as more useful and morally superior to the aristocracy whist looking towards it for guidance in manners and taste.22 This begins to explain why yachting, traditionally an aristocratic pastime, was attractive to middle class yacht sailors like Bundey. The ‗noble‘ sport was steeped in elite British traditions now maintained in the colonies. Middle class attitudes also underpinned his justification of yachting as a ‗useful‘ sport that improved the character of participants through ‗moral and physical advantages‘ through its ‗distinctly elevating and refining influence‘. In Australia, moral reforms were evidence of respectability in society. Richard Waterhouse identifies the growing religiousness of Australian society from the 1830s; demonstrated through movements for Temperance, Sabbatarianism and rational recreation. These were moral movements promoting self-control by abstaining from alcoholic drinks and work on Sundays, and directing control over the body through exercise. Waterhouse argues that in their quest for status and definition men and women who considered themselves respectable appropriated these values associated with evangelical attitudes. A religious and moral campaign was now ‗used to advance

19 Lawrence James, The Middle Class: A History, Little Brown, London, 2006, pp231-233. 20 John Hirst, The Sentimental Nation: The Making of the Australian Commonwealth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000. 21 Linda Young, Middle-Class Culture in the Nineteenth Century: America, Australia and Britain, Palgrave, Hampshire, 2003, pp. 4-5; pp. 14-15. 22 James, The Middle Class, p. 4.

120 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers the claims to moral and social superiority of those increasingly suburban Australians who considered themselves middle class‘.23 Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz note that the middle classes adopted a physical form of Christian morality that became known as ‗muscular Christianity‘. It reflected the belief that the body was to be trained and controlled to advance the cause of right. ‗Athleticism‘ was the physical dimension to the moral endeavours by which men developed their character.24 These ideologies applied the ideas of manliness, discipline, and civilisation to sports and games with written rules. Athletic sports were promoted in as much as they might improve the physical and moral characteristics of the Anglo Saxon race.25 Alternatively, a ‗boy problem‘ in Australia was associated with the fear of moral and physical decline of youth, and with problems with the nation. David Walker notes that the feared criminality of youth in the Sydney region generated misgivings about the quality of European civilisation in Australia: ‗There were deeply embedded uncertainties about the quality and degree of Australian civilisation; about the extent to which the continent had been won back from ―barbarism‖‘.26 Martin Crotty also writes: ‗Whether a virile moral race could be produced or maintained in Australia was a hotly debated question‘. James F. Hogan, a schoolteacher and headmaster of St Mary‘s Catholic School in Geelong, argued in 1880 that the three main characteristics of the native Australian were a love of outdoor sports, a disinclination to respect authority and a dislike of mental effort. Hogan suggested that the future Australian would represent a sharp decline from a cultured British origin to a bestial and irreligious masculinity marked by a love of sport, irreverence and low ambition.27 Crotty writes:

Declining moral standards and the results of an irreligious education seemed to reach their logical conclusion in the rise of the working-class larrikin, the symbol of the immoral irreligious mob, devoid of any higher or ennobling influences. Larrikins standing on street corners and abusing the more ‗respectable‘ members of society, offended middle-class sensibilities and at

23 Richard Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure a History of Australian Popular Culture Since 1788, Longman, South Melbourne, 1995, p. 101. 24 Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, One-eyed: A View of Australian Sport, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000, pp. 48-50. 25 Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, pp. 109-110; Daryl Adair and Wray Vamplew, Sport in Australian History, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1997, pp. 134-135. 26 David Walker, ‗Youth on Trial: The Mount Rennie Case‘, Labour History, number 50, May, 1986, p. 34. 27 Martin Crotty, Making the Australian Male: Middle-Class Masculinity 1870-1920, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 2001, p. 12.

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the same time represented a threatening inversion of the correct social order. The ‗boy problem‘ increasingly became one of class as well as morality. In Australia, as in England, it was feared that the poor and the workers were an increasingly powerful mob with interests and values directly opposed to those of bourgeois society.28

Muscular Christianity had developed out of the British public school system. Beginning with middle class schoolboys, the nation would be regenerated by teaching them a philosophy that combined Anglicanism with a romantic notion of chivalry. This combined the ideals of control and discipline, self-denial, purity of soul, fitness of body and the compassion of the strong for the weak.29 Booth and Tatz argue that one aspect of Muscular Christianity and athleticism took on antagonistic class dimensions in its association with Social Darwinism, a crude appropriation of Charles Darwin‘s theory of natural selection that viewed different social groups in a permanent struggle for survival. They argue:

Social Darwinism injected class and race prejudice into muscular Christianity. Among the middle classes, amateur sport served a higher role to teach the ‗essential elements of character‘ and ‗imbue its participants with the traits of fair play, modesty in victory, dignity in defeat and sportsmanship‘. In contrast, ‗professional sport was primitive, unworthy and dangerous‘. Its close association with gambling exposed it to ‗cheating, bribery and corruption‘, with professionals employing a range of ‗sharp practices‘.30

A general divide between amateur and professional sports players was based on moral judgements and a different set of values between middle class and working class participants.31 James argues that the sports field was the testing ground for moral virtues in Britain. The middle class thought that getting paid would threaten the moral ethos of sport. If not quite sacred, sport had acquired an aura of nobility that would be tarnished by money and the urge to win at all costs. In the case of rugby and soccer, this led to separate leagues for middle class amateur players and working class professionals.32 Similar divisions emerged in Australian sport where a number of sports including rugby, Australian football, and rowing, were divided along class lines

28Crotty, Making the Australian Male, pp. 15-16. 29 James, The Middle Class, p. 330. 30 Booth and Tatz, One-eyed, p. 50. 31 Ibid, pp. 51-2. 32 James, The Middle Class, p. 334-335.

122 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers between amateur and professional organisations and codes.33 In yachting, amateurism underpinned the rule that professional watermen, fishermen and other people who made a living from maritime trades could not join the exclusive clubs, and that if a yacht was hired out, it must be taken off the register. However, paid hands could sometimes be employed so long as the owner or a representative gentleman was on board, and the payment of prize money did not threaten amateur status. The rules were not clearly defined and they varied from club to club.34 Some sailing clubs that catered for smaller boats but were not associated with working class open boat clubs, also maintained rules regarding amateurism. Rule 62 from the 1884 rulebook of the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club read:

Amateur: The word shall exclude all fishermen, oystermen, boat builders, sailmakers, and persons gaining or having gained their living on the water or any person who is or has been employed in or about yachts, boats or ships as a means of livelihood or any person who has received monetary consideration for his professional knowledge.35

As a philosophy through which sports could be valued, measured, and promoted, amateurism now underpinned criticisms of sports and games that were imagined as immoral and unrespectable including open boat racing on Sydney Harbour.36

Opposition to open boat sailing in the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist Efforts to control open boat sailing in Sydney revealed the underlying ‗problems‘ associated with open boats from this middle class perspective. In early September 1897 at the beginning of the sailing season representatives from the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club, Johnstone‘s Bay sailing Club, Sydney Flying Squadron and a number of Sydney sailing and canoe clubs representing both amateur and professional sailors met in a Balmain pub to discuss the formation of a New South Wales Sailing Council.

33 Richard Cashman, Paradise of Sport: The Rise of Organised Sport in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 54, p. 61; Cashman, Sport in the National Imagination, pp. 193-200; Stuart Ripley, ‗A Social History of New South Wales Professional Sculling‘, PhD thesis, University of Western Sydney, 2003, pp. 36-46, Booth and Tatz, One-Eyed, pp. 50-59. 34 See: Russell Potts, ‗Amateurism and the Edwardian Yachtsman‘, Sports Historian, number 13, 1993, pp. 84-86. 35 Sydney Amateur Sailing Club Historical committee, The Amateurs: A Documentation of the First 100 Years of Sailing on Sydney Harbour as Seen by Sydney Amateur Sailing Club, 1872-1972, Sydney Amateur Sailing Club, Sydney, 1972, p. 130. 36 Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, pp. 112-113; Daryl Adair and Wray Vamplew, Sport in Australian History, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1997, pp. 37-40; Cashman, Paradise of Sport, pp. 54-71.

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The council was to have two main objectives, the general promotion of sailing interests and the formation uniform rules for sailing races. Most significantly, a rule agreed to on the spot was that the members of affiliated clubs should not compete against unaffiliated boats at regattas and other open events.37 Over the following months the Sailing Council sent letters to various clubs and regattas committees informing them of the rule and requesting that they restrict certain races for boats affiliated with clubs. Three representatives from each affiliated club attended the Sailing Council meetings to contribute and agree to the rules.38 The establishment of sailing and yachting organisations was consistent with the rise of yachting as a middle class activity in Britain. Roger Ryan reveals that the Yacht Racing Association formed in 1875 ‗set out to regulate British yachting‘. Initially it devised a system of time handicaps for racing, and established ‗basic rules of sporting behaviour‘ to maintain ‗―gentlemanly‖ conduct upon the water and within clubhouses‘. The Yacht Racing Association successfully controlled yachting up to 1914 because no club could survive without joining. ‗Exclusiveness and social conformity were thereby retained … despite the fact that the number of clubs grew considerably‘. Although the association feared that the growth of less costly sailing in in small boats and dinghies, opening up the sport to working class ‗artisan‘ involvement, it made concessions to dinghy sailors rather than risk the development of rival bodies. Still, no club with Yacht Racing Association recognition could include ‗mechanics‘ or ‗artisans‘, and the ‗democratisation‘ of sailing and yachting in England was restricted to the middle class.39 In Australia, a Victorian Yacht Racing Association excluded professional sailors from its events on Port Phillip. It had fifteen rules of conduct, one stated that a club could join with a minimum of thirty members, but they all had to be amateurs. The Royal Yacht Club of Victoria had to tighten its rules regarding amateurs, as professional crews had handled the clubs large yachts, in order to join.40 The association refused the Port Melbourne Club‘s application to join in 1900, as it did not

37 ‗New South Wales Sailing Council‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 September, 1897, p. 12; ‗NSW Sailing Council‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 6 November, 1897, p. 4. 38 ‗New South Wales Sailing Council‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 October, 1897 p. 10; ‗New South Wales Sailing Council‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 December, 1897, p. 10. 39 Roger Ryan, ‗The emergence of Middle-Class Yachting in the North-West of England From the Later Nineteenth Century, Recreation and the Sea, Stephen Fisher (ed.), University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 1997, pp. 152-155. 40 Ralph P. Neale, Jolly Dogs Are We: The History of Yachting in Victoria, 1838-1894, Landscape, Mont Albert, VIC, 1984, pp. 319-320.

124 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers comply with the rule regarding amateurs. ‗To make an exception for one club would open the door to others to apply for similar concessions‘ the yachting correspondent for the Australasian reported.41 But local weather, resulting in rough sailing conditions, and a relatively conservative social atmosphere appears to have limited working class sailing in Victoria in general.42 Open boat sailing was a well-patronised sport in Sydney as the Sydney Flying Squadron‘s alternative ‗Australian‘ regatta in 1892 had demonstrated. The New South Wales Sailing Council sought to control and restrict, rather than exclude open boat racing. The council was administered in Balmain at the centre of open boat sailing in Sydney and the Chairman, Mr F J Donovan was also Commodore of the Johnstone‘s Bay sailing club. While strict rules regarding professionalism or the admittance of manual labourers could not be maintained in Sydney, the organisation was still underpinned by a strong middle class ideology. In general, the Yachtsman supported the Sailing Council and the rule that only affiliated boats might race against one another. The editor claimed: ‗…how much a paper like ours can do for the sport is easy to see. It can help the Sailing Council to stiffen its back against the evils affecting sailing, and it can assist the Yacht Clubs to bring about the revival of yachting for which so many people are longing.‘43 These ‗evils‘ could be found in professionalism, gambling, and ‗larrikin‘ behaviour. Only when it came to the Anniversary Regatta did the magazine waver in its commitment. As a ‗National institution‘ it maintained that the Regatta was above all clubs and the Sailing Council, and should be open to every boat in the colony as was tradition. But the journal still criticised the actions of ‗unaffiliated boats‘. One editorial described the practices of open boat sailors that did not belong to clubs, and entered regattas for the prize money alone. The Yachtsman claimed: ‗In the bad old days of the sport, it was too common an occurrence for a band of young fellows … to hire some boat, enter for a race, and, perhaps, win by a stroke of luck‘. The Editor argued that these actions were unsportsmanlike, as the outsiders contributed little to the sport while reaping the donations of clubs and patrons. Moreover, men under such circumstances were ‗not amenable to discipline‘, which further undermined the commitment to manliness and fair play. As well as ‗pot-hunting‘ for prize money, the Yachtsman

41 ‗Yachting‘, Argus, 25 March, 1895, p. 7; ‗Gasket‘, ‗Yachting Notes‘, Australasian, 10 November, 1900. 42 D‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, p. 216. 43 ‗Ourselves‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 26 January, 1898, p. 2.

125 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers claimed that another problem with the management of regattas was that unaffiliated, and often non-existent, boats were entered in races with no intention of competing. The boat would be entered simply so that the ‗skipper‘ could have their name displayed in print alongside the names of famous and legitimate open boat skippers. In one case: ‗The committee had to take the trouble to classify and handicap all the ancient barges in the harbour alongside the crack twenty-two‘s; and then half of them did not start‘.44 The Yachtsman also criticised the ‗larrikin behaviour‘ of these sailors. One article denounced the ‗dinghy youths‘ who were thought to bring discredit on the respectable men of open boat sailing:

Some dinghy youths distinguished themselves, as appears to be their custom, and were requested to change their quarters; but they could not change their manners or reputation. It is such people who bring discredit on the men who enjoy the sport of open boat sailing.45

The shabby dress and foul language of sailors was also criticised. For a ‗few shillings‘, the sailing correspondent claimed that a boat sailor might look decent and not like a ‗yahoo‘.46 Bad language heard from open boat sailors had been successfully limited by the administrators of the Johnstone‘s bay club, but the words heard from the ‗unaffiliated‘ open boats was still a problem. The Yachtsman expressed its outrage and compared the scene on the harbour to Mount Rennie and Gatton tragedies:

On a calm day … one can hear the roaring and bellowing of these larrikins for half a mile, every word coming across the still water like the rasping of a saw. The language used is simply disgusting to a decent-minded man. The foul words and fouler ideas, the abominable imputations, the filthy suggestions at every sentence, would make one ashamed of one‘s sex if there were none but men present, but when there are also ladies aboard it becomes perfectly intolerable, and one feels impelled to an act of piracy or battery or something. It opens a vista of mind and character that to educated and refined persons is as strange and foreign as a monkey‘s; and it explains perfectly well the possibility of the Mount Rennie and Gatton tragedies.47

44 ‗Editorial‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 18 December, 1897, p. 1. 45 Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 23 April, 1898, p. 7. 46 Sailing Notes‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 3 December, 1898, p. 5. 47 ‗Yachting Notes‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 28 January, 1899, p. 1.

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The Mount Rennie affair shocked colonial society when more than twenty Sydney men participated in the rape of Mary Jane Hicks near the industrial suburb of Waterloo in 1886. Walker writes that the rape was associated with the fear of deteriorating moral standards: ‗Youthful depravity gave those convinced of the moral deterioration of colonial society useful confirmation of their position‘. The apparent criminality of ‗larrikin‘ youth from the industrial suburbs of the city was imagined as ‗Australian‘s unique contribution to crime‘ and the foul language and jeers of idle youths on street corners were seen as the beginning of more serious offences.48 These underlying social anxieties remained, and now they were extended to the behaviour of sailors who now threatened the pure status of yachting on the harbour. The complaints about ‗unaffiliated‘ open boat sailors in the Yachtsman were part of a broader moral campaign resisting the ‗evils‘ affecting sailing in the form of professionalism and gambling. Complaints were heard in the Northern Territory regarding the lack of consistent rules for racing in the Darwin Regatta. An amateur ethos was prevalent one person hoped that they might see yacht racing ‗for the pure love of the thing‘.49 The introduction of a fleet of midget dinghies along the lines of Sydney‘s open boats in Perth was accompanied by ‗controversy‘. Letters to the Editor of the West Australian revealed a number of different opinions regarding sail area, handicapping, crew numbers and cost amongst those who wished to replicate the systems of the Sydney Flying Squadron and Johnstone‘s Bay clubs and those who preferred restricted class-racing.50 The merits of restricted and unrestricted classes of sailing boats were also considered in the Brisbane press. One correspondent writing to the Brisbane Courier suggested that ‗we are a long way behind in Australia … the erstwhile popular open 22ft and 18ft type being dead and buried in progressive centres. Moreover, the unwholesome tendency to race for money will be checked.‘51 In Sydney, the Editor of the Yachtsman bitterly criticised the ‗element of professionalism‘ that threatened the status of sailing:

48 David Walker, ‗Youth on Trial: The Mount Rennie Case‘, Labour History, number 50, May, 1986, pp. 28-31. 49 ‗Jib tops‘l‘, Northern Territory Times, 29 September, 1899. 50 ‗Ringtail‘, ‗Yachting on the Swan‘, West Australian, 17 November 1896, p10; ‗An Old Hand‘ ‗To the Editor‘, West Australian, 15 June, 1898, p. 6; ‗Ventura‘, ‗Encouragement of Yachting‘, Western Mail, 17 June 1898; ‗Amateur‘, ‗Yachting, to the Editor‘, West Australian, 12 November, 1896; ‗Intending Buildee‘, ‗Encouragement of Yachting‘ (letter to the editor), West Australian, 17 June, 1898, p. 7. 51 ‗Treenail‘, Brisbane Courier, 6 December, 1899.

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The element of professionalism appears to be gaining ground in Sydney harbour, and it behoves all true sportsmen to guard against it, as calculated to injure the sport. We have seen horse-racing reduced to mere gambling, with a strong dash of swindling. We have recently observed cycling invaded by the same pernicious influence. Even cricket and rowing are regarded with strong suspicion. Footracing became so scandalously corrupt that it is, so far as the public are concerned, a sport no longer, and now we find the purest, most national, and most natural of our sports, namely, that of sailing, threatened with the same curse. … Now we must guard against the same unholy element being introduced into sailing.52

John O‘Hara writes that betting had no place in middle class value systems, and it endangered the social order.53 The Yachtsman’s Sailing correspondent warned that ‗thimble-riggers, spielers, pickpockets, and such scum‘ were represented on the Sydney Flying Squadron steamer and asked readers to: ‗Keep the sport as pure as the sparking wave‘.54At the beginning of the same sailing season, Mr Donovan from the Sailing Council spoke against betting on the club steamers at a Flying Squadron meeting, he suggested that bookmakers might be excluded from the steamers. The motion ‗that betting be discountenanced on the club steamers‘ was carried, but the Yachtsman complained that the terms were vague, and would most likely be inoperative.55 Betting was also known to take place on his Johnstone‘s Bay steamers. A report on ‗Bookmakers and Boating‘ reported that some ‗tough characters‘ had boarded the steamers and that the cry of ‗I‘ll lay, I‘ll lay‘ had been heard. The Yachtsman pledged its support in putting down the practice on moral grounds. The report read:

If a man wants to bet, let him go to Randwick or the Cricket Ground, and put his money on some skinny horse or monkey-like cyclist, but don‘t let him come corrupting the purest and noblest of all sports. Take it how we will, betting is not an innocent thing. It is an attempt to take somebody else‘s money without giving him anything in return for it – and is, therefore, immoral.56

The tensions between amateur ideology and the professional aspect of open boat culture were also revealed in an apparently innocuous debate over the use of lee

52 ‗Editorial‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 11 December, 1897, p. 2. 53 John O‘Hara, A Mug’s Game: A History of Gaming and Betting in Australia, New South Wales university Press, 1988, pp. 88-129. 54 ‗Sailing Notes‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 19 March, 1898, p. 8. 55 ‗The Sydney Flying Squadron‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 16 October, 1897, p. 7. 56 ‗Bookmakers and Boating‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 31 December, 1898.

128 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers cloths in 1898. Lee-cloths were strips of canvas that, when erected along the inside of an open boat‘s deck, reduced the amount of water that might wash over the side of the boat and therefore reduce the risk of swamping and capsize. The report of a large meeting of the Johnstone‘s Bay club in the Herald suggested that the motion to ban lee cloths caused a ‗lively discussion‘. The motion was supported with 33 votes to 25, but the chairman, Mr Donovan ruled that as this was a proposed change to the rules it needed to be carried by a two thirds majority.57 Concerns regarding their use affected the basis of open boat culture as a popular and working class sport. The concern of the sailing clubs was that the use of such devices would reduce the popular public spectacle of boat sailing. As less seamanship would be required to successfully sail the boat, the public attraction to such displays of skill might be diminished. Furthermore, if the boats were less likely to capsize, spectators may be less interested in the excitement of the sport. Considering the extent to which the open boat clubs relied on spectatorship to fund their sailing activities, the rulings generated controversy from both within, and outside the organisations. For the Yachtsman, the use of lee-cloths was a moral issue. The object of a race, it argued, was not to capsize, but to get on with the legitimate work of sailing.58 In an editorial entitled ‗The Fascination of Sailing‘ the editor worried that the public were attracted to the danger of open boat racing. The safety of sailing, and capsizes in particular, was a sensitive issue after a number of open boat accidents and fatalities. In 1889, the Irene, a 22-footer, capsized during a cruise on the harbour. Of the 21 on board all but five were rescued from the water, four bodies were missing and one lady who was picked up did not survive the ordeal. The Sydney Mail commented on the ‗shameful way in which such boats are overcrowded, being filled with men and women till there is hardly room to move‘.59 During the 1893 Christmas holidays, Irex capsized off Sydney‘s northern beaches while returning to the harbour from Broken Bay. Its owner and crew were lucky to be rescued by a ketch after a long wait clinging on to the upturned hull.60 Again in September 1894, a twelve-year-old boy was drowned when a 12-foot dinghy that he was sailing capsized near Middle Head.61 Now the editor considered lee cloths: ‗Lee-cloths prevent capsizes, the danger of

57 ‗Sailing‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 October, 1898, p. 5. 58 ‗Editorial‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 26 February, 1898, pp. 1-2. 59 ‗Sailing Notes‘, Sydney Mail, 12 October, 1889. 60 ‗Sailing Notes‘, Sydney Mail, 6 January, 1894. 61 ‗Fatal Boating Accident‘, Brisbane Courier, 17 September 1894, p. 5.

129 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers which is that the crew may be eaten by sharks. The public do not like lee cloths, therefore the public like to see men eaten by sharks‘. The rhetorical question was posed: ‗Is there any living human being that would deliberately choose to be present whilst a fellow-creature was being devoured by a sea tiger?‘ The idea that the public was attracted to the danger of the sailing, or by association the danger of gambling, was inconsistent with the ideology of a pure clean health-giving sport. The status of sailing and yachting as a ‗national sport‘ intensified these issues. The editorial continued:

What, then, is the fascination of sailing races to the general public? – for we cannot think so badly of our nation as to say that it is due to the element of danger in them. Does it not rather lie in the beauty of form of the competing boats, the speed with which they dash through the sparkling water, throwing little rainbows of spray over them as they dip and rise again, and the extraordinary skill with which they are handled? … We cannot think so lowly of the Australian public. Our people are not, perhaps, so highly educated as the German, not so self-controlled as the English and Scotch, not so kindly- disposed and orderly as the French, but we cannot believe that they have sunk to the level that some of the arguments quoted would have us believe. There is an element of brutality in here as in the populations of all large towns, but we do not believe it comes to sailing races.62

‘Sailing boats v. deep-keelers’ The tensions over the control of sailing culture and efforts to maintain moral and respectable practices spilled over into an acrimonious debate over the type of boat best suited to Australian conditions. The specific problems associated with larrikinism, gambling and safety were applied to open boats in general when a series of letters, submitted by critics and supporters of Sydney‘s open boats was published under the ‗Correspondence‘ section of the paper. The correspondence was later labelled ‗Sailing boats v. Deep-keelers‘ and appeared in the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist over the winter months of 1898. The winter was a slow period for an aquatic newspaper. Rowing and swimming news still made up some of the content but yachting and sailing notes were sparse. Besides the occasional report of British yachting or the America‘s Cup, the mainstream sporting press, the dailies and weeklies simply ceased to report sailing and yachting. The Yachtsman had to search for content, and an inflammatory debate regarding the class of boat most popular on

62 ‗Editorial: The Fascination of Sailing‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 5 March, 1898, pp. 1-2.

130 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers

Sydney harbour was likely to be encouraged. Nevertheless, the debate provides further insight into the alternative set of values that were used to simultaneously criticise open boat culture, and promote an alternative, respectable sailing culture. The debate began in April 1898, when one correspondent, signing as ‗AN‘, claimed that ‗there can be nothing more ridiculous than the type of boat which has so far prevailed here‘, the open boats were old, out-dated and unseaworthy. The letter read:

People are quite mistaken when they call it, with what is meant for patriotic pride, a Sydney type, known and invented here, and here only. In America, ten years ago, there was no kind of boat but these ugly flat skimming-dishes, with their monstrous great sails; but the common-sense of the Yankees has long taught them to go in for decent seaworthy boats that can go out in a seaway and give shelter to her crew, and be worked in any weather by a few hands. Look at these ridiculous 22-footers we have here – such as Effie or Vigilant, for instance – with about ten inches of freeboard, and seventeen or eighteen drowned rats huddled up on the weather gunwale; look at them, I say, and laugh! Why, if the Era sailed past to windward of them they would turn turtle like lightning. Could anything be more absurd. …The whole tendency of the age is against unmanageable flat-irons. They have been tried in other lands and found wanting. Everywhere else the cry is for handiness, seaworthiness, stability, and dryness, not for ugly ducklings, good for nothing but carrying crowds, like our 22-footers.63

The scathing remarks sparked a series of letters, both criticising and supporting AN‘s remarks. Petty insults and threats of violence were shared between AN and an allegedly seventeen-year-old correspondent signing as ‗Twenty-two-footer‘, who claimed that AN would have his ‗head smashed‘ at a meeting of the Johnstone‘s Bay Sailing Club‘.64 AN replied:

―Twenty-two-footer‖ seems to me to be one of those grubby little children who borrow their mother‘s oldest washing-tub, stick a sail and centreboard into it, call it an eight-foot canvas dinghy, and then request the P.. and O. boats to get out of their way, because ―we‘re racing, we are!‖65

63 The Era was a first class yacht on the register of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and designed by Walter Reeks; ‗AN‘, ‗Correspondence‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 2 April, 1898, p. 4-5. 64 ‗Twenty-two-footer‘, ‗Correspondence‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 9 April, 1898, p. 3. 65 ‗AN‘, ‗Correspondence‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 16 April, 1898, p. 3.

131 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers

There was no evidence that the views of ‗Twenty-two-footer‘ were indicative of the Johnstone‘s Bay club, but the insults demonstrated the prejudice and animosity between the extremes of the keelboat and open boat sailing communities. Another correspondent signing as ‗Rater‘ supported the tirade of AN against the open boats by claiming that: ‗their owners seem to measure their sport by the nearness with which they go to the inside of a shark‘.66 More considered debate revolved around the issues of seaworthiness and cost. Class and location were central to the arguments of those who defended the open boats. AN stated in his original letter that the 22-footer was good for nothing but carrying crowds. But, for a number of Sydney‘s working class sailors carrying crowds was the very attraction of the boat. Another correspondent, ‗CM‘ wrote that open boats are ‗fairly well suited to our conditions of existence here, and … they are able to give pleasure to a larger number of men at any one time than any other boat costing the same money‘.67 ‗TPO‘, also defending the open boats, suggested that in Sydney cost is the most important issue, and that a deep-keeler, built for the same cost as a 22-footer will be no more seaworthy, while carrying only a fraction of ‗men‘.68 Adherents of the open boats also cited the local weather and local climate in their arguments. CM suggested that in the local climate Australians could permit boats to develop along the lines of the Sydney type:

The fact is, that our boats are sailed under circumstances peculiar to Sydney; Light warm winds, calm warm waters, shelving beaches … and the consequences are seen in the broad flat boats, with very large sails and centre board, which are so characteristic of Sydney.69

The critics of the open boats proposed a different type as the most suitable boat for Sydney waters and maintained that imported designs were superior. The ‗perfect boat‘ that AN imagined for Australian waters was based on a twenty-three foot Clyde restricted class from England.70 Such a boat was a 23-foot yacht, decked-in, seaworthy, and civilised, the very antithesis of the skimming dish. But like open boats, some Clyde class yachts were kept at the disposal of members of the Royal

66 ‗Rater‘, ‗Correspondence‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 16 April, 1898, pp. 3-4. 67 ‗CM‘, ‗Correspondence‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 7 May, 1898, p. 3. 68 ‗TPO‘, ‗Correspondence‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 21 May, 1898, pp. 3-4. 69 C.M ‗Correspondence‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 7 May, 1898, p. 3. 70 ‗AN‘, ‗My Ideal of a Perfect Boat‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 21 May, 1898, p. 5.

132 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers

Clyde Yacht Club for a ‗moderate rate of hire‘.71 While the Yachtsman knew that an imported keelboat design could not replace the Sydney 22-footer altogether, it agreed that the introduction of a more sedate, but relatively affordable class, was desirable. If the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron was to promote class racing in small keelboats of restricted design, the paper believed that a good fleet of admirable and weatherly yachts similar to those seen on the Clyde could well be established in Sydney. When Reginald Mallory described the ‗Yacht Types in Australian Waters‘ for the Southern Cross magazine late in 1898, he divided the recreational sailing craft of Sydney along the lines of centreboards and keelboats. The ‗more popular‘ centreboard boat was identified first as the characteristic Sydney harbour type. Mallory described the large sails, hardy crews, local traditions, and a romantic sense of skill and daring. However, these aspects of open boat culture were then criticised. Mallory described the shallow centreboard skimming-dish model as out-dated: ‗For all the world over, within the past decade, the skimming-dish has given way to the keel, or bulb-keel designs‘. Small keelboats, popular in England, America and Melbourne, were considered the superior type. With a deep keel, lead ballast, and an enclosed deck to keep water out of the hull, a keelboat was nearly impossible to swamp with water or capsize. Mallory recalled an incident in America, where an open centreboard boat was capsized by a puff of wind. In the same gust, a keelboat simply eased its sails, and proceeded to rescue the stricken crew. The same situation could be observed in Australian waters. Mallory wrote:

Any day, when there is more than a hatful of wind, one can see the same thing, on a smaller scale, in our Australian waters. A tight little keel boat, without indispensable outside ballast, will stand up to a puff, with her solitary owner as crew, when your foaming skimming-dish will be drenching her crew and easing everything he knows to keep from a capsize. The keel boat will ride more gracefully in tyring seas, and, altogether, behave better, in trying circumstances, than her shallow rival.72

So Mallory concluded that: ‗if yachting should tend toward developing a race of amateur sailors‘, then ‗the keel-boat deserves the patronage of the yachting public‘.73

71 71 Henry Coleman Folkard, Sailing Boats from Around the World, Dover Publications, Mineola NY, 2000 (circa 1906), pp. 282-286. 72 Reginald Mallory, ‗Yacht Types in Australian Waters‘, Southern Cross, 12 December, 1898, p. 31- 35. 73 Ibid.

133 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers

The small keelboat was an alternative to the dangerous and unruly open boats of Sydney. Similar augments were made in the Australian Town and Country Journal. An article entitled ‗Open Boats and Raters‘ argued that the open boat of Sydney Harbour ‗is now likely to be superseded by the rater type‘ due to pleasure and comfort. The ‗Rater‘ was a class of keelboat that was built and designed to a rule, a complex equation that included displacement, sail area and waterline length among other limitations. The rating ensured the proportions of sail area and hull shape to encourage the building of safe and seaworthy boats. The article continued to describe the difficulties of handling large sails, the discomfort of being crowded into a 22- footer, and the expense of a race-ready boat. On the other hand, the ‗wonderful popularity‘ of the rater in England and America ‗seems to indicate that they will be the sailing craft of the future‘.74 The ‗Yachtsman‘s Guide to Sydney Harbour‘ also recommended a ‗deep-keeled half-decker‘ for something ‗more comfortable and safer than a ―bathing-machine‖‘. It argued that these boats were popular in the old country, Melbourne, and America, but had not caught on in Sydney: ‗The deep-keeled half- decker is a very suitable craft for a man who prefers dryness and snugness to billow- punching and terrific speed‘. Mr Woolcott‘s Myee was suggested as an example of such a boat: ‗An admirable little boat is the Myee – stiff, weatherly, handy, dry as a bone, will go through any sea and stand up to any breeze‘. The ‗Rater‘ was also considered as ‗perhaps, the handiest craft ever built; you have only to see them threading their way in a regatta crowd to acknowledge that fact‘.75 The size and expense of yachts reduced as middle class involvement in the sport increased in England. Cusack notes that ‗the principal growth points in British yachting during the 1890-1960 period were located in the smaller classes of vessel‘.76 These smaller boats were easier to build and maintain than the large racing yachts owned by the wealthiest yachtsmen and handled by professional crews. Cusack and Ryan argue that ‗one design‘ class racing was an important aspect of the expansion of smaller classes of yachts. The one design was a boat built to a strict design, so that all boats in the class would be theoretically identical, and competition would be based on

74 ‗Open Boats and Raters‘, Australian Town and country Journal, 21 October, 1899, p. 22, 23. 75 C McLaurin, and W L Hunt, ‗The Yachtsman‘s Guide to Sydney Harbour and its Neighborhood‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 26 December, 1896, pp. 2-3. 76 Janet Cusack, ‗Yachting in Britain, 1890-1960‘, Exploiting the Sea: Aspects of Britain’s Maritime Economy since 1870, David J. Starkey, and Alan G. Jamieson (eds), Exeter Press, Exeter, 1998, p. 174.

134 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers skill alone.77 Standardising design further reduced the cost of racing, and prompted the ‗democratisation‘ of yachting, at least for middle class men. The rules banning working men as ‗artisans‘, maintained the gentlemanly status of sailing and yachting. They did not maintain strict amateurism, as prize money was still awarded to ‗amateur‘ yachtsmen, and professional boat designers were still welcomed into amateur yacht and sailing clubs.78 Similarly, late Victorian and Edwardian yachting was dominated by men. A number of women were very successful racing sailors on the water, however they were excluded from the institutions on shore: ‗The scope for female involvement was therefore well controlled by the institutional arrangements which underpinned the organisation of yachting in Britain‘.79 Yacht clubs in Sydney were beginning to admit smaller boats by the turn of the century, reflecting the growth of modern middle class sailing on the harbour. Sydney yachtsman Sam Hordern had imported a half-rater from London in 1896. The boat embodied ‗the most modern English ideas with regard to reefing and handling‘ according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The only portion of the boat that was open was a small space to work the fin and a tiny cockpit of shallow draught.80 The boat was pictured in the Town and County Journal in 1899 along with a description of its cedar and mahogany construction and bamboo spars.81 Another article described the development of a type of boat that was ‗most desirable for general sailing‘. It had a large deck area and small sail area; the bowsprit was often abandoned all together.82 Sixteen-foot and 20-foot raters were being raced at the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club. Eleven entries were received for a race in 1899 and the Commodore of the Prince Alfred Yacht Club presented the prize.83 The editor of the Yachtsman encouraged the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron to provide racing for small raters, suggesting that it would be a ‗wise move‘ to ‗admit these fine little boats‘, dismissing objections that it would attract ‗bad types‘ in 1898.84 By the 1900-1901 sailing season the club had

77 Ryan, ‗The Emergence of Middle-class yachting‘, pp. 159-168. 78 Ryan, ‗The Emergence of Middle-Class Yachting‘ pp. 168-169; Russell Potts, ‗Amateurism and the Edwardian Yachtsman‘, Sports Historian, Number 13, 1993, pp. 84-86. 79 Ryan, ‗The Emergence of Middle-Class Yachting‘, p. 169. 80 ‗A New Half Rater‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December 1896, p. 5. 81 ‗Open Boats and Raters‘, Australian Town and country Journal, 21 October, 1899, p. 22, 23. 82 ‗Some Sydney Yachts and their Owners‘, Australian Town and Country Journal, 30 September 1899, p. 24, 21. 83 ‗Small Raters Race‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 4 March, 1889, p. 3. 84 ‗Editorial‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 24 December 1898, pp. 1-2.

135 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers established a new Championship Pennant for yachts classified as 20-footers, and a number of raters were added to the club‘s register.85 An article in the Sydney Mail described the 30-foot linear raters of Sydney Harbour in 1901. Now they could be considered ‗the most popular class of yacht to be found in Port Jackson‘. They were ‗moderately cheap‘ to build, ‗easily handled‘, and seaworthy, thus filling all of the requirements for a yachtsman in Sydney harbour. The article continued:

Moreover, they at once supply the needs of our whilom open-boat sailors in dispensing with large crews and avoiding the manual labour entailed in rigging and fitting out his purely Sydney type of craft for racing. So are they destined to take the place of the more pretentious of the open boat classes, which have outgrown themselves in size and rig, and the disadvantages of which are altogether too many for the latter-day boat owner.86

At the annual dinner for the opening of the 1902-1903 sailing season of the Prince Alfred Yacht Club, a guest proposed a toast. He described two types of yachtsman: ‗the men who sat back in easy chairs and paid a crew, and those who handled their own boats‘. As Sydney did not have enough millionaires to maintain the older type of glorious first-class yacht, he believed that the 30-footer had come to stay.87 Lord Dudley, commenting on the 1909 Kintore Cup in South Australia, confirmed the respectability of the small keelboat. To an audience of interested yachtsmen Dudley stated that on a small boat ‗he would have the amusement of sailing her himself‘, on the smaller boat, you got greater fun: ‗The Dacia … gave me an enormous amount of pleasure‘.

Conclusion If a keelboat and not an open boat represented Australian modernity at the beginning of the twentieth century, then little room is given to this alternative ‗national‘ story in the popular histories and accounts of Australian sailing and yachting. There are stories that outline the development of clubs and classes. P. R Stephenson‘s detailed history

85 P. R Stephensen, Sydney Sails: The Story of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s First 100 Years (1862-1962), Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1962 pp. 128-129. 86 ‗Yachts of the 30ft. L. R. Class‘, Sydney Mail, 2 February, 1901. 87 Sydney Morning Herald 26 October, 1902, p. 12.

136 Sailing Boats and Deep Keelers of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron catalogues the races events and boats sailed at the club over one hundred years including the ascendance of raters in the early twentieth century. The history of the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club compiled by a committee made up of its members details the club‘s activities and provides a summary of years of meeting minutes that detail the minutiae of club management. But there are no stories with the legendary quality of open boat sailing. The story of middle class respectability does not sit easily with a story of Australian egalitarianism and mateship. Lou d‘Alpuget introduced the 6-metre class of keelboat as a class of ‗aristocratic proportions‘ with ‗slim, high-winded elegance and expense‘ that contributed to an aura of refinement for those who could afford them in Yachting in Australia. The class spoke of old times, when ‗yachtsman were gentlemen in every sense‘, but this was an exception to the accounts of ‗Australian‘ yachting. Apparently, the ‗winning at all costs‘ attitudes seen in so many other yacht classes was absent in these graceful wooden sloops.88 Yet in the late nineteenth century, middle class sailing culture rejected the aspects of Australian identity mythologised in the open boats. They rejected the perceived danger, irreverence, and larrikinism of open boat culture and in its place installed a different ideal of modernity in the keelboat. They looked away from that which was typically Australian, and towards respectable yachting culture in England and America for examples of restraint, respectability, grace, and progress. The sailing and yachting community modelled their boats on modern principles shared with other ‗yachting nations‘, Britain and America.

88 D‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, p. 138.

137 Chapter 6 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

Sydneysiders celebrated the inauguration of the Australian Commonwealth on 1 January 1901 with a triumphant parade. This ceremony looked back to the traditional and the familiar, an imitation of the Queen‘s jubilee procession in 1897. Now, a procession marched from the Domain to Centennial Park beneath ten decorative arches. They signified the military, American, French, and German communities, Melbourne, wool, wheat and coal. A floral arch welcomed the new Governor General and a classical style Citizens Commonwealth Arch represented history and the nation. Arches for Progress, empire and flora and fauna were planned, but were too expensive to build. Civic, educational and religious leaders, trade unions, foreign communities, and thousands of Australian and Imperial troops made up more of the parade. Well over one hundred thousand people crowded Centennial Park to witness Lord Hopetoun being sworn in as Governor General, the point at which the Commonwealth officially came into being. A banquet was held at Town Hall in the evening, and the rest of the week saw sports entertainments and a military review.1 If the new nation was marked by traditional ceremonies, then for many Sydney residents, a regatta was a requisite part of the festivities. The followers of aquatic sport in Sydney looked to their traditional colonial ritual to mark the beginnings of the nation. The Sydney Morning Herald considered that an aquatic carnival was central to the occasion. It stated:

Without an aquatic carnival the Commonwealth rejoicings would have been incomplete and boating enthusiasts would have been justified in saying that the land folks had had too much their own way. As it was, an excellent illustration was afforded of what the harbour is like when en fete.2

The correspondent detailed the scene that unfolded in the hot westerly wind. Not one but two flagships, Her Majesty‘s Transport Britannic and the Royal Mail Ship Aberdeen were decorated with bunting and pressed into service for the day. Two thousand guests filled the Aberdeen alone and thousands more spectators crowded the

1 John Hirst, The Sentimental Nation: The Making of the Australian Commonwealth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, pp. 298-313; Helen Irving, To constitute a Nation: A Cultural History of Australia’s Constitution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 6-24. 2 Sydney Morning Herald, 9 January, 1901, p. 9.

Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ foreshores and the bunting-covered fleet of spectator craft. The Royal Arthur and other steamers in farm cove were dressed in their gala attire and ‗all the big steam vessels of the merchant marine‘ looked extremely well. Sailing and rowing boats appeared at Neutral bay, some with their sails ‗fringed with flags‘. The ‗delightful panorama‘ was constantly changing and the ‗―white-wings‖ were evidently out for an exhibition cruise‘. The rowing events were restricted to Man-of-war boats and the local naval forces. Fifteen sailing races in a squally westerly catered for the usual combination of open boats and deep-keelers representing a broad spectrum of Sydney‘s sailing community.3 The aquatic correspondent for the sport newspaper the Referee, ‗Weather-eye‘ shared the Herald’s sentiment. Without an aquatic demonstration, the festivities would have been incomplete:

What would the Commonwealth Celebrations have been in Sydney, above all places in Australia, without an aquatic demonstration! Last Friday‘s great regatta on the waters of Port Jackson took a fitting part in the rejoicings consequent to the inauguration of the Commonwealth, and without it there would have been incompleteness in the extreme. Indeed, it is difficult of realisation that the famous harbour has not come in for a larger share of patronage, officially I mean, during the past week, but of course we of the tiller and the oar are perhaps too enthusiastic, and would place aquatic pleasures before all others. At any rate, Sydney Harbour has contributed her share on this great historical occasion, and has upheld her prestige to the satisfaction of every native of her shores. … The crowded flagships, H.M. transport Britannic and the R.M.S. Aberdeen, and the almost countless steamers and pleasure boats also filled with sightseers – let us hope good and true federalists – showed that the far- famed Sydney yachtsman, he of the eight-foot dinghy with white wings that conceal him, his crew, and boat; he of the gentle graceful rater, with her cream sides and spotless canvas; he of the proud and winning racing open boat, with her nimble boys, whose place is on the gunwale – was expected to contribute to the doings of the time. Did he? Rather! 4

Through sailing, yachting, and the regatta tradition, maritime cultures were inextricably linked to the inauguration of the Commonwealth. Both newspapers identified local patriotism in the images of Sydney‘s contribution to the celebrations on the harbour. For Weather-Eye, the program demonstrated how ‗our yachtsmen‘ responded to the call with 162 entries for the sailing races. Not all started on the day,

3 Ibid. 4 ‗Weather-eye‘, Referee, 9 January 1901, p. 3.

139 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ but it was enough to satisfy the spectators. In Weather-eye‘s view, the harbour would remain a pleasant memory and when the spectators thought back to the celebrations ‗that must be linked for all time with the uniting of all Australians as one people‘. They would see those hundreds of white sails and remember ‗the aquatic triumph it was their privilege to witness‘.5 But what was being celebrated? On one level, the regatta was a contribution to the Commonwealth, reflecting a sense of Australian patriotism. The programme listed the patriotic names adopted by some boats. There were six-foot dinghies named Federal and New Nation. Two boats were named Australian: The famous 18-footer skippered by Chris Webb, and a lesser-known 8- foot dinghy. Other boats also had characteristically Australian-themed names. Southern Cross was a 20-foot Sydney Amateur Sailing Club boat, and Bunyip and Platypus were small raters. On another level, the regatta revealed ongoing imperial authority. By 1901, it was an old ritual steeped in British maritime traditions and none but the oldest yachtsmen could remember its beginnings. The two flagships, a transport and a mail ship, maintained the ongoing connections to the mother country. Members of the Sydney yachting community received Admiral Pearson of the Royal Navy aboard the flagship a sign of deference and rank and a reminder that the security of the Commonwealth and its heritage was linked to British sea power. This chapter considers what it meant to be a ‗modern Australian yachtsman‘ after 1901. Weather-eye used the term yachtsman as a general label for Sydney‘s recreational sailors, including a broad spectrum of sailing and yachting cultures in the description of the Commonwealth Aquatic Demonstration. All sailors were brought together under the single label that suggested the middle class values of manliness, honour and civic duty. Even the raffish open boat sailor was sanitised in the name of the Commonwealth celebration. This chapter uses the term yachtsman to identify a civic-minded aspect of middle class sailing that was ingrained in the yachting institutions and filtered down to other aspects of the sport. This was a gendered label that saw the public face of the commonwealth through its founding ‗fathers‘ and defined ‗yachtsmen‘ through the ideologies of sport, manliness and defence. ‗Modern Australian yachtsman‘ refers to time and place. This chapter focuses on yachting and sailing in Sydney, Melbourne, and South Australia. It examines the links between local, national and imperial traditions that yachting fostered up to the beginning of

5 Ibid.

140 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

World War I at a time when Australian identity was shifting in the context of Federation. By focusing on the ceremonies and institutions of yachtsmen at this time, this chapter investigates how sailors negotiated a continental sense of nation between the traditional loyalties to local communities and empire, and asks how the sea shaped the Commonwealth. Firstly, it considers at the question of identity through yachting cultures. Then it looks at how the sea and maritime defence were connected to both Australian and Imperial patriotism.

Federation The Federation of the six sovereign states of the Australian continent is a significant turning point in Australian history. Debates regarding the moment as a ‗shabby deal‘ or a ‗sacred cause‘, the gendered narrative of ‗founding fathers‘ and the legitimacy of critical and revisionist histories are prominent themes and debates in Australian history. Erin Ihde argued that Federation was clearly instrumental in forging the nation that exists today. It established the frameworks, institutions and structures that defined the modern Australian nation and allowed it to continue its development and evolution over time. However, Ihde also noted that the Australian public met ‗the birth of the nation‘ with ambivalence and apathy both in 1901 and later during the centenary of Federation in 2001. There were a number of reasons why Australians responded to the moment of federation ‗historically rather than mythically‘. Federation lacked the drama and the timing consistent with a definitive myth of national foundation, less clear than the arrival of the First Fleet and less dramatic than the landing of Anzac soldiers at Gallipoli.6 Ihde quoted the then Treasurer Peter Costello‘s mythic account of Anzac as a story of national foundation in contrast to the political story of federation. Costello said:

Until the Anzacs, the story of Australia had been one of settlement, colony and federation … Anzac gave the nation a consciousness of itself, the knowledge that Australians were distinct and different and now proud, with their own feats of courage and their own history on the international stage.7

6 Erin Ihde, ‗Australia Federates, Australia Celebrates‘, Turning points in Australian History, Martin Crotty and David Andrew Roberts (eds), University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2009, pp. 87- 99. 7 Peter Costello, quoted by Ihde, ‗Australia Federates, Australia Celebrates‘, p. 92.

141 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

But Ihde argued the ‗most fundamental reason‘ why Australians find it difficult to relate and celebrate Federation was to do with the nature of the federal compact and the nation that it produced. Federation was not intended to be a complete break with Britain, and those remaining ties have made it difficult for subsequent Australians to celebrate the event. Ihde argued:

The Federation parade in Sydney on 1 January 1901 provided a snapshot of the new nation. Federation was not intended to be a complete break with Britain. The makeup of the parade was overwhelmingly British: British Empire troops dominated proceedings, along with British gentry and religious representatives. Federation represented the culmination of a successful British colonisation project in which the white man had triumphed over a distant, harsh land. … By the standards of the early twenty-first century, 1901 appears sycophantic, monocultural, racist, sexist and somewhat paranoid.8

Ihde found it easy to identify the competition from Australia Day and Anzac Day as national celebrations, but had more difficulty articulating the competition from Empire Day, citing the day as an attempt by politicians and civic leaders to instil imperial loyalty in the population. From the twenty-first century perspective, the imperial sentiment appeared out of date, but the existence of that sentiment has made it difficult to construct stories of a distinctive national sentiment around the time of Federation. This story of an epic struggle between British and Australian identity has been posed as one of the ‗enduring puzzles‘ of Australian history. Deryck M. Schreuder and Stuart Ward noted that the problem of reconciling a shared heritage of Britishness and the distinctive interests of the Australian people would become a defining theme of twentieth century Australian history.9 Over the centenary of Federation, Neville Meaney criticised the teleological tendency in Australian history to assume that ‗European Australians have been engaged from early in their history in an inexorable struggle for national independence‘. Meaney argued that ‗Britishness was the dominant cultural myth in Australia, the dominant social idea giving meaning to ―the people‖‘. Instead of a story of burgeoning Australian identity thwarted by Britishness, Australian national identity was posed as Britishness eventually thwarted by

8 Ihde, ‗Australia Federates, Australia Celebrates‘, pp. 93-94. 9 Deryck M Schreuder and Stuart Ward (eds), Australia’s Empire, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008, p. 11.

142 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

Australian identity in the second half of the twentieth century.10 Historians in the early twentieth century observed the dominance of British identity in their histories of Australia. Keith Hancock argued that pride of race counted for more than love of country in Australia, and Ernest Scott suggested that British history was Australian history. ‗To earlier generations of Australians, ―Empire‖ was a key conceptual anchor of their identity and security in a fast expanding world of modernity‘.11 A story of fusion or dual identity shapes most modern accounts of national identity during the Federation period. John Rickard responded to Meaney‘s argument by suggesting that ‗Australian mythology both competed with and depended on the mythology of Britishness‘. White Australia was built upon ‗Anglo-Saxon, if not imperialist‘ foundations that produced a unique colonial Britishness.12 Stuart Macintyre identified a ‗fusion‘ of a separate national identity and imperial loyalty during the Federation period marked by extremes at both ends of the spectrum. This fusion was revealed in the national and imperial ceremonies that marked the Commonwealth celebrations and symbolised by the Commonwealth flag. Macintyre noted: ‗In a competition to design a national flag that drew 32,000 entries, five people shared the prize by imposing the British one on the corner of a Southern Cross‘.13 Richard White also identified a ‗twin identity, both Australian and British‘ during Federation, although the rhetoric ran a little hollow, the homogeneity of the new nation could not be denied. Almost every reference to the nation was qualified by assurances that larger loyalties to empire remained. The new status was ambiguous, it promised a new independence but only within the context of a continuing relationship with Britain. 14 Sport has been cited as an example of independent Australian identity in contrast to imperial loyalty during the Federation period. W F Mandle‘s argument, that Australian success against Britain in cricket tours during the 1870s and 1880s

10 Neville Meaney, ‗Britishness and Australian identity: the problem of nationalism in Australian history and historiography‘, Australian Historical Studies, volume 32, number 116, April, 2001, pp. 76-90; Jane Connors, ‗Identity and history‘, Australian Historical Studies, volume 32, number 116, April, 2001, pp. 132-136. 11 Schreuder and Ward, Australia’s Empire, p. 2. 12 John Rickard, ‗Imagining the unimaginable‘, Australian Historical Studies, volume 32, number 116, April, 2001, pp. 129. 13 Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, (second edition), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, p. 147; Stuart Macintyre, The Oxford History of Australia, Volume 4, 1901-1942 The Succeeding Age, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 122-123. 14 Richard White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1981, p. 112.

143 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ contributed to a sense of Australian nationalism before Federation, has had an enduring influence on sport history.15 Two volumes of Australian sport history, Sport Federation Nation and Sport in the National Imagination addressed what was termed the ‗Federation Factor‘ in Australian sport.16 While much research had considered the links between sport and Australian national identity, few sport historians had considered the relationship between sport and Federation. The centenary of Federation in 2001 highlighted this gap in the scholarship. The conclusions of this research tended to suggest that ‗Federation contributed to a sense of nationhood and this was both reflected and reinforced by Australian sport‘. O‘Hara suggested that from the evidence, it appeared as though sport had a greater effect on the new federal edifice, than Federation‘s impact on sport.17 Cashman identified symbols, emblems, colours and names as one of the significant ‗federation factors‘ in Sport in the National Imagination. He concluded that Australian sport developed its own symbols during the Federation decades, which became ‗powerful representations of Australia‘. These representations contributed to the development of a distinct Australian identity during this period. Cashman argued:

It appears clear then that sporting teams, since 1901 and even before, began the process of establishing a separate identity that placed the national interest above colonial and state ones and fashioned a more distinctively Australian and less British ethos.18

Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz warned that sport should not be seen in isolation, and a host of forces helped to nationalise Australia in the late nineteenth century including confrontation with the outside world and economic development. Not everyone approved of sport as a foundation of national identity and in some cases intense local rivalry inhibited cooperation between the colonies. They argue that Australian participation in the Olympic games between 1896 and 1904 demonstrates ‗just how embryonic was the nature of national sport at the turn of the century‘. Australia had no national body to administer Olympic campaigns or foster comradeship or mutual

15 See: W F Mandle, ‗Cricket and Australian Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century‘, Sport in Australia: Selected Readings in Physical Activity, T D Jacques and G R Pavia, McGraw, Sydney, 1976, pp. 46-72. 16 Richard Cashman, John O‘Hara, and Andrew Honey (eds), Sport, Federation, Nation, Walla Walla Press, Sydney, 2001; Richard Cashman, Sport in the National Imagination: Australian Sport in the Federation Decades, Walla Walla Press, Sydney, 2002. 17 Cashman, O‘Hara and Honey, Sport, Federation, Nation, p. 187. 18 Cashman, Sport in the National Imagination, pp. 58-102.

144 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ awareness amongst Australian representatives. Booth and Tatz maintained that British race identity remained strong after Federation, and supported the argument that sport, including touring cricket teams, brought Australia closer to the culture of the motherland.19 Yachting was a strong symbol of sea power, the crown, and imperial connections, and its history sheds light on how the British culture was experienced after Federation. However, the popular accounts of Australian sailing and yachting by Bob Ross and Lou d‘Alpuget ignore Federation in their stories. In The Sailing Australians, Ross‘s focus on ‗types‘ divided along the categories of ‗skiffies‘, ‗ocean racers‘ and other sailing activities lacked the close chronological narrative of cause and effect that might consider the significance of Federation.20 D‘Alpuget‘s structure focusing on the development of the sport in different states in Yachting in Australia also fails to consider Federation. In his history, sailing and yachting continue to grow over the nineteenth and twentieth century with no regard to the changing status between colony and nation; all yachting on the continent is considered Australian.21 Some club histories account for federation. Writer and publisher P. R Stephensen‘s presents Federation as ‗a new era‘ within the imperial context in his 1962 history of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. The proclamation of the Commonwealth and the death of Queen Victoria within one month represented change and formed a background for changes in the club with a new Commodore, changes to the ‗linear rating‘ of yachts, and the search for a clubhouse on the waterfront.22 Federation was included in Margaret Molloy‘s narrative of nation and class in the history of the Sydney Flying Squadron. The death of Queen Victoria and Federation set new directions, ‗Affluent Australians‘ still thought of Britain as ‗home‘, but the ‗Australian psyche‘, with its sense of independence and self motivation, was identified in the spirit and attitudes of open boat sailors.23

19 Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, One-eyed: A View of Australian Sport, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards NSW, 2000, pp. 76-83, 108-110. 20 Bob Ross, The Sailing Australians, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973. 21 Lou d‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia: Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Hutchinson Group, Richmond, Victoria, 1980. 22 P. R Stephensen, Sydney Sails: The Story of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s First 100 Years (1862-1962), Angus and Robinson, Sydney, pp. 128-133; Craig Munro, 'Stephensen, Percy Reginald (1901–1965)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stephensen-percy-reginald-8645/text15115, accessed 25 February 2012. 23 Margaret Molloy, A Century of Sydney’s Flying Sailors, Sydney Flying Squadron, Milson‘s Point, 1991, p17.

145 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

Sailing, yachting and identity The federation of the Australian colonies coincided with a generational shift in Sydney‘s yachting community. Over the first years of the Commonwealth the old generation of recreational sailors who remembered the beginnings of the pastime in the colony died and modern Australian yachtsmen took their place as the statesmen of the sport. For example, the Sydney Mail interviewed the ‗Ancient Mariners‘ of Sydney Harbour in the 1897 ‗Sailing‘ supplement. James Milson, Alfred Fairfax, George Thornton and Richard Harnett were invited aboard the Prince Alfred Yacht Club Commodore‘s steam yacht Bronzewing where they might revive old memories of sailing. Milson who had won the 1837 Anniversary Regatta, remembered regattas as far back as 1834. Fairfax saw the 1841 regatta as a boy ‗fresh out from England‘. Thornton had a ‗long and intimate‘ connection with yachting in the Australian colonies and Harnett designed the legendary yacht Australian in the 1850s. The Sydney Mail described the outing as a ‗unique and historic assemblage‘ of the oldest and most prominent yachting identities. Their reminiscences provided glimpses of the glorious old days of yachting that were fading from living memory: all four men died between 1901 and 1903.24 Their world of sailing and yachting in the colonies was relegated to a romantic and nostalgic history. The history that these sailors represented was important to the modern yachtsman. The Sydney Mail claimed that there was always something particularly interesting about an ancient mariner and that the old yachtsman shared many of these characteristics: a glittering eye, ruddy skin, white hair, and the recollection of many a buffeting gale.25 The romantic sense of the past was also manifest in nostalgia for the oldest yacht clubs. The Royal Yacht Club of Victoria was introduced as an ‗old institution‘ in an aquatic magazine the Anchor. The article described the ‗old‘ rigging shed, a site of many happy gatherings, and the ‗honoured relics‘ that decorated its well-furnished clubhouse in St Kilda.26 Weather-Eye described the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron as ‗ancient‘ when reporting the somewhat lacklustre opening ceremony of ‗Sydney‘s oldest club‘. The Dutch word for yacht jachten, signifying hurry, framed the manoeuvres of the local yachts in the old European traditions of the

24 ‗Sailing‘, Sydney Mail, January 30, 1897. 25 Ibid. 26 ‗The Royal Yacht Club of Victoria‘, The Anchor, 19 October, 1911, pp. 31-34.

146 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ pastime. Weather-Eye used the term with irony as there was little hurry in the current display.27 ‗Lanyard‘ described the premises of the Squadron as ‗old fashioned‘ and out-dated in ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘ published in the Evening News. This contributed to the image of permanence, but despite the ‗old fashioned‘ premises, the Squadron had been located on the waterfront in Kirribilli for only four years, having moved in to the pre existing cottage.28 Lanyard described the clubhouse:

It will require quite an effort to ring the bell, and then it will only sound after much wheezing and jangling of the wire. The chair you will sit down in is old and old fashioned; the shelves on which the books and magazines are kept are rather of the kitchen dresser order; the fireplace is primitive, and, generally speaking, the house looks more like the house of a gentleman in straitened circumstances than a club. Yet the members love the old house, and keenly resent the remarks of new-comers, who suggest a more up-to-date habitation for the senior yachting club.29

The sentimental descriptions of the yacht clubs and yachtsmen were framed by the British traditions of yachting. There was nostalgia for these too. At the beginning of the 1900-1901 sailing season Weather-Eye suggested that the sport of sailing races was owed perhaps to King Charles II, the ‗gay monarch‘, who designed and raced yachts in the seventeenth century. This fact, and the great struggles for the America Cup explained the ‗great enthusiasm‘ for ‗the good old sailing season in Port Jackson‘.30 When Lanyard described the tradition of launching a ship in the Evening News, he reminded readers of the connection between heritage and British custom. Lanyard wrote: ‗We follow British custom at such a function just as, regardless of the difference in conditions here, we feast on roast beef and plum pudding at Christmas‘.31 The symbols, emblems, and ceremonies of yachting institutions maintained these British customs during the Federation period. The club burgees, small triangular-shaped flags that identify specific clubs, were not made up of green and gold, worn by cricket teams since 1899, but the red white and blue of the Australian

27 ‗Weather-eye‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 3 October 1900, p. 6. 28 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 132. 29 ‗Lanyard‘, ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘, number 11, Evening News, 14 December, 1907. 30 ‗Weather-eye‘, ‗Sailing Notes‘, Referee, 3 October, 1900, p. 6. 31 ‗Lanyard‘. ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘, number 7, Evening News, 23 November, 1907.

147 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ flag and Union Jack.32 The motif of the crown on emblems and flags was an honour that denoted the yacht clubs with royal patronage. In some cases, this was an ongoing tradition. The Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron was the oldest and thus premier ‗Royal‘ yacht club in Australia having been granted the warrant in 1863. The Prince Alfred Yacht Club, named with the permission of the Duke of Edinburgh after his visit to New South Wales in 1868, was granted the Royal warrant in July the following year. The Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron, formed in 1869, received its warrant granted by Queen Victoria in 1890, and the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria was granted its warrant in 1886. In other cases, clubs adopted the regal symbols later reaffirming the regal connections after Federation. The Royal Queensland Yacht Club for example had an ambiguous history. It operated under a number of different names. Thomas Welsby insisted that the club was originally called the ‗Brisbane Sailing Club‘, sometimes with the prefix ‗Amateur‘. In 1894, it became the ‗Queensland Yacht Club‘ when it was granted permission to fly the blue ensign, and not until 1902 was the prefix ‗Royal‘ adopted. The Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania did not receive its Royal warrant until 1910. With royal status came the responsibility to display British emblems and follow proper naval etiquette. The yachts on the register of the royal clubs were required by club rules to display the blue ensign of the Royal Navy when club members were on board, and denied permission to use it when they were not. Lanyard devoted a section of ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘ to explaining the importance of flag etiquette and ensigns. It included a subtle warning to those who did not comply. In one anecdote, a naval officer had threatened to remove an incorrectly displayed ensign by sending for a man with an axe to cut down the boat‘s rigging.33 These naval traditions were associated with images of empire. As Mary Conley writes: ‗By the Edwardian age, the popular image of the naval man came to symbolise the strength of the navy, the stability of Britain and the health of the British empire‘.34 Yacht clubs also maintained vice regal connections with a sense of continuity and tradition. WH Bundey remembered that Lord Brassey patronised yachting in

32 See: Richard Cashman and Peter Sharpham, ‗Symbols, Emblems, Colours and Names‘, Sport in the National Imagination, Cashman, pp. 58-102. 33 ‗Lanyard‘, ‗Port Jackson‘s Pleasure Fleets‘, number 1, Evening News, 11 October, 1907. 34 Mary A Conley, From Jack Tar to Union Jack: Representing Naval Manhood in the British Empire, 1897-1918, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2009, p. 5.

148 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

Australia during his 1887 visit.35 Brassey was later appointed Governor of Victoria and held the post from 1895-1900, and at this time, he was also Commodore of the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria.36 Governors were involved with the elite yachting institutions in Sydney. Both the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and the Prince Alfred Yacht Club in Sydney welcomed Beauchamp as Governor of New South Wales in May 1899.37 Beauchamp then became Commodore of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron during his posting. The Prince Alfred Club hosted an aquatic fete in Farm cove to ‗serenade‘ the Governor General, Lord Hopetoun, who had just arrived in Sydney in December 1900 before the declaration of the Commonwealth. The yachts of the Prince Alfred Club were towed by steam launches, and illuminated by elaborate electric and pyrotechnic displays. Club members and their guests witnessed the fete aboard a hired steamer, and ashore at Government House. The Sydney Mail described the reception as ‗one of the most interesting, that has occurred in the yachting history of Sydney‘.38 A correspondent to the Adelaide Advertiser complained in 1903 when the new Governor of South Australia arrived by train, thus denying the opportunity for a traditional harbour-based welcome. They remembered the arrival of the previous Governor in 1899 at Largs Bay and imagined links between the state, motherland and the sea. The yachts of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron had contributed to the spectacular effect on that auspicious occasion. Without such ceremony, those who lived by the seaside were denied the chance to display their loyalty to the new Governor. The correspondent wrote:

The arrival of a Governor at Largs Bay gives the authorities more scope to indulge in formalities and display in connection with a welcome of the kind, as there is greater opportunity for spectacular effect, and more chance for those who dwell at the seaside, our leading seaport, and the towns en route to the city, to manifest their loyalty towards the gentleman who is chosen to be the connecting link between the State and the motherland. … The inspiring cheers from the Jack Tars of the Protector, the flotilla of yachts of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron flitting about in the river, and the hearty

35 W H Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Years Yachting in Australia: An Essay on Manly Sports, A Cruise on Shore, &c., &c., E S Wigg and son, Adelaide, 1888, p. xiii. 36 B R Penny, 'Brassey, Thomas (1836–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brassey-thomas- 5339/text8947, accessed 27 March 2012. 37 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 126. 38 Sydney Mail, 29 December,1900.

149 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

cheering along the banks of the stream‘ combined to make the welcome of the previous Governor such an auspicious occasion. 39

Britishness remained an important part of the symbols and traditions of yachting but shifts in the identity and loyalties of yachtsmen were also becoming apparent. A symbolic shift took place at the beginning of the 1901-1902 sailing season in Sydney when Thomas Dibbs, a native born yachtsman replaced Beauchamp as Commodore of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. Dibbs was the son of a master mariner, a successful banker and a strong supporter of yachting.40 Samuel Horden, Commodore of the Prince Alfred Yacht Club, spoke about Dibbs at the Squadron‘s opening ceremony of the 1901-1902 sailing season. Horden applied a sense of colonial nationalism to the Commonwealth. He proposed a toast to the new Commodore: ‗because he had done much for yachting in Sydney, and would yet do more to advance the sport and make it the premier pastime in Australia‘. He continued to say that he would potentially have a new boat built in Australia. Horden joked:

He had always owned a fast and good boat, and it was pleasant to know that he had built the Ena in the colony. He (Mr Horden) was well aware that his own boat was not Australian-built, but if he went in for a larger one he would have it constructed here – if the tariff would allow him.41

The Commonwealth had an effect on sailing and yachting cultures as it represented a national community towards which the loyalties of yachtsmen could be directed. Australian citizens were encouraged to buy Australian products for the economic prosperity of the nation and a vast array of national brands were developed after Federation.42 Open boats always represented local traditions and now some of these were aligned with the Commonwealth. The 18-footer Kimset displayed the Commonwealth flag on its main sail and Rosetta displayed a red version. Advance referenced the motto ‗Advance Australia‘ and was identified by the Australian coat of arms. In other cases, imperial symbols were used. The 18-footer, Australian combined a national name with an imperial symbol, it could be spotted by the Union Jack on its

39 ‗The New Governor‘ Advertiser, 2 July, 1903, p. 7. 40 G J Abbott, 'Dibbs, Sir Thomas Allwright (1832–1923)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dibbs- sir-thomas-allwright-308/text5181, accessed 20 October 2011. 41 Sydney Mail, 26 October, 1901, p. 1051. 42 Stephen Alomes, A Nation At Last? The Changing Character of Australian Nationalism 1880-1988, Angus and Robinson, London, 1988, p. 42.

150 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ mainsail. Golding displayed an imperial symbol in the P. and O flag, and Tom Tait had a version of the naval Blue Ensign with a white cross on its mainsail. Yachts and keelboats now adopted aspects of local design and building as well. Walter Marks‘ yacht was a fusion of English and local production. Marks was a successful amateur yachtsman, a second generation Australian born in Jamberoo, New South Wales. He had a modest rater built to challenge for an interstate competition, the Northcote Cup to be sailed in Victoria in 1909. Reporters commented on the provenance of the yacht with attention to local construction. One newspaper article stated that it was designed in England by a great yacht designer, Alfred Mylne, and its spars built at ‗home‘, (a reference to England), but the hull was put together locally at Ford‘s Shipyard located in Berry‘s Bay, Balmain. The reporter hoped that one day they might see a Sydney designed, built and rigged yacht challenge Victoria for the cup under the flag of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron or Prince Alfred Yacht Club.43 British traditions also underpinned the event. The small yacht, only 20 feet long on the waterline and 31 foot over all, was to be first yacht in Australia to be christened by an Admiral, Vice Admiral Sir Richard Poore. At the small ceremony, Poore stated that as a seafaring man he was naturally interested in anything pertaining to the sea. The involvement of the Vice Admiral was yet another example of the implicit connection of yachting and the navy through the simple medium of salt water. The Admiral said that he hoped Culwulla II would win ‗but don‘t tell them in Melbourne I said so‘, he added to laughter and applause.44 Naval defence can be seen in the same context of a complicated relationship between Australia and Britain. Defence from invasion as well as the defence of Australian economic interests were significant factors in the arguments supporting federation. When the commonwealth government was formed it ‗inherited from the states a motley collection of antiquated gunboats‘, mostly acquired during war scares of the 1880s and the Royal Navy remained as the final guarantor of Australian security as during the colonial period.45 But as Neville Meaney has documented, conflict over imperial and Australian defence strategies emerged during the first decade after Federation. The commonwealth government was torn between its respect

43 Scrapbook, Sailing and Yachting, Davis Sporting Collection, Mitchell Library, state Library of New South Wales, Sydney, number 2, box 109, p. 1. 44 Ibid. 45 Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, pp. 139-141; Stuart Macintyre, The Oxford History of Australia, Volume 4, p. 139; Neville Meaney, The Search for Security in the Pacific, 1901-14, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1976, p. 55.

151 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ for Admiralty authority and the ‗mystique‘ of the Royal Navy, doubts that the centralising doctrine of the British fleet would protect Australian coasts in time of war, and ‗its national sentiment which demanded a local navy for reasons of self- respect‘.46 The Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the Japanese defeat of Russia in 1904-1905, and the visit of the American battleship fleet, The Great White Fleet, increased Australian fears of a military threat from Asia and ‗whetted the appetite of local navalists‘. But it was the imperial sentiment whipped up in Britain‘s naval race with Germany that directly led to the establishment of independent sea-going navies in Australia and Canada that could operate as part of the Royal Navy during wartime.47 The close sentimental connections between yachting, the navy and empire brought the shifting relationship between Britain and Australia to the fore in yachting culture. This can be seen in 1911 when the Australian yacht clubs decided to donate a trophy to the International Yacht Racing Union. The Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron presented an ‗Australian Cup‘ on behalf of Australian yachtsmen and the senior yacht clubs of the Commonwealth. Six 12 metre yachts competed for the cup in Cowes, four British, one from Holland and one from Norway and the results were published in the aquatic magazine the Anchor.48 The small symbol of independence and maturity demonstrated that Australian sentiment could be negotiated within the continuing relationship with Britain. The sailing season in Sydney was beginning to be imagined in a national context by 1912. A full-page photo of the dark silhouettes of two 18-footers with every sail set was included in the Sydney Mail at the beginning of the 1912-1913 sailing season. The title read ‗On Sydney Harbour‘, but the caption imagined the beginning of the season in Sydney amongst the opening of the season across Australia. The caption read:

The yachting season is here again. In Sydney Harbour, Port Phillip, Moreton Bay, the Swan River and at Hobart craft of all sorts have been busy heralding the return of fine weather and brighter skies.49

46 Meaney, The Search for Security in the Pacific. p. 75. 47 Frank Broeze, Island Nation: A History of Australians and the Sea, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1998, p. 44. 48 ‗The Australian Cup‘, The Anchor, 5 October, 1911, p. 2. 49 ‗On Sydney Harbour‘ Sydney Mail, 2 October, 1912.

152 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

An article on ‗Summer Sport‘ appeared later in the same edition of the Sydney Mail. It stated that the return of summer weather meant ‗a return to that outdoor life that is such a big factor in shaping the character and destiny of the people of the Commonwealth‘. The article considered three summer sports and pastimes, cricket, sailing and the beach. However, Britishness still defined the shared community. The images of the summer sports were shared between the ‗sons of Britons‘ and this explained the popularity of the sea. The article continued:

There is a whisper along the shore line. All the wavelets that come rippling into the harbour inlets with the glint of the summer sun and the salt of the ocean in them seem to invite sons of Britons to take once more to the sea. And because the Viking stock is not extinct, because the Norse blood has not yet run dry, Australians accept the invitation. Land might be a fine place to sleep on or which to grow things, but the sea is the place for enjoyment. 50

The article considered it natural that that the ‗army or navy‘ of sailing enthusiasts, oarsmen, swimmers, surfers, boatmen and motor boatmen would take to the water in a city blessed with such delightful surroundings. The sea defined something that was shared between Australians, but this shared community was united by its Britishness and not defined as different from it.

The Commonwealth and the sea The customary toasts at the beginning of the sailing season or other social events revealed the loyalties of the modern yachtsmen. Sometimes the Commonwealth was proposed but more often it was the king, army and navy received the honour. Otherwise, the regular toast to ‗kindred clubs‘ indicated the imagined community yachtsmen who were bound by a love of the sea.51 At one opening of the season in Sydney, Mr Horden from the Prince Alfred Club proposed the health of Dibbs from the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. In response, Dibbs said that having the vice commodore of the rival club aboard his yacht was a ‗true indication of the community of interests which exists among true sportsmen‘.52 When a member of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron toasted to the prosperity of his club, he claimed: ‗yachting remained a sport pursued for the love of the sea, and for the joy a man felt in having

50 ‗Summer Sport‘, Sydney Mail, 2 October, 1912. 51 Sydney Morning Herald, 26 October, 1902 p. 12; Sydney Morning Herald, 24 October, 1903 p. 12; Argus, 17 November, 1902 p. 2. Argus, 26 September, 1904, p. 7. 52 Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October, 1902, p. 4.

153 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ under his control a beautiful craft which he could direct withersoever he willed with a touch of his hand‘. In Victoria, the Commodore of the Royal Yacht Club was pleased to see the yachtsmen ‗united‘ when he proposed toast to ‗yachting‘.53 Thomas Welsby, Commodore of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club saw the sea as the shared interest between yachtsmen. He quoted Robert Louis Stevenson in the introduction to the club history: ‗For will anyone dare to tell me that business is more satisfying than fooling among boats‘. He then commented that ‗there is pleasure in fooling among boats … there is experienced an indisputable feeling of pleasure that none but a boating man can understand‘.54 The idea of ‗kindred clubs‘ imagined the sea, empire, and nation as related entities where one informed the other. At the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron Commodore‘s Dinner in 1901 the new Commodore Thomas Dibbs proposed a toast to the ‗Army and the Navy‘. He said that he was proud of ‗Australia‘s Sons‘, and suggested that given their commitment to the Empire, their commitment to their ‗native country‘ would be even greater. The speech was paraphrased in the Sydney Morning Herald:

There was no doubt that if ever it chanced that Australia‘s sons had to defend her shores from attacks by a foreign foe they would exhibit the pluck and determination that they had shown in South Africa. He maintained that if, as had already been shown, Australians had the pluck to fight for the Empire, they would display even greater courage and heroism if ever they were called upon to fight for their native country.

The replies stressed the dual commitment to nation and empire. Guests Major-General French and Commander Lindeman RN replied on behalf of the army and Navy respectively. French said soldiers brought credit upon their native land as either ‗land soldiers in South Africa or as sea soldiers in China‘. He was satisfied that if trouble came ‗the Australians would show themselves worthy sons of worthy sires‘. As Commander of the Sydney Naval Brigade, Lindeman commented on naval defence specifically. He suggested, to loud applause that an Australian navy might be formed as an inner line of defence, and if so, he concluded that: ‗they could not have anything better to pick from than the yachtsman of these ports‘. In the patriotic mood of the

53 Argus, 19 November, 1900, p. 7. 54 Thomas Welsby, History of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club, Watson, Ferguson and Company, Brisbane 1918, pp. 7-8.

154 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ night, Mr Wise then spoke in support of Captain Lindeman‘s suggestions. He said that Commander Lindeman had touched on a matter of great importance. They had a Naval Brigade and Naval Volunteer Artillery, but they also had yachtsmen from the six year old in a canvas dinghy to the sailors of big pleasure craft. He believed a sea force made up of 10 000 volunteers was possible: ‗The yachtsmen in Sydney were an influential body, and he believed if they pressed this point in the proper quarters good results would follow‘.55 The yachtsman‘s inherent love of the sea combined with an amateur ethos was manifest in the commitment to national defence. While there may have been pleasure ‗fooling in boats‘, others considered a more serious side to the sea. Welsby quoted the late Captain Mackay, one time port and harbour master of Brisbane in his club history. Mackay argued that familiarity with the ocean and the challenges associated with storm and calm provided ‗boys‘ with ‗a spirit of manly emulation‘. He said:

Take a boy on his first voyage, as day by day he becomes familiar with his changed environments; becomes familiar with the ocean with all its grandeur, its over-whelming vastness; its varied moods of storm and calm; note how he marks with boyish enthusiasm man‘s intelligence and skill to combat successfully with the fiercest storm; then gradually finds himself possessed of a spirit of manly emulation to which before he was a stranger.56

The references to ‗combat‘ and ‗manly emulation‘ reflected the increasing militarism of middle class ideology around sport and physical activity. Martin Crotty identified this shift. He argued that before 1900 sport had meant fair play, loyalty, acceptance of victory and defeat, fortitude, discipline and obedience. After 1900, these meanings were allied to militarism and sport came to be adapted to preparation for war.57 Booth and Tatz also noted the relationship. For the middle classes, in nineteenth century imperial language, sport was the perfect training for battle and war.58 The militaristic language cut across the spheres of nation and empire. Crotty quoted Dr Watkin who spoke at the 1908 Wesley speech day: ‗As they strove on the football field or the

55 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 October, 1901, p. 6; Also see: The Navy and Army Illustrated, 15 October, 1897, reproduced by Naval historical Society of Australia, ‗New South Wales Naval forces‘, http://www.navyhistory.org.au/new-south-wales-naval-forces/, viewed 8 February 2012. 56 Captain Mackay, Quoted by Thomas Welsby, History of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club, Watson, Ferguson and Company, Brisbane 1918, p. 8. 57 Martin Crotty, Making the Australian Male: Middle-Class Masculinity 1870-1920, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 2001, p. 88. 58 Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, One-Eyed: A View of Australian Sport, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards NSW, 2000, p. 94.

155 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ river, so it might be that in the near future they would have to fight for the motherland, their King, and the Commonwealth‘. The potential combat was imagined at sea. The chorus of a Wesley College song entitled ‗Before the Boat Race‘ invoked the image of battle and the ‗Lion‘ keeping the river and sea. It went:

Chorus Then it‘s forward boys, to battle—hear the bugle‘s thrilling tone— With the Royal Standard borne ahead, march on to hold your own, With the Lion proudly ramping as the ensign flutters free, Let the Lion keep the river, as the Lion keeps the sea.59

Federation consolidated the image of a nation with a sea border that needed to be protected. Marylin Lake and Henry Reynolds write that the emergence of ‗white men‘s countries‘ was a defensive response to the imagined rise of non-white races. The ‗imagined community of white men‘ was transnational in its reach, but national in its outcomes.60 The idea of a ‗white mans country‘ underpinned the Immigration Restriction Act passed by the Australian commonwealth parliament in 1901, which protected the ‗purity‘ of the idealised nation through racial exclusion.61 Alison Bashford has described the conflation of race, migration issues, military defence concerns and infectious disease management that underpinned the ‗geographical imaginings of nation‘ at the time of Federation. Bashford argues that this maritime border contributed to the imagination of Australia continental nation. 62 The Federation poetry that John Hirst cited in contrast to the radical and raffish bush literature imagined a nation as a single geographical unit within a maritime border. Hirst argued that this represented a ‗civic nationalism, concerned with the state and the principles and values it should protect and advance‘. He argued that this civic nationalism was ‗dignified, earnest, Protestant, not raffish, Irish-Catholic or working-

59 Wesley College Chronicle, October, 1907, p. 3, quoted by Crotty, Making the Australian Male, p. 87. 60 Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the Question of Racial Equality, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, VIC, 2008, pp. 3-4; Marilyn Lake, ‗White Man‘s country: The Trans-National history of a national project‘, Australian Historical Studies, Volume 34, Number 122, October, 2003, pp. 346-363. 61 Macintyre, Concise History of Australia, pp. 141-143. 62 Alison Bashford, ‗At the Border: Contagion, Immigration, Nation‘, Australian Historical Studies, number 120, 2002, p. 353.

156 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ class‘.63 For example, James Brunton Stephens wrote that ‗Our bounds shall be the girdling seas alone‘ in 1877.64 William Gay‘s sonnet ‗Federation‘ written in the early 1890s, described Australia‘s ‗single shore‘. It read:

Within the unbroken circle of the skies, And round her indivisible the sea Breaks on her single shore; while only we, Her foster children, bound with sacred ties Of one dear blood, one storied enterprise, Are negligent of her integrity.65

The increasing militarism of middle class physical culture and the geographical idea of Australia as a sea-girt nation that must be defended were combined in the belief that yachting fostered desirable civic qualities. ‗Dignified, earnest‘ nationalism was compatible with a middle class yachting culture that saw its position as moral and useful. At the opening of the season for the Brighton Yacht Club in Victoria in 1909, commentators suggested that the Commonwealth Government ought to pay for the construction of a breakwater for the club. The Argus commented on the establishment ‗our own navy‘ that would need skilled ‗sailor men‘ and argued that ‗there can be no better groundwork than that which roughing it from day to day sailing in small boats in every kind of weather provides‘.66 By this point, the transformation of the Commonwealth naval forces into the Royal Australian Navy was underway.67 The argument over the breakwater continued over a number of seasons. The club commodore claimed that ‗just as the rifle clubs formed an integral part of the scheme of land defence, so would the yacht clubs be an even more important factor in the realisation of ‗Australian naval ideals‘.68 The ‗naval ideals‘ fostered by yachting were proposed as a solution to the ‗boy problem‘ in Victoria. The ‗boy problem‘ described the fear of moral corruption and physical decline that underpinned mostly middle class efforts to develop the ‗manly‘ boy.69 An ‗enthusiastic member of the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria‘ suggested a scheme that would attract ‗the schoolboy of to-

63 John Hirst, ‗Federation: Destiny and Identity‘, Sense and Nonsense in Australian History, Black Inc Agenda, Melbourne, 2006, pp. 204-205. 64 James Brunton Stephens, ‗The Dominion of Australia: A Forecast‘, 1877, quoted in Hirst, Sentimental Nation, pp. 16-17. 65 William Gay, ‗Federation‘, Quoted in Hirst, Sentimental Nation, pp. 17-18. 66 ‗Jackyard‘, ‗Brighton Opening Day‘, Argus 22 November, 1909. 67 Broeze, Island Nation, pp. 44-45. 68 Jackyard, ‗Yachting‘, Argus, 28 November, 1912. 69 Crotty, Making the Australian Male, pp. 10-11.

157 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ day to the future naval defence of his country‘. It proposed that the Royal Yacht Club, and any participating clubs, would accept pupils from the public schools to be trained in seamanship through practical yachting experience. This would provide yachtsmen with young and energetic crew and the Commonwealth with a training ground for future naval officers.70 Connections between naval ideals, citizenship and the Commonwealth were evident when the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1912. The flag of the Commonwealth was flown from the club‘s flagstaff and over 100 members attended a banquet to celebrate the occasion at the Australia Hotel demonstrating symbolic connections to nation. A guest from the Royal Navy, Captain Rolleston, responded to the toast of the Navy and Army. Rolleston stressed the connection between the Navy and yachting, and stated that yachting was the ‗cleanest and finest sport in the world‘. Judge Alfred Blackhouse responded with an even stronger observation that: ‗Yachting makes all who participate in it better citizens‘.71

Yachting and defence in South Australia A sense of civic duty, loyalty to Empire, and an inherent belief in the moral value of yachting informed Bundy‘s attitude to local defence in South Australia. WH Bundey concluded his lecture on the ‗Intellectual and Physical Advantages of Yachting‘ to members of the South Australian Yacht Club in 1897 by considering defence. He told his audience that in the old country the supporters of manly recreations insist that Britain‘s national pastimes have contributed to their success on the battlefield and upon the water. Bundey described the heroic actions of a well-known English yachtsman E F Knight, who fought for the British Empire in India. He thought that these deeds of heroism represented the bravery inherent in ‗bold and fearless yachtsmen‘. He asked:

Am I not right, gentlemen, in saying that these deeds of heroism make the blood course through our veins with pride and admiration for our brave fellow-countrymen; and for the knowledge of them in the graphic form in which they are portrayed we are indebted to a bold and fearless yachtsman, who was not a mere idle spectator of them.72

70 ‗A Naval Nursery‘, Argus, 6 April, 1911, p. 7. 71 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, pp. 147-8. 72 W H Bundey, ‗Intellectual and Physical Advantages of Yachting‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 26 June, 1897, p. 7.

158 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

Bundey thought that the same spirit that induced Knight to join his countrymen had prompted the yachtsmen of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron to place their services at the command of their commodore as part of the Naval Reserve of the colony. Bundey congratulated the gentlemen on their service and argued that the knowledge obtained ‗in their glorious pastime‘ of yachting could be turned to ‗patriotic and practical use‘. He finished by saying that the head of the Naval Reserve, ‗Commodore Creswell will be as proud of you in the Reserve as he is now in your character as yachtsmen‘.73 These factors continued to shape the attitudes and activities of south Australian yachtsmen after Federation. Only the same ideology that fostered Bundy‘s commitment to empire was also manifest in in a commitment to the nation. The issues of yachting and defence were discussed in public forums, at regattas and social events in South Australia after 1908. The establishment of the Royal Australian Navy at this time provided a new object that grabbed the attention and focus of civic-minded yachtsmen. As Broeze noted, the launch of the Australian battle cruiser HMAS Australia was simultaneously a symbol of Australian maturity and power and commitment to the empire.74 Bundey‘s reference to ‗Commodore Creswell‘ signified the connections across empire and nation that shaped the relationship between yachting and defence. Creswell commanded the naval defences of the South Australian colony, a small fleet of armed vessels. He held the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy and enjoyed a long career in the Australian colonies and states commanding local naval defence forces. He was an outspoken supporter of Australian naval defence and consistently argued for more ships and sailors as part of Australian and imperial defence strategy. Creswell was then instrumental in the establishment of the Royal Australian Navy, and was the first naval member of the Australian Naval Board in 1911.75 Creswell included the yachting community in his ideas about naval defence and had trained South Australian yachtsmen in the basics of seamanship. He established a similar defence scheme in Queensland in 1903. As Naval Commandant

73 Ibid. 74 Broeze, Island Nation, pp. 44-45. 75 Robert Hyslop, 'Creswell, Sir William Rooke (1852–1933)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/creswell-sir-william-rooke-5817/text9875, accessed 20 October 2011.

159 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ for Queensland, he trained members of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club in the rudimentary principles of seamanship once a week in the club‘s meeting rooms.76 As a guest at a dinner for the Royal Yacht club of Victoria in March 1908, Creswell responded to a toast to the Navy. He stated that ‗the authorities were only too pleased to assist yachtsmen, as their recruiting ground must be from this source‘.77 He then oversaw a yachtsman‘s naval brigade that was established in Victoria over the winter months of 1908. The idea, initiated by the commodore of the Brighton Yacht club on Port Phillip, was supported by the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, which held a meeting of representatives from the Melbourne clubs. The scheme proposed that five members of each club would attend 40 drills per annum, with no day drills during the yachting season so as not to interfere with their sport. The Argus reported that yachtsmen would contribute to the Commonwealth Government‘s scheme of naval defence by manning the torpedo fleet, which was part of the Commonwealth Government‘s scheme of naval defence.78 The yachtsmen of South Australia closely monitored the Victorian scheme. The Advertiser considered the shared interests because yachtsmen would become available during a national emergency. Between 60 and 70 ‗smart yachtsmen‘ received a small retaining fee and a distinctive badge granted by the Commonwealth.79 At the annual meeting of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron that year, the Commodore suggested that they could establish a similar scheme in South Australian waters. The Commodore‘s speech reproduced in the Advertiser claimed that their yachtsmen were just as patriotic. It read:

They were quite as capable and patriotic in South Australia as were yachtsmen in the other states. The question of defence, both naval and military was in the forefront today, and in the near future some form of compulsory service would be brought about. 80

The Governor General of Australia, Lord Dudley, raised the potential patriotism of the Australian yachtsman later that season. At the Kintore Cup in February, the annual yachting festival of the state, Dudley spoke on the themes of ‗yachting and defence‘.

76 Thomas Welsby, History of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club, p. 160. 77 ‗Yachting‘, Argus, 14 March, 1908, p. 17. 78 ‗Volunteer Naval Brigade‘, Argus, 8 July, 1908, p. 10. 79 ‗Yachtsmen and Defence‘, Advertiser, 7 August, 1908, p. 8. 80 ‗Naval Defence‘, Advertiser, 9 October, 1908, p. 7.

160 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

The ‗stirring speech‘ was printed newspapers across Australia describing Dudley‘s views on yachting defence and the need to ‗foster a love of the sea‘ again suggesting the shared interest across the Commonwealth.81 Dudley replied after the Commodore and the yachtsmen of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron proposed a ‗kind toast‘ to the Governor, a yachtsman in the old country. He stated that a country like Australia with such a large seaboard should be taking an interest in ‗seafaring things‘ and the love of the sea inherent in every Briton must be developed in Australia. The reply finished with a reference to the mother country as a ‗maritime nation‘. Dudley stated:

You have at present not a very large fishing fleet, nor a large number of men who go to sea in ships of war. Therefore I think to a certain extent it rests with you to keep alive the love of the sea which is inherent in every Briton. Some day or other Australia will have to develop this love of the sea. As you increase your population that feeling will have to become larger. … We are a maritime nation so much depends upon the efficiency of the Imperial fleet that I hope within the next 20 or 25 years a great interest will be displayed in the number of Australians who take to the sea as a profession. 82

The Governor of South Australia spoke at the following Kintore Cup in 1910. Admiral Day Hort Bosanquet was a retired naval officer, but he relayed ‗amusing reminiscences‘ of his yachting days rather than providing his thoughts on naval defence.83 It was up to the Commodore of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron to articulate the patriotic sense of civic duty. He reiterated Dudley‘s comments from the season before, but now they were applied more explicitly to the Commonwealth, and country. The Commodore said:

Yachting had as many claims to consideration and moral support from the holders of the highest offices of the Commonwealth as any pastime, because the yachtsman‘s energies were directed to a sport which would give them a knowledge of the profession of the sea that could be turned to use in the part they might be called upon to play in the affairs of their country in the future.

81 ‗Lord Dudley on Yachting‘, Advertiser, 8 February 1909, p. 6; ‗Yachts and Warships‘, Argus, 8 February, 1909, p. 7; ‗Lord Dudley on Yachting‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February, 1908, p. 7; ‗Australian Navy‘, Brisbane Courier, 8 February, 1909, p. 5; ‗The Defence of Australia‘, West Australian, 8 February, 1909, p. 5. 82 ‗Lord Dudley on Yachting‘, Advertiser, 8 February, 1909, p6. 83 P. A Howell, 'Bosanquet, Sir Day Hort (1843–1923)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bosanquet-sir- day-hort-5298/text8941, accessed 20 October 2011.

161 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

The commodore stated that the assistance provided by Australia to the ‗old country in wartime was evidence that strong, skilled, athletic, yachtsmen would be ready to respond to the call of duty in defence of ‗their country‘.84 The links between the navy and yachting were not just practical, but sentimental. The idea of the sea was shaped into an expression of patriotism. This was not based on aspects of Australian identity that were distinctive, but those that were shared with the mother country. Admiral Bosanquet shared his thoughts on ‗yachts and yachting‘ at the 1911 Cup. After the Commodore of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron had considered the tendency of yacht clubs to ‗awaken and maintain an interest in all matters pertaining to the sea‘ particularly the manning of the Australian navy, the Admiral responded. He echoed Dudley‘s sentiments and compared England to Australia where reserve sailors were employed on yachts. However the ‗seafaring idea and sentiment‘ was especially important. Admiral Bosanquet explained:

In view of the inauguration of Federal naval defence there was nothing more important to the Commonwealth than the encouragement of seafaring sentiments amongst the inhabitants of the coast districts, and the sport of yachting had an important bearing upon that question. In England a large number of the best men belonging to the Royal Fleet Reserve were consistently employed on board the vessels of the different yacht squadrons, and there could be no doubt that in case their services were required, Great Britain would obtain from that quarter a considerable number of capable seamen. In Australia, however, it was the encouragement of the seafaring idea and sentiment which was so specially important, and which received impetus and development from the employment of seamen and boys in yachts and other coastwise sailing craft.85

The patriotic sentiment applied to the yachtsman‘s love of the sea was repeated at the ceremonies of other South Australian sailing clubs. The Port Adelaide Sailing Club president spoke about the good clean honest sport of yachting at the club‘s annual social in May. He was anxious that ‗Australians should not be behind their British forefathers in a love for the sea‘ as Australia was developing a navy and ‗had to look to her people to man the ships‘.86 There was significant self-interest in some of these statements. Admiral Bosanquet attended the opening demonstration of the Holdfast

84 ‗Lord Dudley on Yachting‘, Advertiser, 8 February, 1909, p6. 85 ‗Yachts and Yachting‘ Advertiser, 20 February, 1911, p. 12. 86 ‗Port Adelaide Sailing Club‘, Advertiser, 2 May, 1910, p7.

162 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’

Bay Club in December. The Commodore regretted that nearly all the clubs boats were destroyed in bad weather. However, gentlemen had displayed ‗pluck and determination‘ in their efforts to re build the fleet. Those same attributes would build up a ‗great nation of the Commonwealth‘. The same argument that yachtsmen would man the navy of the future was raised in the hope that the Government would provide harbour facilities to protect the club‘s boats in the interests of the Commonwealth and the Empire. The Governor replied stating once again that ‗it was essential that yachtsmen should have every encouragement in fostering a taste for seamanship‘.87 At the Holdfast Bay Club social in December 1911, Mr T. Ryan, a member of parliament, said that he and other members of Parliament recognised the importance of the seamanship acquired by yachtsmen both to the State and the Commonwealth. He had no doubt that yachtsmen would fight for their country, and suggested that the government provide each club with a boat for training so that school children could acquire a taste for aquatic sports.88 At the Port Adelaide social in 1912, the President considered the useful qualities, intellectual and physical, fostered by yachting. Another member said that the national parliament was beginning to take a ‗higher view‘ and recognise the people of the Commonwealth as ‗Australians‘. This was applied to national defence and yachting and Australians compared favourably with the rest of the world. He continued: ‗The sailing clubs of Australia compared favourably with those of other countries, and yachtsmen should take a great interest in the question as far as the naval unit was concerned‘. 89 There were limits to the goodwill fostered between patriotic yachtsmen and the Government. The State Premier provided a gentle rebuke regarding the provision of a safe harbour at Glenelg during the local sailing club‘s prize night in 1912. He was ‗honoured to be in the company of so many sea dogs‘, but ‗hopeful that they had sufficient sportsmanlike spirit to discard the idea of leaning on the Government‘. He thought that their loyalty to the sport should be enough to prevent the need for government support and ‗there were sufficient men in the Commonwealth with a knowledge of the sea to man the Australian navy‘.90 Nevertheless, the earnest, if self- interested, sentiment of South Australian yachtsmen regarding national defence revealed the way that maritime sentiment was tied to the idea of the nation. It also

87 ‗Holdfast Bay Club‘, Advertiser, 5 December, 1910, p. 12. 88 ‗The Value of Yachting‘ Advertiser, 18 December, 1911, p. 8. 89 ‗Yachting‘, Advertiser, 29 April, 1912, p. 13. 90 ‗Yachting‘, Advertiser, 27 May, 1912, p. 14.

163 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ showed that imperial connections provided the ideology of defence and maritime traditions that made these connections possible.

Conclusion Australians had endured more than three years of conflict in the First World War when the History of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club was published in 1918. Thomas Welsby, a founding member in the 1880s and Commodore since 1903, wrote the history. At 60 years of age, he was too old for active service in the war, but the club history provided him with the opportunity to articulate his strong sense of loyalty and patriotism. A quote from the club Commodore in a minute book dated 1900 stated that ‗it was largely to sailing men that they would have to look for assistance in their first line of defence‘.91 Welsby added: ‗Thank Heaven, I can say now that many of our boys – club members – are defending our Empire both on land and sea‘.92 Under the title: ‗Lest We Forget‘, Welsby described a line of photos of club members who had gone to war and ‗done their duty‘, and published the names of those returned, killed in action and still serving. The home front was also included in the war effort of yachtsmen. A ‗Jack Tar‘ fund raised by club members, to assist sailors and their dependants who had fought for ‗their country, civilisation, Christianity and freedom‘, and Christmas souvenirs sent to soldiers and their families, was considered by Welsby as ‗evidence of the patriotism of our members‘. Between Federation and World War I, the maritime traditions of yachting had enabled the modern Australian yachtsman to both imagine connections to empire and articulate a commitment to the nation. Yachting represented Empire through heritage and tradition. The sea provided a sense of British identity and provided links to the motherland. Yachting maintained this through its ceremonies and traditions. The Centennial Aquatic Display looked back to the old national celebrations of the colony that celebrated the foundation of a British society on the Australian continent. The yacht clubs were closely linked to British traditions and they maintained vice regal connections and naval traditions on Australian waters. But the sea also encompassed and defined the nation both physically and in sentiment. It was central to the current concerns of the Commonwealth. Maritime defence represented the shared interests of Australians that the new government managed. And the modern Australian yachtsman

91 James Clark, quoted in Welsby, History of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club, p. 19. 92 Welsby, History of the Royal Queensland Yacht Club, p. 19.

164 Federation and the Modern Australian ‘Yachtsman’ applied the same sense of loyalty and duty that was directed towards empire to the nation. Because the sea represented dual traditions, both old and new, to empire and nation, yachting maintained its position as a national sport after Federation. Yachting did not represent an identity that was uniquely Australian or that was posed in contrast to the mother country. The combination of the yachtsman‘s love of the sea and his amateur ideology was manifest in loyalty to nation and empire.

165 Chapter 7 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

In May 1925, Will Kirkup published a poem in the new aquatic magazine the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly entitled: ‗City Sailors‘:

There‘s a sailor strain and a roving streak That runs in the blood of the most sedate, And draws men away from the Halls of Commerce, Down to the wharves where the sea-craft wait.

Deprived by fate of our ocean birthright, Condemned to live in the City‘ roar, We still can taste the joy of roving, When the office is shut and the wind‘s off-shore.

Yacht or speed-boat or eighteen-footer the throb of a motor—the rustle of sails, The cries of gulls and the swish of water, Awaken a longing for ocean trails.

A longing to see what‘s beyond the horizon To circle the globe as a bold sea-rover, Still we can carry the tang of the salt sea, Back to our desks when the week-end‘s over.1

‗City Sailors‘ spoke of three aspects of modern sailing culture. Firstly, it was a relationship between the city, work and leisure. The verses described the lure of the sea and its affect upon the desk-bound sailor who worked during the week to enjoy the pleasures of sailing on the weekend. Secondly, the thrill for the city sailors was not in racing but cruising. The romance of the sea appealed to a latent ‗roving streak‘ and a ‗longing for ocean trails‘ that underpinned weekend sailing. Finally, the sea represented adventure, the city sailors longed to go ‗beyond the horizon‘ – ‗to circle the globe as a bold sea rover‘ – even if only as a temporary respite from mundane city life before they returned to their desks, albeit with the ‗tang of the salt sea‘ fresh in their minds. Only a few sailors found the time and money for ocean cruising in the 1920s, but ‗City Sailors‘ demonstrated the importance of cruising, seafaring and adventure to the everyday sailor.

1 Will Kirkup, ‗City Sailors‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 May, 1925, p. 10.

‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

The ‗ocean trails‘ that Will Kirkup longed for existed on the periphery of beach culture. Sailing boats were sometimes present in the paintings of beaches collated by Geoffrey Dutton. They sit on the horizon, or pulled up on the sand of sheltered beaches, suggesting a world beyond that cannot be seen. Summer Day by the Derwent By Jack Carrington Smith shows the estuary behind dotted with four small boats. Tom Roberts‘s ‗tranquil painting Mentone‘ has a boat on the beach and a yacht drifting towards the edge of the image, and the paintings of Victorian beaches by Charles Conder and Walter Withers depict sails on the horizon.2 The image of a motor cruiser off North Head and Manly beach adorned the cover of the Motor Boat and Yachting in 1927.3 It was illustrated in a modern style, similar to Charles Meer‘s ‗Australian Beach Pattern‘.4 Fit young men in bathers lounged on the deck with the sun and the sea on the horizon, another confident expression of the Australian lifestyle, but also connected to a maritime world beyond the breakers. Beach culture reflected the leisure of modern city-based Australians. Close to the cities, suburbs and public transport, the beach was accessible to city-based Australians as the population of the capital cities increased. John Fiske, Bob Hodge and Graeme Turner identified the beach as a liminal space, ‗neither land nor sea‘ in Myths of Oz. They describe it as a physical bridge between the city as ‗culture‘ and the sea as ‗nature‘.5 Leone Huntsman argued that the ‗lure of the beach‘ reflected the favourable climate, geography, and culture of Australia and it became an index of our accommodation to life on this continent.6 John Rickard has also written that the emergence of beach culture was an important example of the Australian condition: ‗After the Great War the beach became the symbol of Australia at pleasure‘. The crowds turned their backs on the continent, city and bush, and ‗the hedonism latent in the colonial temperament now had its most dramatic flowering‘.7 Through the beach, connections to the sea were incorporated into in the image of a modern urban Australia. For example, Richard White identified the cult of the Australian surf lifesaver as the last popular addition to the ‗Australian type‘ in the late 1930s. ‗In the

2 Geoffrey Dutton, Sun, Sea, Surf and Sand: The Myth of the Beach, Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1985. 3 Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly 1 March 1927. 4 Charles Meere, Australian Beach Pattern, 1940, in Dutton, Sun, Sea, Surf and Sand, p. 84. 5 John Fiske, Bob Hodge and Graeme Turner, Myths of Oz: Reading Australian Popular Culture, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1987, pp. 59-60. 6 Leone Huntsman, Sand in Our Souls: The Beach in Australian History, Melbourne University Press, Carlton South, 2001, p. 221. 7 John Rickard, Australia: A Cultural History, Longman, New York, 1988, pp. 192-195.

167 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea surf life saver, Australians could once again identify nationhood with an ideal type of manhood‘. The lifesaver embodied the manly qualities of the bushman and the Anzac, serving the nation in his civic duties and proving his manhood in a battle with the elements. This was an urban, and specifically Sydney, image.8 Kay Saunders built upon these themes when considering the emergence of the surf lifesaver as a national icon between the wars. Saunders argued that the surf lifesaver and the Anzac digger both encapsulated ideals of Australian masculinity between the wars, old images of the ‗national type‘, of able bodied, strong, rugged, Anglo-Australian men, were reworked in a new modern form.9 A modern cruising culture developed in Australia in the 1920s and 1930s at the same time as the beach found its place in images of the modern Australian lifestyle. Sailing and yachting were pursuits of leisure for the city-based with the time and money to pursue them. The cruising boat represented technological advance with the new convenience of an inboard engine. Mass communication sold the image of cruising to a national audience through the stories published in the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting, newspapers and books. Cruising also looked back to an older period. Amateur cruising sailors, who were ready to share their experiences with readers, increasingly adopted old practices of seafaring. As steamers on commercial trade routes eventually replaced some of the last sailing ships, cruising sailors embraced and romanticised the world of sea and sail. So, where the beach was imagined as a new discovery in the twentieth century, Huntsman argued that: ‗Late in the [nineteenth] century the beach, and all it would mean in the century to come, was yet to be discovered‘, cruising looked back to established maritime traditions for definition.10 However, when Australian authors first considered the history of Australian cruising in the late 1980s, they focused on the post-war boom after 1945. Cruising had not been included in earlier authoritative texts on Australian yachting and sailing such as Lou d‘Alpuget‘s Yachting in Australia and Bob Ross‘s Sailing Australians. Peter Fry wrote a book based on an ABC radio series that profiled Australians involved in short-handed ocean sailing and cruising entitled Bluewater Australians in

8 Richard White, Inventing Australia: Images and Identity 1688-1980, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1981, pp. 154-157; Kay Saunders, ‗ ―Specimens of Superb Manhood‖ the Lifesaver as National Icon‘, Journal of Australian Studies, volume 22, number 56, 1998, pp. 96-105 9 Saunders, ‗Specimens of superb manhood‘, pp. 96-105. 10 Huntsman, Sand in Our Souls, p. 52.

168 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

1987, not to be confused with Bruce Stannard‘s Bluewater Bushmen. Fry revealed his recent ‗discovery‘ of the Australian contribution to cruising in the introduction:

It is only in more recent times that I have come to understand that there were in fact Australian contributors to the growth of the ocean cruising movement and that indeed … there has been a network of individuals … who have kept alive a love for ocean cruising.11

Fry‘s histories of Australian cruising begin in the late 1930s with the first circumnavigation of the world by an Australian yacht, Sirius, and then continued with the second Australian circumnavigation ten years later. Alan Lucas also wrote The Cruising Australians, described as ‗a book about Australians at sea‘, in 1989. Like Fry, Lucas documented the voyages and adventures of Australian cruising sailors. But again, the burgeoning culture of coastal and ocean cruising between the wars, when the lure of the ocean and cruising found an expression in Australian sailing and yachting cultures, was not considered. This chapter considers what cruising and the sea meant to Australian sailors in the 1920s and 1930s. It documents the rise of cruising culture as an aspect of the modernisation of sailing and yachting by looking at the shifts in sailing and yachting between the wars, the design and construction of cruising boats, and the image of cruising culture in newspapers books and the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly. It argues that cruising embodied a strong sea culture in Australia, and that this was often defined beyond Australian shores. Lucas writes that while Australian life made cruising possible, ‗wanderlust‘ also drew sailors away from nation:

Most are Australian by migration, not birth, a fact that may be an accident of research but is more probably an indication that the migratory urge never dies. Certainly, their adopted country became – and remains – the object of their loyalties and the urban life gave them the wherewithal to go cruising, but the fact seems clear: wanderlust is incurable.12

Cruising was imagined in these two broad forms in the 1920s and 1930s. It was an aspect of Australian life and conditions, but also defined by a more universal western sea culture. This chapter begins by looking at the context of local sailing and yachting

11 Peter Fry, Bluewater Australians: The Australian Experience in Ocean Sailing, ABC Enterprises. Sydney, 1987, p. 10. 12 Alan Lucas, Cruising Australians, Horwitz Grahame, Cammeray, NSW, 1989, p. 1.

169 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea in the 1930s and 1930s that underpinned the Australian practice of cruising. Then it returns to an earlier period and considers the romantic traditions that informed the culture of cruising through stories of voyaging and adventure that were reproduced by Australian sailors. Cruising was a modern pastime, based on social and technological changes. More sailors had the time and money for extended coastal cruises than ever before, and the modern cruising boat made sailing and navigation easier for the amateur sailor. At the same time, cruising culture was nostalgic, drawing on the sea, adventure, and old maritime traditions.

Australian sailing and yachting between the wars The end of the World War I and the beginning of the 1920s signalled another period of change in Australian history. Stuart Macintyre notes that this was ‗a time of growth and renewal, a release from wartime hardship‘. Sydney‘s population passed one million in 1922, as did Melbourne‘s in 1928. This growth and renewal was evident mostly in the cities and in the growth of new suburbs where greater access to the conveniences of modern life were available.13 This also meant greater opportunities for leisure. Richard Waterhouse explains that a rise in living standards and lower working hours encouraged an ‗emphasis on leisure and entertainment, especially outside the home‘. He identified the traditional sports, cricket, football and horse racing, as the mainstays of popular culture, alongside new sports such as trotting and greyhound racing. These were joined by other forms of popular entertainment like the cinema and radio, which gained a foothold between the wars and contributed to the popular culture of Australia.14 Sailing and yachting continued to reflect a general sense of progress and modernity in the 1920s. The yacht clubs prospered during this time, with a general increase in membership. For the first time in Sydney since 1867, a new yacht club was formed alongside the established Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and the Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club. The Prince Edward Yacht Club was formed on the eastern shore of the harbour in 1922, and it soon also added the prefix ‗Royal‘ to its name.

13 Stuart Macintyre, A Concise History of Australia, (second edition), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004 pp. 171-172; Peter Spearritt Sydney’s Century: A History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2000, pp. 3-7. 14 Richard Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure: A History of Australian Popular Culture since 1788, Longman, South Melbourne, 1995, pp. 165-185; See also: Stuart Macintyre, The Oxford History of Australia, Volume 4, 1901-1942, The Succeeding Age, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1986, pp. 217-218 .

170 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

The Anniversary Day Regatta was now shown on newsreels with steamers and spectators in the background and the view through a pair of binoculars superimposed on the image.15 At the opening of the 1925-1926 sailing season 300 yachts spread their sails in a combined muster on Sydney Harbour. A newspaper report claimed that the galaxy of white wings would not be excelled in any part of the world.16 It is difficult to measure the effects of the Depression on the middle class, but Janet McCalman writes that they were subtle.17 P. R Stephensen notes that the Depression caused ‗many yachtsmen to curtail their activities‘ in the history of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. Some yachts were laid up and others removed from the Squadron‘s register because they were chartered to non-members. However, yachting activities continued, the a small drop in membership in the early 1930s was recovering by 1933, and Stephensen notes that ‗many new yachts appeared on the scene‘ in the 1935-1936 sailing season suggesting that the Depression only represented a brief hiatus in the prosperity of the yacht clubs. Women were finally allowed to join some of the most exclusive yacht clubs and, in an attempt to maintain membership, boys and girls between sixteen twenty-one were permitted to join the Squadron as junior members and junior associate members respectively.18 The ongoing popularity of open boat sailing was another aspect of modern aquatic culture between the wars. Open boat sailing boomed during the 1930s. It was at this time that ‗Buster‘ Brown remembers growing up by Sydney Harbour. He recalls that his ‗obsession for competitive sailing‘ in small dinghies and canvas 12- footers was the main reason that he made it through the ‗tough Depression years‘.19 The Open Boat published by the Sydney Flying Squadron listed the racing results for no less than 14 open boat clubs each week in 1933.20 The working class sport now extended from Port Jackson to Botany Bay and the Georges River to the south of the city. Open boats continued to attract a large spectatorship and gambling but changes were evident. A ‗Modern‘ skiff-type 18-footer from Brisbane upset the status quo in

15 ‗Anniversary Day Regatta on Sydney Harbour‘, Australasian Gazette, 1920, National film and Sound Archives, AVC 008430/0201918-0003. 16 P. R Stephensen, Sydney Sails: The Story of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s First 100 Years 1862-1962, Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1962, p. 166. 17 Janet McCalman, Journeyings: The Biography of a Middle Class Generation, 1920-1990, Melbourne University Press, Carlton VIC, 1993, pp. 149-150. 18 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, pp. 180-188. 19 Buster Brown, Penniless Millionaire: Tales of a Shoe String Yachtsman, Panda Books Millfield NSW, 1989, p. 23. 20 The Open Boat, numbers 1-4, 1933-1934.

171 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

Sydney. The boat was narrower and faster than the traditional type, carrying less crew and smaller sails. James J Giltinan, who had invited a New Zealand rugby league team to play against New South Wales in 1907, now formed a breakaway open boat club. He established the New South Wales 18-foot Skiff Sailing League sailing the new skiff type boats. The new club described how it took 37 years to convince sailing enthusiasts that the modern 18-footer was faster, but now the type was taking Sydney by storm.21 The success of both the Skiff Sailing League and the Flying Squadron over the interwar period was a testament to the popularity of open boat sailing in Sydney. In the 1936-1937 season an estimated150 000 people followed the League races on steamers, and it was hoped that that number would reach 500 000 the following season (they achieved 200 000).22 The open boats were now romanticised as Australian. The president of the 18-foot Skiff Sailing League wrote: ‗There can be no doubt that the modern type of 18 footer appeals to the sporting instincts of every Australian, as is evidenced by the fact that our patrons increase in number as each season progresses‘.23 In the Australian Aquatic Annual J F Black reviewed the open boats ‗Sydney‘s majestic fleet of sailing craft‘, nearly 500 strong, and said ‗we must feel comfortable and self-confident in the basic part played by the designers and builders of the craft‘. He continued to say that the two types of 18-footer ‗have no prototype in any other country‘. The Annual celebrated 50 years of 18-footer sailing, claiming that the class had ‗supplanted‘ the 22 and 24 footers ‗in the march of time‘ and that now, from 1888 to 1938 they rank as ‗the classical open boats of Australia‘.24 In 1938, The Australian Aquatic Annual claimed that one third of the adult male population were involved with aquatic sport as either participants or spectators. This may have been an exaggeration, but it demonstrated that aquatic culture was very much a key point of Australian life. The editors claimed that the conditions in Australia had produced ‗a sport loving race‘ and that ‗probably no other nation can boast of such a high percentage [of those involved in aquatic sport] and its importance to our national make-up cannot be over emphasised‘.25 The ongoing regatta tradition maintained these links to national identity. The Annual was published alongside the

21 ‗You Can‘t Stop Progress‘, NSW 18 Footers Sailing League Review, 13 March 1938 p. 3. 22 I Horwitz, ‗Editorial‘, NSW 18-Footers Sailing League Review, 19 September 1937. 23 ‗President‘s Message‘, NSW 18-Footers Sailing League Review, 18 September 1938. 24 P. Cowie Senior, ‗Fifty years with 18-footers‘, Australian Aquatic Annual, 1939, p. 58. 25 ‗Editorial‘ Australian Aquatic Annual, 1938.

172 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea sesquicentenary celebrations that marked ‗150 years of progress‘ and the Sydney Morning Herald spoke of the tradition of the sea that the regatta tradition symbolised.26 A newsreel also linked aquatic sport to maritime heritage. The narrator said: ‗We are still like our forefathers sons of the sea‘.27 Hobart celebrated its maritime traditions with the 150th Royal Hobart regatta at the same time, during which Tasmanians were expected to remember maritime traditions and the discovery of Tasmania by Able Tasman 200 years earlier.28 Australian aquatic culture became strong enough in the 1920s to maintain a new publication in the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly. The new magazine now succeeded where previous publications of the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist and the Anchor had failed, as the first genuinely national forum for Australian sailing. Established in May 1925 the magazine was published in a monthly format out of Sydney. The first issue announced ‗…here we are – the first journal of the kind ever published in Australia in the sole interest of aquatic sport.‘ By the third issue, the magazine listed representatives from Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia. A caption on the back cover claimed that it would reach a national audience, depicting the sport in every part of the continent and it predicted a boom in all states. It read:

Yachtsmen and Motor Boat enthusiasts throughout Australia will welcome the July issue of ―The Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly‖ with its absorbing articles and news items, and its many high class illustrations depicting the sport in all its branches in every part of the continent. … The results so far are most gratifying and with ―The Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly‖ booming motor boating and yachting in all the states the outlook for the approaching season is very rosy and a boom in the sport is imminent.29

The success of the Motor Boat and Yachting was evident in its longevity in boom and bust. The Yachtsman and Canoeist and the Anchor were only published for a few sailing seasons but the Motor Boat and Yachting survived the Depression and World

26 ‗Tradition of the Sea‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 January, 1938, p. 6; ‗Australia‘s Day of Rejoicing‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 January, 1938, p. 11. 27 ‗Anniversary Day Regatta Climaxes a Day of National Rejoicing‘, Movietone News, 1938, National Film and Sound Archive, AVC008482/0029910-0003. 28 Mercury, Saturday 19 February 1938 p. 13, ‗Centenary Regatta Has Come: Big Aquatic Carnival Begins At 8.30 a.m. Today: Visitors Crowd City‘; ‗French Sailors Witness historic Regatta‘, Cinesound Review, 1938, National Film and Sound Archive, AVC006974/0028160-0007. 29 ‗It‘s Mutual!‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, July, 1925, back cover.

173 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

War 2 and was published up to the 1960s under different names. Although content nearly halved during the Depression and was limited during the war it boasted a readership of 10 000 by the late 1930s under the name of the International Powerboat and Aquatic Monthly, incorporating the Motor Boat and Yachting. It was now sold as: ‗The only Australian aquatic monthly magazine published and printed in Australia‘, with an international distribution.30 The journals of the open boat clubs like the Open Boat and League Review in Sydney sold the sport to local audiences, but the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting now promoted aquatic culture to a national audience. From the outset, the magazine maintained that its ‗great aim‘, was to develop Australian sport and that it would ‗give aquatics a great lift in Australia‘.31 Patriotic feelings were promoted through the metaphor of battle. One back cover boldly claimed: ‗With this sturdy, fearless fighter on your side nothing can possibly stop the onward march of aquatic sport in Australia!‘32 It declared its loyalty to the nation and its aim to make people dream aquatic sports. The first editorial read:

Special pages will be found for telling the world of Australian invention and industry, for we have an unshaken belief that Australians are capable of the world‘s best…it will be the bounden duty of this journal to see that the country‘s industry is kept to the forefront. …The artist‘s pencil, the camera, colour and tone printing applied to the boat designer‘s and builder‘s art, and the whole make-up of the paper are intended to make people dream motor boats, yachting, sailing and rowing‘.33

Cruising was incorporated into this Australian aquatic dream. The cruising boat, symbolised by the ‗handy auxiliary‘, increased the opportunity for coastal and ocean cruises. The image of cruising culture was built up around the shared ritual of Christmas and Easter holidays, where the cruising ‗resorts‘ surrounding the port capitals would be filled with holidaymakers bent on leisure. Finally, Australian cruising legends emerged through reports and stories of adventurous and romantic exploits in small boats at sea.

The Handy Auxiliary

30 See for example, International Powerboat and Aquatic Monthly, September 1938-September 1944. 31 ‗Here We Are!‘ Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 May, 1925, p. 5. 32 Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 June, 1926, back cover. 33 ‗Here We Are!‘ Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 May, 1925, p. 5.

174 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

The Motor Boat and Yachting declared the ‗speedy raters‘ of the pre-war period ‗extinct‘ in 1925. Progress meant that now, yachting men either sailed the more popular 30 footers, or went in for the ‗cruiser comfortable type of boat‘.34 The shift in focus from the small harbour racers to a comfortable cruising boat reflected a change in sailing culture. Often referred to as a ‗handy auxiliary‘, the cruising boat combined the romance of sail with the modern convenience of a motor. It was a modest sailboat, built with seaworthy characteristics and an inboard engine. The ‗handy auxiliary‘ was generally smaller than the large racing yachts of the past, and relatively affordable compared to a dedicated harbour racer. One article in the Motor Boat and Yachting praised the design and claimed that the motor was a useful addition to the coastal cruiser. The boats were seaworthy for coastal passages and the motor now made the approach to unfamiliar harbours and anchorages easier and safer. It argued:

Let it be said for our Australian sailing men that they have never discarded sails for the use of engine power alone. Rather they have … considered it but a serviceable and necessary auxiliary at best in moving about in the harbour, or from port to port on coastal cruises.35

The small cruising yacht reflected international trends in yachting and yacht design. With a small and relatively affordable cruising boat, the pastime was no longer confined to the extremely wealthy as it was in the nineteenth century and the pastime was embraced by the middle class. The modern cruising boat was different to the large private vessels sailed by professional crews that would anchor prominently in Farm Cove on Sydney Harbour during extended world cruises. Janet Cusack noted that nineteenth century cruising in the Mediterranean was a means of conspicuous consumption, an implementation of patriotic duty as a war game, or an aid to exploration or hunting for wealthy gentlemen.36 In contrast, the modern sailors handled their own smaller cruising yachts with amateur crews. Cusack identified the use of ‗pocket cruisers‘ by amateur sailors in England between the wars. They were

34 ‗The Speedy Raters: Popular Class Now Extinct‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 August, 1925, p. 52. 35 Captain Cringle, ‗The Handy Auxiliaries: Speedy Boats with Great Westerly Qualities‘ Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 August, 1925. 36 Janet Cusack, ‗Nineteenth-Century Cruising Yachtsmen in the Mediterranean‘, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, volume 10, number 1, 2000, pp. 49-71.

175 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea small boats designed for inshore or Channel cruising consisting of sailing, auxiliary and motor cruisers and paid crew were deemed unnecessary.37 The addition of a motor in the 1920s invoked images of modernity and progress. Motor Boat replaced the antiquated Canoe from the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist of the 1890s, as the companion to Yachting in the title of the new aquatic magazine. On land, the motorcar had the capacity to represent efficiency, speed, mobility and beauty.38 In the cities they gradually replaced horse-drawn vehicles and 127,160 motor vehicles were registered in New South Wales by 1926.39 Macintyre argued that the motorcar restored the romance of travel by liberating the motorist from the timetable offering speed convenience and freedom.40 The motorcar was also a symbol of middle class status. Richard Waterhouse explains that while motorcars were comparatively cheap in the United States, Australian cars remained expensive and confined to the middle class.41 For part of the community, the motorcar was beginning to change patterns of leisure. Rickard notes that a Sunday afternoon drive was becoming part of the suburban weekend and by 1938 the car had created a vogue for caravanning, which coupled the freedom of the road with privacy.42 Richard White and Lisa Oldmeadow also write that the motorcar provided middle class holidaymakers with an independence that produced new kinds of holiday experiences by providing access to exclusive and out of the way destinations places that the working class crowds could not reach.43 The auxiliary promised the same freedoms to middle class sailors, allowing them to escape from the city crowds and pursue exclusive locations. The Christmas preview of the South Australian cruising grounds described Victoria Harbour as the favourite seaside resort of the state, patronised by many thousands of city dwellers but suggested that the more venturesome extend their cruises to Port Lincoln and the ‗rocky islands of Spencer‘s Gulf‘.44 For the cruising sailors of Western Australia,

37 Janet Cusack, ‗Yachting in Britain, 1890-1960‘, Exploiting the Sea: Aspects of Britain’s Maritime Economy since 1870, David J Starkey and Alan G Jamieson (eds), Exeter Press, Exeter, 1998, pp. 175- 176. 38 Graeme Davison, Car Wars, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, NSW, 2004, p. xi. 39 Spearritt, Sydney’s Century, p. 144. 40 Macintyre, Concise History of Australia, p. 172. 41 Waterhouse, Private Pleasures, Public Leisure, p. 164. 42 John Rickard, Australia, a Cultural History, Longman Cheshire, 1988, pp. 185-187. 43 Richard White, On Holidays: A History of Getting Away in Australia, Pluto Press, North Melbourne 2005, pp. 96-100. 44 ‗Ringtail‘, ‗Christmas Cruising in S.A.‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 December, 1926, p. 43.

176 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

Rottnest Island had numerous bays ‗for those who desire to be far from the maddening crowd‘.45 When considering a Christmas cruise in Victoria, ‗Forepeak‘ complained about the inundation of the traditional camping spots on Port Phillip Bay. They were too close to the crowds brought by ‗mechanical conveyance‘. Forepeak wrote:

Not too long ago the favourite cruising resorts of Port Phillip were semi- isolated spots, possessing most of their original rusticity. Mornington, Sorrento, Portsea, and Swan Bay in particular were then holiday places in the true sense of the word, but nowadays, with the advances of mechanical conveyance, these places might just as well be regarded as suburbs of Melbourne. 46

Now that many of the old campsites were developed and populated with weekend crowds, Forepeak recommended a comfortable cruising boat with a cabin and accommodation so that sailors could seek out an area that was ‗not been affected or altered by the march of progress‘.47 A Gordon Blanch liked to get away from the ‗smoke from the Harbour Trust Steamers‘ and the coffee coloured water of Williamstown on Port Phillip in his seaworthy 24-foot yawl. 48 Paradoxically, the modern cruiser with its inboard motor made this escape from these less desirable outcomes of modernisation easier. The auxiliary cruiser was also incorporated into the Motor Boat and Yachting’s image of Australian boating and its commitment to the boating industry. Cruising boats made up a large portion of the yacht, sailing boat, and motorboat plans that were marketed and sold by the magazine, reflecting the wider support of Australian industry between the wars. 49 Richard White noted that ‗the protection of the purity of Australian nationhood continued to be associated with the protection of manufacturing‘ in the 1920s. The Australian Industries Protection League formed in 1919 sought to create national sentiment in favour of Australian made goods and that

45 ‗Fairlead‘, ‗Cruising in the West: Unbounded Natural Facilities‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 December, 1926, pp. 27-28. 46 ‗Forepeak‘, ‗Where-to at Xmas?‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 December, 1926, p. 35. 47 Ibid. 48 A Gordon Blanch, ‗Covering the Miles to Limeburner‘s Creek‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 January, 1927, p. 9. 49 See: W. D. Bailey, ‗―Sea Mew‖: A 24ft. Auxiliary‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly 1 September, 1927, pp28-29; W. D. Bailey, ‗Seagoing Auxiliary‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 November, 1927, p. 21; Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly 1 January 1929 p. 33.

177 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea the ‗Australian-Made Preference League was formed in 1924, and these aims at ‗practical patriotism‘ were supported by the Australian Natives Association.50 Editorials in the Motor Boat and Yachting argued that boating should be a natural outcome of Australian geography and culture. It claimed that: ‗There is something radically wrong when a country with the majority of its population along the seashore has such a comparatively small proportion interested in boating‘. They argued that Australia ‗probably has more natural facilities for yachting and motor boating than any other country in the world‘. With this in mind, a small cruiser was promoted as an ideal boat. It could be used as a ‗floating home‘ and offered greater freedom and comfort than the ‗dusty roads‘ of the motorcar.51 At another time the magazine encouraged the ‗the young fellow short on the bank account, but long on enthusiasm‘ to build a small auxiliary cruiser. It printed plans for a small cruiser that would be cheap, easy to build, and provide many weekends away. The article stated:

A couple of youths, who have had a course in woodworking could easily build this little cruiser. The pleasant week-ends spent aboard will repay them for all the labour and time spent in the building… Now, boys, don‘t be without a little cruiser. Go to it, and build your own. Very complete plans can be had, and personal advice will be gladly given to any young man who will build this able little craft. She is guaranteed to be cheap, easy to build, and a great sea boat.52

When the Motor Boat and Yachting considered the ongoing search for new ‗class‘ boats, a single design that could be built and raced, it claimed: ‗Importations … are not what we are seeking. What is wanted is a design purely Australian and built by Australian workmen.‘ The new ‗Prince‘ class for example was promoted as a small decked-in yacht developed ‗principally for cruising‘ in Sydney that employed the characteristics of the auxiliary. Some sailors thought it would make Port Jackson as famous for its yachts as it was for its open boats.53 The provenance of other cruising boats featured in the Motor Boat and Yachting was also noted. Although designed overseas by Fife, the magazine praised

50 White, Inventing Australia, pp. 143-144. 51 Editorial: ‗Why So Dear?‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 June, 1926, p. 5; ‗Encouraging Boating‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 June, 1928, p. 5. 52 W. D. Bailey, ‗A Small Auxiliary‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 January ,1927, pp. 11-12. 53 ‗Where Are We Heading? The Constant Striving for a ―Class‖ Boat‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 November 1925, pp. 26-27.

178 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea the local construction of the famous Sydney yacht Morna. It stated: ‗Morna is another example of the ability of the Australian builder…‘54 Morna’s owner, Alexander MacCormick praised the Australian builders:

I would like to pay a compliment to the builders. I can truly say in the course of my travels I have not seen a yacht that is more faithfully or better built. I place them on a higher level than any builders I have seen in the old country.55

The image of a large and comfortable yacht Mistral II, owned by the Vice- Commodore of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron was printed in an early edition of the Motor Boat and Yachting. The Australian-built yacht was described as ‗a triumph of Australian builders‘ and ‗a credit to Australian workmanship and design‘. The accompanying article revealed a feeling of patriotism associated with the Australian construction. It stated:

The construction and stability of this vessel prove the ability of Australian craftsmanship in yacht construction. There should be no need to go outside Australia in search of yacht builders, for Mistral II is an advertisement of which any Australian may feel proud.56

But the design of cruising boats was not always ‗Australian‘, as they also responded to international trends. For example, popular double-ended cruising boats were based on Norwegian pilot cutters built for the sea. Colin Archer designed double ended pilot boats, fishing boats and rescue craft as well as cruising yachts in Norway in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.57 Plans for a ‗blue-water cruiser, the Viking, stated that the 40-foot double-ender is not meant for protected waters: ‗She is intended to make voyages off soundings in comfort and safety‘.58 WW Wilson of Port Cygnet Tasmania built Utiekah III for his yearlong cruise to the South Seas. Wilson employed the chief features of the Colin Archer Norwegian lifeboat type with the aim of seaworthiness, strength, accommodation, comfort and only then speed. Motor Boat

54 ‗The Stately Morna: Pride of Sydney Harbour: A Yacht Capable of Going Anywhere‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 June, 1925, pp. 16-17. 55 Alexander MacCormick quoted in: ‗The Stately Morna: Pride of Sydney Harbour: A Yacht Capable of Going Anywhere‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 June, 1925, pp. 16-17. 56 ‗Sydney‘s Biggest Yacht: A Close up of the Mistral II: Triumph of Australian Builders‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 May, 1925, pp. 16-17. 57 Douglas Phillips-Birt, The History of Yachting, Elm Tree Books, London, 1974, pp. 141-142. 58 W. D. Bailey, Plans: ‗A Blue Water Cruiser‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 October, 1926, p. 15.

179 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea and Yachting claimed: ‗It would be hard to find a stauncher little cruiser anywhere‘.59 Telopea was a 30-foot Tasmanian cruising boat, also built along the Norwegian lines. Its owner described the performance of the boat in the waters of the Southern Ocean with a sense of pride, but not patriotism. The description stated: ‗Such is our little vessel, and we feel the pride that belongs to those who own such a craft as ours which shows her best behaviour in the long rollers which wend their way from the south‘.60

Imagining cruising culture Notwithstanding the economic depression in the early 1930s, the general growth in the 1920s, and the recovery in the late 1930s made the possibility of holiday cruising available to more recreational sailors than ever before. The Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly painted a picture of a thriving yachting paradise that stretched across the southern part of the continent from Perth to Sydney in its preview of the Christmas to New Year holiday period in 1926. Broken Bay, the Hawkesbury River, and Pittwater to the north of Sydney were described as a ‗yachtsman‘s paradise‘. Commodore Walder of the Motor Yacht Club stated: ‗At Christmas time all yachtsmen are busy getting the good ship ready for a cruise of some sort, and I think the bigger number will find their way to the greatest cruising ground this state has to offer—the Hawkesbury … the vastness of its beauty must appeal to everyone.‘61 So many sailors were concentrated in Pittwater during the Christmas and New Year period that an annual Boxing Day regatta was organised for sport. One report in a January issue of the Motor Boat and Yachting described the annual rendezvous to Pittwater as a ‗general exodus‘. It read:

While this issue is in press, the boating man‘s cry will be ―Away, away to Broken Bay,‖ and there will be a general exodus from Port Jackson of every class of boat for the annual rendezvous at Pittwater, to take part in the big regatta on Boxing Day.62

59 ‗Bound for the South Seas: Utiekah III Cruise‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 August 1926, p. 15. 60 ―Telopea‖, ‗Round Tassie‘s Coast: A Cruise to Some Historical Spots‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 September 1925, pp. 26-27. 61 ‗Holiday Cruising‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 December, 1926, p. 6; ‗The Irresistible Pittwater: The Mecca of Sydney‘s Yachtsmen, Boxing Day Regatta an Absolute Success‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 February, 1926, pp. 26-28. 62 ‗Pittwater Regatta: The Campers‘ Paradise: Heading North for Christmas‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly 1 January, 1926, p. 29.

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The ports of Mornington, Sorrento, Portsea and Swan Island, claimed the ‗quiet and sometimes secretive indulgence‘ of Port Phillip‘s yacht sailors during their holiday period.63 The review of Western Australia‘s cruising spots claimed that ‗Yachtsmen in the West are remarkably fortunate in the facilities that are provided by nature for their enjoyment at holiday time‘. Rottnest Island, Carnac, Garden Island and Penguin Island offered a variety of white beaches bays and inlets for cruising sailors to ‗loll about on‘.64 The holiday was described as a ‗baptismal period‘ for South Australian yachtsmen. The ports and inlets around the Gulf of St Vincent, Spencer‘s Gulf and Kangaroo Island provided many cruising opportunities. The description claimed that all sorts of boats could be seen on the Port Adelaide River around the Christmas holiday. It continued:

To anchor in the Port Adelaide River on a Christmas Eve, or the following day, and watch the multifarious craft that pass you loaded with humanity, is an education in nautical life. They range in size from the large dignified motor yacht making for some distant rocky island to a wheezy motor dory bound for one of the innumerable creeks that are connected with the river, and among the sailers from the handsome auxiliary to a tarry black dugout propelled with a bag sail and oars by a noisy band of urchins bent on having a good time, and prepared to sleep on a sandy beach with no other covering than the sky above them. 65

The Tasmanian deep-sea yachtsman was rewarded with numerous cruising destinations, Port Arthur, Cape Pillar and Pirate‘s Bay to name a few. The review in the Motor Boat and Yachting claimed that: ‗Southern Tasmania is endowed with waterways and cruising grounds second to none in the world. With the coming December, yachtsmen look forward to their ten days‘ Christmas cruise‘.66 The holiday ritual was an ongoing tradition in Australian waters. The ‗Sailing special‘ published in the Sydney Mail in 1897 outlined the same cruising grounds to the north of Port Jackson that the Motor Boat and Yachting previewed. The Mail claimed that the ‗decker, the half-decker, and the no-decker (or open boat) can never

63 ‗H A A‘, ‗Cruising in Port Phillip, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 February, 1926, p. 25. 64 ‗Fairlead‘, ‗Cruising in the West: Unbounded Natural Facilities‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 December, 1926, pp. 27-28. 65 ‗Ringtail‘, ‗Christmas Cruising in S.A.‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 December, 1926, p. 43. 66 ‗Skipper‘, ‗Tassie‘s Cruising Paradises: A Wonderful Choice‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 December, 1926, pp. 31-32.

181 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea be hard up for a pleasant seaside nook, sufficiently distant from the smoke and smells of Sydney‘. Botany Bay was apparently too close to the Sydney lights and Post Office clock tower, so the bold headlands, deep water and commanding background of Broken Bay to the north were the favourite resort for ‗Sydney amateur salts‘. The anchorages further up and down the coast were also described in detail. The author considered the opportunities for exploring bays and inlets, sandbanks, tides and the availability of milk and eggs over a number of pages. A picture of his cruiser was also printed and an image of the Basin, a popular spot in Pittwater revealed a number of cruising boats at anchor.67 The difference between the Sydney Mail account in 1897 and the Motor Boat and Yachting previews in 1926 is that the latter enabled Australian sailors to imagine cruising as a shared tradition along the Australian coast and port cities. Accounts of cruising submitted by sailors also described numerous bays, inlets and passages around the continent in a long line south from Brisbane to Broome. A number of these cruising stories were published in the Motor Boat and Yachting every month, which built up a shared image of coastal cruising amongst the expert community of Australian sailors. In one case, a doctor from Perth purchased a 13-ton pearling lugger in Broome and then sailed it 1200 miles back to Fremantle. The article stated: ‗The doctor thoroughly enjoyed himself, and next time he goes to sea may make for Adelaide‘.68 Links between the port cities were drawn literally in these accounts of cruising. The cruise of the Saguenay from Melbourne to Sydney and back included a large illustration where the course along the coast was mapped out for readers to view.69 The New South Wales coast was the object of many cruising stories. Sailors now cruised beyond Pittwater to Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens and Myall lakes. ‗Hornswoggle‘ described the trip from Sydney to Lake Macquarie and recommended it to other sailors as ‗a very good place to cruise once over the bar at the entrance to the lake‘.70 In May 1926, a chart and short description of Lake Macquarie was published. The caption suggested that: ‗A fortnight could easily be spent exploring all

67 Alexander Oliver, ‗Cruising Resorts‘, in ‗Sailing‘, Sydney Mail, 30 January, 1897. 68 ‗Fairlead‘, ‗1,200 Miles in a Pearling Lugger: An Intrepid Doctor‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 September, 1927, p. 41. 69 R. Champion, ‗Saugenay‘s Merry Trip: Melbourne to Sydney and Return‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 August, 1928, pp. 22-34. 70 ‗Eventful Cruise of the Thais: The Attractions of Lake Macquarie: ―Hornswoggle‘s‖ Fascinating Yarn‘ Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 July, 1925, pp. 22, 32-33.

182 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea the bays and visiting the townships…‘71 Syd M Dempster wrote about cruising to Port Stephens and Myall Lakes in his small yacht Mayrah. He considered that that a cruise to Port Stephens is one that Sydney yachtsmen might well take on after his description of the picturesque headland, beaches and country.72 The south coast was also imagined. Regarding a cruise from Sydney to ‗Seductive Shoalhaven‘, a crewmember described the unique view of the coast that the passage provided. He wrote:

It was great to lay idly on the deck in the bright sunshine watching the coast slipping by headland after headland, with little golden beaches between and stretches of tall cliffs flanked by the white foam of the breakers at their foot, and high up in the distance the hills formed a dark background to the whole scene. This was enhanced by the yacht‘s course being closer inshore than the ordinary steamer routes. 73

The Tasmanian coast featured in cruising accounts as a beautiful and rugged shoreline. ‗Telopea‘ described a cruise to some ‗historical spots‘ on the Tasmanian coast and claimed: ‗Our little island has a wonderful sea coast, rich in history, in scenery, in safe harbours, and excellent fishing grounds‘.74 Another story by Telopea considered the ‗beauties of the Tasmanian coast‘ on a Southern Cruise. The double- page spread with photos included a map of the southern part of Tasmania, and the route taken.75 The rocky shores of South Australia also added to the images of the Australian coast. ‗Ringtail‘ described the ‗bold granite outcrops‘ that stood sheer out of the sea to a height of 300 to 500 feet on the West coast of South Australia.76 Other accounts described the romantic ‗rock bound shores‘ and ‗rock bound islands‘ that stood up out of the Southern Ocean.77

71 ‗Lake Macquarie Entrance: Admiralty Chart‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 May 1926, p. 4. 72 Syd M Dempster, ‗Port Stephens and the Beautiful Myall Lakes‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 July, 1926, p. 26-30; 44; Syd M Dempster, ‗Port Stephens Mayrah‘s Cruise‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 August 1926, pp. 6-10. 73 ‗Caprice‘, ‗Seductive Shoalhaven‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 May, 1927, pp. 6-8, 10, 36, 38. 74 ―Telopea‖, ‗Round Tassie‘s Coast: A Cruise to Some Historical Spots‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 September, 1925, pp. 26-27. 75 ‗Telopea‘, ‗A Southern Cruise‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 June, 1926, pp. 26- 28, 30. 76 Ringtail, ‗Seals and Surf: Thrills on Coastal Islands‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 June, 1926, p. 43. 77 ‗Among Rock Bound Shores: Cruising in Alexa‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 November, 1926, pp. 22-24; ‗Wild Winter Cruise: Family amid Rocky Islands‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 September, 1927, pp. 6-8.

183 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

Newspapers gradually reported more cruises over the interwar period as well, suggesting a wider audience for cruising stories. Most reported the arrival of international cruising yachts, often as they made their way through the pacific. Sometimes wealthy ‗yachtsmen‘ would cruise across the Pacific from America, and in one case the arrival of the yacht Ada from Falmouth England was anticipated. Voyages such as Dempster‘s pleasure cruise to New Guniea in 1919 were rare, but more reports of local cruises and the movement of small yachts between the port cities began to appear in the 1920s.78 The ‗rough cruise‘ of Acacia from South Australia to Melbourne, for example, was reported in the Argus in 1921. The article claimed that:

She had many admirers among the passers by, who were surprised to learn from the enthusiastic crew – there were only three – that during the week 500 or 600 miles had been covered at sea by the graceful little craft.79

The cruise of a Melbourne yacht Saguney to Tasmania was reported in the Mercury. 80 The crew of four planned to stay in Hobart for three weeks. Reports increased as the distance and scope of cruising spread beyond the coastal resorts. Arthur Peck‘s cruise. The Pacific cruise of Utiekah III to was widely reported. In addition to the articles published in the Motor Boat and Yachting, The Sydney Morning Herald, Argus and Mercury published regular updates of the cruise, and articles appeared in West Australian, South Australian and Queensland newspapers. The yacht travelled 10 000 miles to Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and other Pacific islands.81 The owner and ‗captain‘ I Elliot Giles described ‗Life Aboard a Yacht‘ in a long article published in the Argus so that readers could imagine the adventure.82 Newspaper reports increased dramatically in the 1930s as more cruises appeared to take place. A snapshot of the cruises can be seen. A Sydney Yacht Sapphire went on a six-month cruise to Queensland in 1931; Maluka sailed from Sydney to Queensland and back in 1933; Benicia sailed from Hobart to Sydney in 1935; A picture of Oimara before a cruise from Hobart to the Barrier Reef was

78 ‗Stormy Petrel‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May, 1919, p. 6. 79 ‗Rough Crusie in a Yacht‘, Argus, 26 November, 1921, p. 23. 80 ‗Visiting Yacht, Cruise of the Saguney‘, Mercury, 11 January, 1927, p. 4. 81 ‗Utiekah III Returns, End of 10,000-mile Cruise‘, Argus, 6 February, 1928, p. 10; ‗Utiekah III Returns to Sydney After Island Cruise‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 29 November, 1927, p. 12. 82 I. Elliot Giles, ‗Cruise of the Utiekah III, Life Aboard a Yacht, From Melbourne to the Islands‘ Argus, 9 July, 1927, p. 8.

184 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea published in the Mercury in 1936; Rondon sailed from Sydney to Lord Howe Island in 1937; and the Auxiliary yacht Tarni left Melbourne for the Barrier Reef in 1939. These were all reported in the daily newspapers.83 Some more ambitious cruises also gained attention. Harold Nossiter and his sons had been more successful aboard their yacht Sirius. They had sailed Sirius to England and back over two years from 1935- 1937, circumnavigating the globe, and becoming the first Australian yacht to do so. Newspaper readers were kept up to date with the yacht‘s progress, and Nossiter‘s account of the voyage was published in two volumes: Northward Ho! and Southward Ho!84 The Sydney Morning Herald described the ‗picturesque departure‘ as the yacht left Sydney Harbour ‗to the accompaniment of cheers and the waving of flags‘. As well as updates on the location of Sirius, a letter from Nossiter sent to Mr GH Moore was also published. It described the rough storms in the Red Sea as Sirius made its way towards England.85 Another yacht Fram was reported as leaving Australia on a four-year world-cruise in 1937, but the outcome of the cruise was not clear.86 Other cruises were popularised by the famous and the brave. Errol Flynn purchased an old harbour racer Sirocco when out of work and sailed it to Port Moresby where it was wrecked. Flynn‘s account of the adventure Beam Ends was published in 1937. Flynn recalled buying the fifty-year-old yacht on a whim, the testing storms at sea and finally tragedy when wrecked in a ‗cyclone‘ and two of the crew drowned. He concluded: ‗Today the lure of the beautiful, treacherous coral seas still exact a heavy price from those who seek adventure, We found it so.‘87 ‗Fred Rebell‘ sailed a converted 18-footer across the Pacific to America in 1931, which

83 ‗Former Tasmanian Yacht‘s Cruise‘, Mercury 20 February 1937, p17; ‗Tasmanian Yacht‘s Cruise‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 5 September, 1935, p. 12; ‗Yacht Sapphire‘s Cruise‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July, 1931, p. 11; ‗Tasmanian Yacht to make Cruise to Barrier Reef‘, Mercury 7 May, 1936, p. 15; ‗Northern Cruise‘, Courier-Mail, 8 September, 1933, p. 12; ‗Melbourne Yacht Arrives‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May, 1939, p. 12, 84 ‗Yacht Sirius Launched, To Cruise Round World‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 February, 1935, p. 15; ‗Time Signals, Yacht‘s Long Cruise‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July, 1935; ‗Yacht‘s World Cruise Ends 30,000 Miles Sailed‘, Argus 21 May, 1937, p. 13; ‗Sydney Men‘s Long Cruise‘ The Courier- Mail, 2 April, 1936, p. 13; ‗Voyage Round the World‘ West Australian, 21 May, 1937, p. 25; ‗Sydney Yacht Completes Cruise of About 30,000 Miles‘, Advertiser, 21 May, 1937, p. 10; Harold Nossiter, Northward Ho!, Witherby, London, 1936; Harold Nossiter, Southward Ho!, Witherby, London, 1937. 85 ‗Yacht Sirius‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 May, 1936, p. 17. 86 ‗Four Year‘s Yacht Cruise Begins‘ Burra Record, 11 October, 1938, p. 4; ‗World Cruise Yacht Still Aground‘ Examiner, 19 August, 1938, p. 8; Yacht on World Cruise, Singapore, Morning Bulletin, 10 January, 1939, p. 7; ‗Youths Quit Crew on Yacht Cruise‘, Advertiser, 24 May, 1939, p. 18; Yacht Ashore, Mishap on World Cruise, Canberra Times 19 August, 1938, p. 2. 87 Errol Flynn, Beam Ends, Cassell, London, 1937; also see ‗Film stars‘ Adventures‘, West Australian, 7 September, 1937, p. 17; ‗Film Star Writes Racily of Days of Adventure‘, Advertiser, 2 October, 1937, p. 10; ‗Errol Flynn Has Salt in His Blood‘, Courier-Mail, 29 December, 1938, Second Section, p. 5.

185 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea later became a cruising legend after the publication of his story Escape to the Sea in 1939. A Latvian national, ‗Rebell‘ described how he came to purchase the boat during the Depression, learn the basics of navigation, and sail across the Pacific with home- made instruments.88 Richard Hughes compared Rebell‘s ‗extraordinary‘ feat of single-handed sailing to the ‗classic voyages‘ of late nineteenth and early twentieth century sailors, Slocum and Voss as ‗fathers of the art‘. Rebell‘s voyage was linked to the famous, romantic and adventurous voyages of the past, revealing a romantic tradition that also informed the way that cruising was imagined between the wars. Hughes claimed in 1940, not to know where Rebell is now, except ‗somewhere in the South Seas‘.89

Romantic traditions A romantic tradition of seafaring in small boats underpinned cruising culture in the twentieth century. Peter Fry explains, ‗the short-handed sailing movement had its historical antecedents in the Romanticism of the nineteenth century‘. There was ‗a flurry of short-handed voyages and ocean races‘, where many sailors sought to establish reputations and an income by writing and lecturing about their experiences at sea.90 Voyaging was a crucial component of British adventure fiction throughout the nineteenth century, where the themes of escape, manliness and initiation were developed.91 A body of literature that described the experiences of sailing as well as trade now emerged from these short-handed voyages added a sense reality to the adventurous voyage. Small Boats and Big Seas: A Hundred Years of Yachting edited by Ralph Stephenson presents an anthology of cruising stories beginning with these nineteenth century voyagers.92 These stories soon became yachting legends as they appealed to amateur sailors who handled their own boats because they combined the skills of seamanship with romance and adventure. For example, they were recommended to Australian sailors in the 1920s and 1930s for both ‗pure romance‘

88 Fred Rebell, Escape to the sea: the adventures of Fred Rebell who sailed single-handed in an open boat 9,000 miles across the Pacific in search of happiness, Digit Books, 1940, (first edition 1939). 89 Richard Hughes, ‗Introduction‘, Escape to the sea, pp. 7-14; Also see: ‗Remarkable Record of Boat Voyage‘, Advertiser, 2 December, 1939, p3; ‗Elaine Ahoy‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December, 1939, p. 12. 90 Fry, Bluewater Australians, p. 10. 91 Joseph A Kestner, Masculinities in British Adventure Fiction, 1889-1915, Ashgate, Surry, 2010, pp. 27-28. 92 See: Ralph Stephenson, Small Boats Big Seas: A Hundred Years of Yachting, Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1978.

186 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea and more practical advice on sailing and seamanship.93 Cruising sailors retained an attachment to the old art of sailing as sail was slowly replaced by steam in merchant marine. P. R Stephensen wrote of the increase of cruising between the wars, in romantic terms:

[Cruising] Yachtsmen were keeping alive the traditions of adventure in sail which, prior to the development of mechanical propulsion, had endured for two thousand years. When naval, mercantile and fishing fleets became mechanized, the lore of sail passed into the safe keeping of men who went to the sea like the Vikings of olden times, in small vessels, to learn its discipline and to explore its mystery.94

Displaced professional mariners were the early pioneers of modern cruising. A merchant captain Joshua Slocum for example became a cult figure in yachting circles after sailing alone around the world in an old fishing smack the Spray. Out of work and without a command, Slocum rebuilt the Spray plank by plank before embarking on the three-year voyage. His expenses were paid by giving public lectures and charging a small fee to view his boat. Later his story was published as a book entitled Sailing Alone Around the World, which is considered a classic voyage narrative. Ralph Stephenson described Slocum as ‗the most celebrated of small boat sailors‘.95 Douglas Phillips-Birt stated that the account of Slocum‘s voyage maintained his fame in the forefront of ocean voyaging annals ever since its completion.96 Slocum‘s unusual voyage influenced Sydney yachtsmen when he arrived in Australia in 1896. ‗Aquatic supporters‘ received him with a show of ceremony often reserved for large yachts and vice regal representatives. A flotilla of sailing and rowing boats followed the Spray down the harbour. Two steamers greeted Slocum and his boat, the regular Johnstone‘s Bay club steamer Lady Manning that was following the open boat racing and the Minerva hired by the yachting community. Although he was a professional seaman, Sydney sailors greeted Slocum as a ‗yachtsman‘ because he sailed a small boat. The Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist voiced its support for the formation of a reception committee so that Mr Slocum may feel that ‗Australian boating men are not backward in giving him the hearty welcome

93 ‗Helm‘, ‗Books, Books, and More Books‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 January, 1928, p. 41. 94 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 178. 95 Stephenson, Small Boats and Big Seas, 1978, p. 33. 96 Phillips-Birt, History of Yachting, p. 133.

187 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea which he undoubtedly merits‘ two weeks earlier. The gentlemen aboard the Minerva ‗thought they were entitled to greet Captain Slocum in this manner as a yachtsman and as an intrepid navigator who had achieved the feat of travelling round the world alone‘.97 He cruised the east coast of Australia promoting his voyage before continuing on his circumnavigation, and Australian newspapers were still reporting on his progress when he finished in Newport, Rhode Island in 1898.98 Captain John Voss also visited Australia in his failed attempt to circumnavigate the world in a vessel smaller than the Spray. The arrival of Voss in the Tilikum, a converted ocean-going canoe, generated similar publicity in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald noted the novelty of the adventurous voyage in November 1901:

In the days of floating palaces people travelling from one end of the world to the other generally prefer that mode of transport likely to cause the smallest degree of personal discomfort or danger to themselves. There are some adventurous people, however, to whom the element of danger simply acts as an incentive to deeds that are thought to be confined solely to writers of fiction or romance.99

In January 1903, the Mercury reported the arrival of the boat in Tasmanian waters. The ‗little craft‘ would be on view opposite the post office in Macquarie Street, and Voss would deliver daily lectures.100 Voss had spent a year sailing the Australian ports, his progress slowed by damage that the Tilikum sustained in Adelaide. Stories of his ‗adventurous‘ round-the-world voyage were circulated in the press and crowds came to see his boat, and hear his lectures.101 Although the circumnavigation was never completed, an account of his voyages The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss was eventually published in 1907.102 Amateur sailors were also beginning to publish accounts of their cruises in small boats in the late nineteenth century. The Cruising Club was formed in England

97 ‗Proposed Welcome to Captain Slocum, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October, 1896, p. 6; ‗The Spray at Manly‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 15 October, 1896, p. 6; ‗Reception of Captain Slocum‘, Sydney Morning Herald, October 12, 1896, p.. 7. 98 ‗The Spray‘, Mercury, 30 June, 1898, p3; ‗Captain Slocum‘s Spray‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 June, 1898, p. 5. 99 ‗Round the World in a Canoe‘, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 November, 1901, p. 7. 100 ‗Two Men in a boat, Arrival of the Tillikum‘ Mercury, 23 January, 1903, p. 4. 101 ‗An Adventurous Voyage‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November, 1901, p. 9; ‗The Tiny Tilikum‘ Advertiser, 1 December, 1902, p. 6 . 102 John Voss, The Venturesome Voyages of Captain Voss, Japan Herald Press, Yokohama, 1913; Stephenson, Small Boats and Big Seas, pp. 43-58.

188 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea in 1880, and in 1882 it published a journal to for members containing accounts of their cruises in small boats off shore. The Cruising Club Journal became an anthology of cruising logs, and continued to be produced until 1974. Other cruising stories and instructional books appeared around the turn of the century.103 Phillips- Birt cites Yacht Cruising written by Claud Worth in 1910, as one example. Worth laid bare the skills crafts and practices of seamanship adopted by the cruising sailor. Riddle of the Sands was another. Written by Erskine Childers in 1903, it gave the ‗young art of yacht cruising‘ a literary expression.104 The novel was set on a short- handed cruise with two men on a small yacht. This celebrated amateur cruising in contrast to traditional yachting with a full professional crew. When the protagonist mentioned yachting with a crew, the cruising sailor replied: ‗―Crew!‖—with sovereign contempt—―why, the whole fun of the thing is to do everything oneself.‖‘105 A number of passages describing small boat voyages by amateur sailors were also included in Small Boats and Big Seas. These included the writings of E F Knight who wrote The Cruise of the Falcon in 1886 and Richard McMullen a ‗singlehanded pioneer‘ who wrote Down Channel in 1890.106 Knight was proud of the Falcon and its amateur crew for completing such an unusual and noteworthy voyage. Recalling the end of the voyage, when some yachting gentlemen realised that the Falcon had no professional crew, he noted: I think these gentlemen looked upon the Falcon, with its amateur crew, as being ‗one of the most eccentric craft that ever wandered the oceans‘.107 Some Australian sailors like W H Bundey carried on this tradition of recording and publishing their cruising experiences. Along with his companion James Brook, Bundy would charter coasting vessels for ‗health giving cruises‘ before building his own eight-ton cutter in 1868. Songs and poems depicting memorable cruises were included in the book. These described the pleasure of the ‗moon at full‘, the ‗whistling wind‘, the ‗wide open sea‘ and Bundey‘s desire for the proverbial ‗Briny‘.108 He wrote about the joy of a cruise in his yacht the Zephyr in 1873:

103 Phillips-Birt, History of Yachting, pp. 135-137. 104 Ibid. 105 Erskine Childers, The Riddle of the Sands, Wordsworth Classics, Hertfordshire, 1993, (first published 1903), p. 38. 106 Stephenson, Small Boats and Big Seas, pp. 18-32. 107 E F Knight, Cruise of the Falcon, in Stephenson, Small Boats and Big Seas, p. 27. 108 W H Bundey, Reminiscences of Twenty-Five Years Yachting in Australia: An Essay on Manly Sports, A Cruise on Shore, &c., &c., E S Wigg and son, Adelaide, 1888, pp. 1-64.

189 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

There was scarcely a ripple on the water as the yacht glided noiselessly along, and the exquisite sense of absolute rest and freedom, and the escape for a time from the exhausting, brain-worrying care of professional work seemed almost like another existence.109

However, Bundey‘s accounts of cruising are unique amongst records of Australian yachting in the nineteenth century that were usually dominated by results and racing. Some cruising stories were published in the Australian yachtsman and Canoeist in the 1890s, but these were as likely to be accounts of British cruising, and only a handful of local cruises were printed.110 The account of ‗old time Sydney sailing‘ published in the magazine The Anchor, complained that cruising had not been popular with boating men in the 1911 to 1912 sailing season. The author ‗Pilot‘ used the example of the late Mr. Alexander Oliver, a ‗keen sailorman‘ who devoted his time to deep sea cruising to express regret that more sailors had not followed this fine example. Pilot claimed: ‗There has been too little evidence of the spirit of Bass and Flinders in the yachting men of the past, too little of the desire to cleave new waters and poke bowsprits into the unknown‘. Pilot invoked the image of maritime exploration and a tradition of discovery to call for more cruising stories and expressed a desire for cruising legends that involved the romance and adventure of Australian ‗men‘ battling the elements. The account continued:

There are practically no chronicles of the cruising man … The racing man with his big sails and his kites stands recorded in the annals of boating, but his brother, or, perhaps, he himself in his later development as a cruiser has done his good work ―unhonoured and unsung‖. …It is not too much to expect that many others will give us ―an abstract and brief chronicle‖ of their doings and experiences when out in search of adventure upon the face of the waters.111

Like Bundy, Pilot identified something moral in the experience of voyaging on the sea and hoped to share this with the yachting public. But it took the emergence of a cruising culture and the establishment a successful aquatic publication between the wars to realise this dream in relation to Australian cruising culture.

109 Ibid, p. 18. 110 See for example: ‗A Christmas Cruise to Pittwater‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 30 July, 1898, pp. 3, 6, August 1898 p. 4, 13 August, 1898, p. 4; ‗A Winter Cruise to Broken Bay‘, Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist, 24 September, 1898, pp. 8, 1, October, 1898, p. 7. 111 ‗Pilot‘, ‗Old Time Sydney Sailing—IV‘, The Anchor, 16 November, 1911, p. 79.

190 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

Cruising legends During the 1920s and 1930s accounts of cruises and cruising were imagined as stories of pleasure and adventure. They usually described either the beauty of the sea and the maritime environment or the struggle against storms and wild weather. The stories of cruising published in the Motor Boat and Yachting during the 1920s applied these themes to passages on the Australian coast. The adventure and camaraderie of a famous 1910 cruise was remembered in a series of articles printed between January and April 1926.112 Walther Marks sailed his 10-meter harbour racer Cluwulla III in rough seas and storms to Tasmania to compete in the Bruni Island ocean race and then on to Melbourne to contest the Sayonara Cup. Culwulla III won its races and survived the ocean passages. The crew were described as ‗plucky voyagers‘ and the experience provided the basis for a legend. ‗The Mate‘ recalled the experience in the Motor Boat and Yachitng:

As the years pass along, will they look back to this grand cruise, with its long night watches, the ever tumbling waters as the good ship rolled or plunged her way from sea to sea, the good stories told, and always that good spirit of camaraderie that existed all the time? Some of the crew have passed on to their last great cruise, but their jovial spirits will always linger in the memory of those left behind. The outstanding feature of the whole tour was the big, cheerful skipper, ―Wally‖ Marks; a greater yachtsman and lover of the sea it would be hard to find. 113

Other cruising stories followed a similar pattern of romance and adventure. Articles such as ‗Townsville in 11 Days: Iole‘s Adventurous Trip‘ described Australian cruises. The squally and windy weather, torn sails, narrowly averted reefs, and ‗terrific seas of a dangerous shooting nature‘ added to the excitement of the voyage.114 ‗For Thrills, Try This!‘ told the story of ‘how six youthful adventurers, in a 10-ton yacht, 45 feet overall, undertook to make the trip from Sydney to Brisbane and

112 ‗The Mate‘, ‗The Cruise of Culwulla III: Wanderings in Southern Waters: How the Sayonara Cup Was Won for NSW‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly 1 January, 1926, pp. 26-28, 50; ―The Mate‖, ‗The Cruise of Culwulla III‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 February, 1926, pp. 6-7, 1 March 1926, pp. 6-7, 46, 1 April, 1926, pp. 6-8. 113 ‗The Mate‘, ‗Cruise of Culwulla III‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 May, 1926, pp. 6-7. 114 ‗Townsville in 11 Days: Iole‘s Adventurous Trip‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 July, 1927, p. 27.

191 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea return‘.115 ‗Ocean Rovers: Through Gales and Rough Seas‘ described the rough weather encountered by the Psyche during an ocean cruise.116 The Australian coast – the rocky outcrops of South Australia the picturesque coast of Tasmania – became the dramatic backdrop to these cruising stories. Similar to the bush, the coast was a place where the Australian sailor might be tested by nature. The ‗Story of the Endeavour: Cruise Brimful of Sensational Incidents‘ detailed a series of exciting events off the coast of New South Wales, which were associated with the characteristics of the ‗Australian aquatic man‘. The synopsis claimed that:

From the outset, the trip fairly bristled with exciting situations, but with the traditional equanimity of the Australian aquatic man, the crew turn up at Sydney after their interrupted trip and regard a succession of exciting and perilous incidents as the customary events of an ordinary coastal cruise.117

But at the same time, the old legends of the sea, maritime heritage, and the ‗Viking spirit‘ that had traditionally defined yachting culture also provided an archetype of seaborne adventure for the modern cruising sailor. ‗Crosstree‘, a correspondent to the Motor Boat and Yachting, described ‗what makes a yachtsman‘. The image provided no examples of Australian characteristics. Instead, the sea and the ancient practices of seamanship defined the modern ‗yachtsman‘. Crosstree considered:

The true yachtsman is one who has a genuine love of the sea in all its moods. He is one who should first have a knowledge of his yacht and her peculiarities, and secondly, know how to handle her to best advantage. He is a man who will not sail into danger for danger‘s sake, but once in it will keep his head and do his best to get out as easily as possible. He loves his craft in the best of trim and condition, and he does things because they should be done, and in doing them he applies practice to aid theory. He thinks ahead, and meets difficulties when they come. He does not rely on the other fellow, but does his own job. Whether he be racing or cruising, he is always keen on what he is doing. He knows sailing rules and regulations and observes them. He is not quite like the sailor of old of whom the poet thus spoke: ―Every finger a marlinspike, every hair a piece of seizing twine, and every drop of blood, Stockholm tar‖; but he remembers the old advice, ―One hand for yourself, one for the ship, and never let go till you are sure of the next move!‖ 118

115 ‗For Thrills, Try This!: Rondon‘s Cruise‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 April, 1929, pp. 4-8. 116 ‗Ocean Rovers‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 July, 1926, pp. 6-8. 117 ‗Story of the Endeavour: Cruise Brimful of Sensational Incidents‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 August, 1925, pp. 6, 22. 118 ‗Crosstree‘, ‗What is a yachtsman?‘ Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 August, 1927, p. 27.

192 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

Legends of the sea provided Australian sailors with a heritage of adventure that was found in European seafaring heritage. These were maritime traditions forged beyond the typically Australian experience. The story: ‗Adrift in a Cyclone: ―When We Were Young‖‘ described a ‗terrific gale‘ that one yachtsman had encountered aboard the clipper ship, Duchess of Edinburgh. The Motor Boat and Yachting stated: ‗The gripping story that follows is a thrilling narrative of life on the ocean wave 40 years ago‘.119 Crosstree described the Cadet dinghies of Port Phillip named after famous ships reminded sailors of the ‗grand old days‘. The article read: ‗Those of us who have read of the ―grand old days‖ (and maybe some of our readers actually remember those days when ―sail‖ was ―supreme o‘er ocean roll‖) feel a thrill at the mention of names of ―Cutty Sark, Thermopylae, Flying Cloud, Blackadder and Lightning— clippers whose names will live through the history of sailing ships‘.120 Nossiter thought that the ‗blood of the Anglo-Saxon‘ contributed to the call of the sea in Northward Ho! He asked: ‗Who has not felt at some time or another the call of the sea? It is in the blood of the Anglo-Saxon, and sorry day it will be when the sea means nothing to those who live on islands with rock girt shores.‘121 Flynn described how his crewmate, ‗The Dook‘ came from a seafaring family ‗well sung in the last centuries legends of the sea… he could tell you instantly the record day‘s log of the Shenandoah or the Cutty Sark, the date it was made, and other details of the voyages of famous old ships‘.122 The cruising poetry in the Motor Boat and Yachting reveals how a range of ideas and images contributed to the identity of the Australian cruising sailor. ‗―Out Cruisin‘‖ celebrated the positive influence of cruising on a ‗feller‘. In a relaxed vernacular similar to the language of the ‗Sentimental Bloke‘, the poem stated that a feller ‗does not ―knock‖ his fellow men‖ and is ‗at his finest‘ out cruising. It continued:

The Rich are comrades to the poor, out cruisin‘; All brothers of a common lure, out cruisin‘;

119 Syd M Dempster, ‗Adrift in a Cyclone: ―When We Were Young‖‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 August, 1927. 120 ‗Crosstree‘, ‗Back to Boyhood Days‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 May, 1928, p. 6. 121 Nossiter, Northward Ho!, p. 9. 122 Flynn, Beam Ends, pp. 15-16.

193 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

The urchin will his model bring and chum with millionaire or king; Vain pride is a forgotten thing, out cruisin‘.123

E G Ulm was a regular correspondent to the Motor Boat and Yachting. He submitted a number of poems describing the sense of freedom provided by the sea. ‗Sea-Lust‘ revealed a simple romantic desire for the maritime environment: ‗Dull eyes and aching brain;/ God! to be at sea in my boat again! …/ The toss of the billows flecked with foam,/ Freedom of choice where‘er I roam,‘124 It revealed a sense of freedom that might be associated with the image of the bush in a different context. Another poem by Ulm, ‗The Sailor and the Sea‘ described the worship and commitment to the sea: ‗True Sailor, looking o‘er the sea, has worship in his wond‘ring eyes;/ He feels the urge beyond the bow, and hardly sees the golden skies.‘125 However, the love of the sea and the freedom that it promised was not restricted to the Australian experience. It was shared with a wider community of sailors. The ‗Sydney Harbour Sailing March‘ appeared to promote the classlessness associated with the bush. It claimed: ‗All sailing men a brothers, they may be ―toff‖ or ―pleb‖‘. But this was found in ‗every sea‘, not only Australian waters. It read:

All Sailing men are brothers In our great sailing game; No matter when or where they meet, At heart they‘re all the same. THEY have a language all their own, It‘s known in every sea— ―Our home is on the waters, And merry men are we!‖126

Australian yachtsman quoted general romantic verses to describe their attachment to the sea. When Ulm under the pseudonym of ‗Helm‘ described his ‗―yachty‖ den‘ – a room decorated with models photos and other artefacts that reminded him of his sailing experiences – he quoted the lines of Rudyard Kipling to describe his attachment to the sea. Helm quoted: ‗Try as he may, no man breaks wholly loose from his first love, no matter who she be. /Oh, was there ever sailor,-free to choose, that

123 ‗―Out Cruisin‘‖, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 September, 1926, p. 16. 124 EG Ulm, ‗Sea-Lust‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 November, 1925, p. 25. 125 E.G. Ulm, ―The Sailor…and…The Sea.‖, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 September, 1926, p. 7. 126 ‗Sydney Harbour Sailing March‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 October, 1926, p. 4.

194 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea didn‘t settle somewhere near the sea?‘ 127 Another cruising yachtsman found meaning in English John Masefield‘s Sea fever‘. ‗Masefield‘s beautiful words‘ were quoted in an account of a cruise off the South Australian coast. Flynn quoted the same lines in Beam Ends:

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel‘s kick, and the wind‘s song, and the white sail‘s shaking, And the grey mist on the sea‘s face, and a grey dawn breaking. 128

The Yachtsman’s Handbook published in New Zealand also expressed this call of the sea as something universal that transcended national boundaries. Under the heading: ‗The call of the sea‘ the author quoted Sir Francis Drake: ‗Let us show ourselves to be all of a company‘. These lines were applied to all ‗yachtsmen‘, the handbook read:

There lies the whole spirit of the pastime of yachting in that one simple sentence; yachtsmen, by reason of their common bond – their love of the sea – are ―all of a company.‖ No matter the size or type of their craft, the sea is their heritage, and because of it they are inevitably drawn together.129

Cruising sailors were also imagined in different ways, both forged by the Australian coast and by external forces. The profile of ‗veteran yachtsman‘ Fred Turner in the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly began by describing effect of the local environment on his character. It stated: ‗Cradled on the shores of the river Derwent, it seems only natural that he should hear the call of the sea, and that the great sport of yachting should grip him and never lose its hold‘. At 67 years of age, Turner represented a masculine type normally reserved for younger men. The article told the story of how Turner and his ‗chum‘ had been caught in a southeast gale and sheltered in kelp beds in Trumpeter Bay. Turner sat forward ‗lashed to the forestay‘ cutting kelp off the anchor-line with the seas breaking over him to save the 26-foot whaleboat from sinking. It contained the familiar themes of mateship, bravery, skill and manhood associated with popular narratives of Australian identity. But here they were forged by the sea:

127 ‗Helm‘, ―I Like It‖, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 March, 1926, p., 28. 128 Masefield, in: ‗Among Rock Bound Shores: Cruising in Alexa‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 November, 1926, pp. 22-24; Flynn, Beam Ends, pp. 127-128. 129 Wilkinson, A (Speedwell), Yachtsman’s Handbook, 1940 (Mitchell Library), p. 21.

195 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea

It is characteristic of him that the tighter the fix he finds himself in the broader his smile. It is hoped that he will for many years retain his vitality, so that he may enjoy his favourite pastime, and by his example and success be an incentive to others to follow in his footsteps, for yachting is not only a clean, manly and healthy sport, but it is an education in itself, teaching one self- reliance, hardihood, and manhood.130

Arthur Peck also heard the ‗call of the sea‘. At the age of 72, he planned to join the 37-ton cruising yacht Utiekah III on a voyage from Melbourne to the South Seas. But the image of Peck, Commodore of the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, in his uniform with the gold braid sits less comfortably within the traditional narratives of Australian identity. He remained British in appearance, middle class, and respectable. The Motor Boat and Yachting likened Peck to an old deep-sea sailor and commented that he was a ‗true yachtsman‘ who loved a ‗good breeze in a good yacht‘ but made no reference to Australian waters. Instead, the romance of the sea was found in the Pacific context. The description continued ‗How refreshing is it in these days of rush and bustle to contemplate a trip in a yacht around the islands of the Pacific, where so much romance has been woven.‘131

Conclusion A cruising culture was well established in Australian waters by the outbreak of World War II. It celebrated the romance and adventure of the sea, sailing and seamanship. The traditions of sail fostered by professional mariners had become those of recreational sailors. Cruising legends and cruising stories were produced and shared amongst the expert sailing community through the aquatic forum of the Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly as the pastime flourished between the wars. Some of these stories were also shared amongst a wider community through the national newspapers, and some of the most ‗adventurous‘ voyages were published in book form. Although there were some attempts to promote cruising as an Australian culture through the sale of locally designed and built cruising boats and the image of a holiday tradition with cruising craft filling the picturesque anchorages all over the Australian coast, it was never truly mythologised as such. Cruising remained a

130 Vivian Leary, ‗Lashed to the Forestay: Fred Turner‘s Thrilling Experience‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 July, 1926, pp. 33-34. 131 ‗Crosstree‘, ‗Not Too Old At Seventy: Looking for Adventure‘, Australian Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly, 1 June, 1927, p. 8.

196 ‘City Sailors’ and the Sea subculture that required specialised knowledge, equipment, and wealth – it never had the mass appeal of the beach. And cruising maintained an older expressions of identity found in the legends of the sea and seafaring that was not completely adapted into an expression of Australian life. The sea maintained a strong hold on cruising culture with traditions and legends that were created outside of Australian society. Yet the nascent myth was there. Legends of bravery and a battle with the elements could be reconciled with myths of Australian identity. The cruising culture that burgeoned between the wars and continued after 1945 would eventually underpin the myths of Australian sailing and Australian sailors. The Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race would build upon an image of Australians battling the ocean; ‗Cruising Australians‘ and ‗Bluewater Australians‘ would be imagined; and solo circumnavigators, and Kay Cottee, Jesse Martin and Jessica Watson would be celebrated as national heroes.

197 Chapter 8 The America’s Cup: Conclusion

As well as the small brass plate on Portia, another artefact shaped my experience of Australian sailing and yachting during my youth. A poster of the 1983 America‘s Cup challenger Australia II on my bedroom wall, with the crew in their green and gold jerseys and the Australian flag flying on the transom, stood as a timeless testament to success. The posters were given to the junior sailors at the Middle Harbour Yacht Club in Sydney at the end of my first sailing season, nearly ten years after Australia II won the cup. I was too young to remember the event that it depicted. I had little notion of Alan Bond‘s investment in the America‘s Cup campaign or his infamous fall from grace. I did not understand the political context of Australian nationalism in the 1980s.1 But I knew what the poster meant to me: Australians were the best sailors in the world. Critical accounts of the event have suggested otherwise. They have argued that the America‘s Cup is an anomaly in Australian culture, and that it is strange that the ‗unpopular‘ sport was linked with narratives of national identity. This dominant view of yachting has marginalised the sport and obscured a fuller understanding of sailing and yachting in Australia. Few historians have considered the meaningful contribution of the sea to Australian identity. For example, Geoffrey Blainey noted that ‗in Australia we have a beach culture, but not yet a sea culture‘, drawing a distinction between the beach as a fixed location and the sea beyond the breakers.2 However, as this thesis demonstrates, Australia does have a sea culture in sailing and yachting. This thesis developed from questions surrounding the Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race in Australian history: how did the Sydney-Hobart become an Australian icon; what did it reveal about the sea in Australian culture; and what meanings were attached to sailing and yachting before the race was established? In the first five years of the Sydney-Hobart, commentators recognised a seafaring heritage in the

1 See: Jim McKay, No Pain, No Gain? Sport and Australian Culture, Prentice Hall, New York; Sydney, 1991, pp. 19-36; Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, One-Eyed: A View of Australian Sport, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000, pp. 182-183; Paul James, ‗The ideology of winning: cultural politics and the America‘s Cup‘, Power Play: Esays in the sociology of Australian sport, Geoffrey Lawrence and David Rowe, Hale and Iremonger Sydney 1986, pp. 136-147. 2 Geoffrey Blainey, quoted by Malcolm Tull, ‗Maritime History in Australia‘, Maritime History at the Crossroads: A Critical Review of Recent Historiography, Frank Broeze, International Maritime Economic History Association, St John‘s Newfoundland 1995, p. 1.

198 The America’s Cup: Conclusion burgeoning tradition. The Sydney Morning Herald noted: ‗Australians, for all that they inhabit a continent, have an inbred love of the sea and an abiding interest in ships‘. 3 While the race developed its own foundation legend that celebrated its beginnings and not its heritage, recreational sailors still maintain a sea culture through the practices of sailing and seamanship inherited from naval and working maritime traditions. By looking at the earlier period of 1888 to 1945, this thesis has documented the rise of sailing and yachting in Australian waters. It has investigated the beginnings of sailing and yachting through the regatta tradition, the boom in open boat sailing as a spectator sport and the middle class alternative in the small keelboat, the traditions of the royal yachting institutions, the rise of a modern cruising culture, and the beginnings of the Sydney-Hobart. And it has considered the meanings attached to the sport by sailors and the broader community, through legends, shared rituals, and the media. The America‘s Cup is another contemporary yachting legend. Alongside the tradition of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race, the America‘s Cup remains the most recognisable yachting event in Australian popular culture. The image of Australia II on my bedroom wall demonstrated how pervasive the myth of the America‘s Cup is, how quickly the complexities and context of the campaign were forgotten, and how easily the simple legends of the race can be communicated across generations. When Cadel Evans won the 2011 Tour De France cycling race, Peter FitzSimons compared it to a number of ‗Australian‘ victories in a Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece. He began with Trickett‘s world championship win in rowing and included Cathy Freeman‘s win in the 400 meter run at the Sydney Olympics, Donald Bradman‘s third test in Leeds, and Rod Laver‘s two grand slams. FitzSimons then turned his attention to the America‘s Cup. He wrote:

Cadel Evans's feat though? In terms of capturing the national imagination, it is in the class of the America's Cup win in 1983. Back then we knew little and cared less about sailing per se - a fairly dreary sport for the spectator, after all - but we knew that the Americans cared deeply about it, had held it for no fewer than 132 years, were convinced that no one would ever take it from them. And that was good enough for us.4

3 ‗Ocean Yacht Race‘ Sydney Morning Herald, 25 December, 1946, p. 2. 4 Peter FitzSimons ‗A Little Aussie Battler does it again: You beauty!‘ Sydney Morning Herald, Opinion, 26 July, 2011, http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-little-aussie-battler- does-it-again--you-beauty-20110725-1hx96.html#ixzz1dGEDCopy accessed 10 November 2011.

199 The America’s Cup: Conclusion

In comparing the Tour de France to the America‘s Cup FitzSimons also revealed the underlying ambivalence regarding the yacht race in Australian culture. He argued that the Tour de France has a greater sense of history and is more widely coveted than the America‘s Cup, but: ‗More importantly, while the America's Cup was pursued by millionaires and billionaires, Cadel Evans is the ―little Aussie battler,‖ writ large‘. The idea that yacht racing is an elitist sport and therefore ‗un-Australian‘ was reinforced in the online comments. ‗Drew‘ wrote: ‗The America's Cup, as the 12th man calls it, is for 'fat rich' and is way off the radar of your average Aussie's interests‘; ‗Biggles‘ from Brisbane said: ‗Yacht racing - well it is a comedy piece isn't it‘. But other commentators defended the victory from criticism. ‗Jaffa‘ argued that the America‘s Cup was still Australia‘s ‗greatest sporting conquest‘ that ‗brought together people from many walks of life‘. And ‗Will B‘ claimed that the sailors who claimed victory were not millionaires: ‗They [the crew] earned $10 a day in expenses and dedicated years of hard work and pain to achieve their goal. Let us not diminish that achievement in the short sweep of an ill informed sentence.‘5 The same divisions were evident in 1983 when journalist Bruce Stannard explained why Australia II ranked alongside Bradman and Phar Lap in uniting the nation in the Sun Herald. Stannard defended the America‘s Cup from the criticism that it was ‗a rich man‘s toy, a plaything for the idle, decadent upper crust‘ and claimed that ‗the men who crew Australia II are about as representative a mob of Australians as you might find on the 7.30 express from Hornsby to the City any weekday‘. Stannard‘s editorial neatly articulated the mythology of the America‘s Cup victory as a popular victory won by Australian battlers. It was the ‗men‘ crewing Australia II, not Alan Bond that ‗galvanised their fellow countrymen‘. And the contest gave the ‗entire nation a sense of unity that had implications far beyond a boat race‘; it showed that Australians were still capable of working as a ‗world class‘ team despite differences within the nation.6 Critical accounts of the America‘s Cup victory revealed the way that politicians, the mass media and entrepreneurs appropriated the outpouring of nationalist sentiment for their own ends. Paul James considered the way that the

5 ‗Drew‘, ‗Biggles‘, ‗Jaffa‘ and ‗Will B‘, Online Comments, in Peter FitzSimons ‗A Little Aussie Battler does it again: You beauty!‘ Sydney Morning Herald, Opinion, 26 July, 2011, http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-little-aussie-battler-does-it-again--you-beauty- 20110725-1hx96.html#ixzz1dGEDCopy, accessed 10 November 2011. 6 Bruce Stannard, ‗Why Australia II ranks with Bradman and Phar Lap‘, Sun Herald, 25 September, 1983.

200 The America’s Cup: Conclusion

America‘s Cup ‗dissolved for a period the boundaries between politics and sporting nationalism‘ and for a moment united individuals in spontaneous celebration.7 Jim McKay used the theory of hegemony to demonstrate how dominant groups can ‗frame‘ sport to legitimise their values.8 One outcome of McKay‘s reading of the America‘s cup is that yachting and sailing have been dismissed as Australian sports. McKay claimed that: ‗Sailing is one of the most unpopular sports in Australia‘. He cited a recreational participation survey conducted by the Department of Sport Tourism and Recreation, Canberra to demonstrate that less than one per cent of the population participates in sailing, and stated that 12-metre sailing is one of the most exclusive and expensive sports in the world. McKay wrote: ‗So, in a nation where tall poppies are cut down, it seems odd that such an esoteric and costly activity generated such attention‘.9 Daryl Adair and Wray Vamplew used the America‘s Cup to demonstrate how the abstract nation is often depicted as a unified entity in Sport in Australian History. An image of Australia II was included on the cover, but regarding the victory they wrote:

Rarely has the nation witnessed such scenes of jubilation, despite the fact that very few Australians were familiar with sailing. Indeed only 1 percent of the population were participants in the sport, and fewer still in 12 metre sailing, doubtless because of its status as ‗one of the most expensive and exclusive sports in the world‘.10

They argued that if the victory unified Australians it did so fleetingly and narrowly. Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz based a section of their account of Australian sport on McKay‘s America‘s Cup thesis. It opened with the statistic that fewer than one per cent of the population participate in sailing and that 12-metre yacht racing is one of the most expensive sports in the world. They concluded: ‗Like all sporting moments, the yacht euphoria faded, quickly: it couldn‘t, for example, sustain the nearly four million struggling on benefits‘.11 Christopher Thompson cited the same statistic in a thesis considering the 1983 America‘s cup, and Tony Ward cited Thompson‘s thesis

7 James, ‗The Ideology of Winning‘ p. 146. 8 Jim McKay, No Pain, No Gain? Sport and Australian culture, Prentice Hall, New York; Sydney, 1991, p. 34. 9 Ibid, p. 24. 10 Daryl Adair and Wray Vamplew, Sport in Australian History, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997, pp. 42-43. 11 Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, One-Eyed: A View of Australian Sport, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000, pp. 182-183.

201 The America’s Cup: Conclusion in his recent account of sport and Australian national identity. Ward repeated that sailing is an unpopular sport: less than one per cent of the population participate in sailing and only five per cent watch any sailing on television in a typical year, and this was mostly the Sydney-Hobart.12 The statistic that less than one per cent of Australians participate in sailing and yachting does not provide a good context for considering the popularity of the America‘s Cup victory of 1983.The participation rates in all sports are relatively low. In 1995-1996 when Adair and Vamplew quoted McKay, the Australian Bureau of Statistics calculated that 0.7% of Australians participated in sailing and yachting while 0.3% participated in surf sports, 0.8% in fishing, 0.6% in rugby league, and 1.4% in outdoor cricket.13 None of these other pastimes would be considered unpopular or ‗un-Australian‘. By 2000, when Booth and Tatz quoted the statistic, exactly 1% participated in sailing and yachting. More Australians participated in sailing than in rugby league (0.7%) or rugby union (0.3%) and it was close to AFL (1.4%), cricket (1.9%), and soccer (1.4%).14 In 2010, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that none of the top four spectator sports were listed in the top ten sports ranked by participation, suggesting that different factors motivate spectatorship and participation in sport. The participation in spectator sports AFL (1.4%), cricket (1.5%), rugby league (0.7%), rugby union (0.6%), and surfing (1.3%) were still low compared to participation in non spectator activities like walking for exercise (22.9%) and aerobics/fitness/gym (14.0%). The 0.6% that participated in sailing and yachting still represented a large number of people.15 Critics should not have been surprised by the patriotic sentiment that victory in the 1983 America‘s Cup generated. Bob Ross had already classified the ‗America‘s Cuppa‘s as a type of ‗sailing Australian‘ by 1979 in The Sailing Australians. Ross also explained the challenge as part of Australian characteristics. He claimed: ‗The Australian temperament was inevitably drawn towards it‘.16 Australian challenges for the trophy were associated with ideas of progress and achievement from the first campaign sponsored by Sir Frank Packer through the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron

12 Tony Ward, Sport in Australian national identity: kicking goals, Routledge, London, 2010, p. 167. 13 ABS Participation in sport and physical activities, 10 June, 1997, cat no 4177.0, p. 6. 14 ABS Participation in sport and physical activities, 1999-2000, 24 October, 2000, cat no 4117.0, p. 8. 15 ABS Participation in sport and physical recreation 21 December 2010 cat no 4177.0, p. 13. 16 Bob Ross, The Sailing Australians, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973, p. 173.

202 The America’s Cup: Conclusion in 1962. This campaign dominated the yacht club‘s centenary year and P. R Stephensen considered the great achievements that the challenge represented:

Nevertheless, this was an event which would add to Australia‘s renown, and proclaim to the world, as the holding of the Olympic Games had done in Australia six years previously, and as many other achievements in sport, in the arts, in commerce, and in the grim tasks of war had proclaimed, that the people of the ‗Great South Land‘, in their island continent –‗the last sea-thing dredged by Sailor Time from space‘ – had developed to maturity among the nations of the world.17

In Stephenson‘s words, the campaign was in the ‗Australian spirit‘ of ‗giving it a go‘, ‗characteristic of Australian temperament, win or lose‘ and the donations of materials and cash from Australian business were justified as ‗representative of Australian achievement‘.18 Looking back in Yachting in Australia, d‘Alpuget recalled a moment of success in that 1962 challenge where Australians captured the attention of the world. The challenger Gretel surfed on a wave downwind in a gusty 28-knot wind – ‗a feat never before achieved by a heavy deep-keeled vessel of her 12-metre class‘. Gretel passed the American rival to win the race. D‘Alpuget continued:

It was a spectacle that astonished and delighted thousands of people on the wind-driven stretch of the Atlantic Ocean off Newport, Rhode Island, USA. Millions more saw it on television. It was to inspire a cascade of words of praise in a dozen languages for the men who had created and sailed the boat that almost flew downwind. It was also to establish Australia firmly as one of the world‘s greatest yachting nations and as the USA‘s major rival in a field of sophisticated sailing to which even countries with a dozen times our technical, scientific and industrial resources had never dared to aspire – challenging for the America‘s Cup.19

These legends of the early America‘s cup challenges contributed to the stories of Australian success that accompanied the scenes of nationalist fervour in 1983. In exploring the geo-political dimensions of Packer‘s 1962 challenge, Bridget Griffen- Foley revealed similar connections between the America‘s cup and Australian status.

17 P. R Stephensen, Sydney Sails: The Story of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s First 100 Years 1862-1962, Angus and Robinson, Sydney, 1962, p. 243. 18 Ibid, pp. 244-245. 19 Lou d‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia: Yesterday Today and Tomorrow, Hutchinson Group, Richmond, Victoria, 1980, p. 97.

203 The America’s Cup: Conclusion

Griffen-Foley explained that after Gretel’s ‗surge to the finish‘ the Australian contingent sang ‗Waltzing Matilda‘ and their unofficial theme song ‗Beer is Best‘. Reports of the win made front-page news throughout the world, and the publicity convinced the Australian government that ‗the challenge could boost both Australia‘s profile abroad, and the Australian people‘s confidence to strut on the world stage‘. After more unsuccessful challenges for the Cup, Packer eventually sold his 12-metre yachts to Alan Bond ‗who was, ironically, reinventing himself as a media tycoon‘.20 All of this attention awarded to the Australian challenges for America‘s Cup since the 1960s suggests two things. The ‗hegemony‘ identified by McKay was part of a longer process and more deeply engrained in the culture of yachting than first thought. And sailing and yachting is not such an anomaly in Australian culture. The Australian relationship with the America‘s Cup dates back to its beginnings in the mid nineteenth century. James has considered the origins of the America‘s Cup competition as an adjunct to the Great International Exhibition of 1851. A fast American yacht, named America, built along shallow sleek lines defeated the yachts of the Royal Yacht and claimed the trophy. Alongside the Crystal Palace as a symbol of nascent modernity, the America‘s Cup became a symbol of the vigour of competitive capitalism and the surpassing of the old by a ‗new nation‘. The social and political changes that occurred at the time of the first race, the industrial revolution, rise of ‗official nationalisms‘, organisation of sport, and the extension of transport and communication, ‗were central to embedding the America‘s cup as tradition‘. It became a competition between nations that drew upon the aristocratic tradition of yachting while reformulating it.21 PR Stephenson‘s account of an ‗ocean race‘ between the Australian yacht Xarifa and the imported English yacht Chance in his history of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron replicated aspects of the America‘s Cup legend. Xarifa was an ‗Australian-type‘. Its lines were based on Richard Harnett‘s yacht Australian launched in 1858. Stephensen stated that the yacht was built on ‗completely novel and original principles, paying no regard to tradition or precedent, or to the ideas of either English or American builders‘. Harnett explained that the lines were based on a Mackerel that he caught in Woolloomooloo, ‗I took for my load waterline the

20 Bridget Griffen-Foley, ‗Playing with Princes and Presidents: Sir Frank Packer and the 1962 Challenge for the America‘s Cup‘, Australian Journal of Politics and History, volume 46, number 1, 2000, pp. 51-66. 21 Paul James, ‗The ideology of winning‘, pp. 136-139.

204 The America’s Cup: Conclusion horizontal lines of the fish which were segments of a circle, the garboard strake corresponding to with the waterlines and the mid section of a right-angled floor‘.22 The simple circles, straight lines and right angles conformed to ‗geometric truths‘, and Stephensen notes that the radical design was many years ahead of its time and it was still winning races in 1885, twenty-seven years after it was built.23 The arrival of William Walker‘s large schooner Chance in 1863 provided an opportunity for this Australian design to be tested against the English yacht. H C Dangar explained that Walker challenged Sydney yachtsman Charles Parbury to race the Chance over an ocean course from Sydney Harbour to Newcastle and back. Parbury accepted the challenge and Xarifa was built for the contest. Xarifa was ‗almost entirely a colonial production as far as hull, spars, and sail plan are concerned‘ and claimed that its segment lines gave clue to all of the fastest yachts in England and America in later years.24 The affection for the yacht is evident in a delicate watercolour painted by an unnamed artist in the possession of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron in which the Xarifa is sailing through the heads with all sails set, the blue ensign flying aft, and the club burgee atop the masthead.25 Stephenson detailed the launch of Xarifa and early trials against local yachts in January 1864 before the sound defeat of Chance in the ocean race. In a strong southerly breeze that was developing into a gale, Xarifa carried away its topmast and Chance disappeared ahead into the distance. With no sign of the English yacht, Xarifa made some repairs and prepared to sail back to Sydney ‗in the teeth of a gale which showed no signs of abating‘. At 8pm the yacht reached Newcastle, made a clean manoeuvre in the dangerous seas and began the return journey: ‗Throughout the night … the gallant little vessel thrashed into the teeth of the gale and against an evil sea‘. The crew of Xarifa supposed that Chance was in the lead. But they had passed in the night as Chance struggled in the seas and soundly won the race. Stephensen wrote:

Commodore Walker generously admitted, not only that he had been outsailed, but Chance had been outclassed. His resplendent schooner which, less than two years before, had arrived with pomp and circumstance from the royal

22 Richard Harnett, quoted by Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 29. 23 Stephensen Sydney Sails, pp. 28-30. 24 HC Dangar quoted by Stephenson, Sydney Sails, pp. 48-49. 25 See illustration in Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 48.

205 The America’s Cup: Conclusion

reaches of Cowes, had been compelled to dip her colours to a colonial cutter with the shape and ways of a mackerel! 26

As an Australian version of the America‘s Cup contest between national types, the colonial boat was victorious. As Stephensen noted: ‗It was memorable too, because it had some of the elements of an ―international‖ contest in which Australian yacht building and yachting skill won the acknowledgement of well-earned cheers‘.27 D‘Alpuget also described the race as a contest between types. ‗It was a two-boat challenge match arranged to test the qualities of Xarifa, a Sydney-designed-and-built wooden-hulled cutter of thirty tons, against Chance, an English-designed-and-built iron hulled schooner of seventy-one tons‘. Of course, ‗Charles Parbury‘s Xarifa thrashed the daylights out of William Walker‘s Chance.28 In hindsight, the race had become yet another legend of Australian sporting victory. Naval architect Walter Reeks was similarly impressed by the sailing design of the Australian in the nineteenth century. He claimed that with ‗Australia‘s honour as our reward‘, we shall ‗cease to speak of the American type and the English type, and have a type of our own, which other countries will look at with envious eyes, and call Australian‘ in 1888.29 Reeks then travelled to America and England on behalf of a syndicate of Sydney yachtsmen to study the feasibility of a challenge for the America‘s Cup. He studied the Volunteer, Mayflower, Puritan and other fast American yachts and planned to build a 90-foot yacht for the challenge. It fell through because of a lack of financial backing, but it revealed the power of the America‘s Cup on the yachting culture in Australia. The Victorian International Regatta, also held in 1888 in conjunction with the international exhibition had the hallmarks of the initial America‘s Cup race in Cowes. Both events were associated with exhibitions and the display of modern progress and technology that they entailed. Mark Foy‘s failed attempt to challenge the English sailing boats with the Sydney 22-footer Irex in 1898 might have embarrassed the Sydney yachting establishment. But it also revealed the ongoing challenge between English and local Australian designs. Yacht sailors in Australia criticised Foy‘s challenge because the open boat did not conform to the image of progress and modernity considered worthy of a yachting competition such as

26 Stephensen, Sydney Sails, p. 57. 27 Ibid. 28 D‘Alpuget, Yachting in Australia, p. 185. 29 Walter Reeks, ‗Yachting and Sailing‘, Illustrated Sydney News, 31 May, 1888, p. 10.

206 The America’s Cup: Conclusion the America‘s Cup. An illustrated history of the America‘s Cup published in the Australian Town and Country Journal in 1899 revealed the ongoing appeal of the competition. The ‗care, money, energy, and public interest lavished on the great international yacht contest‘ was evidence of the devotion to sport displayed by those with ‗British Blood‘.30 This thesis has demonstrated that links between sailing, yachting, progress, and Australian identity had developed since the nineteenth century. These and the legendary status of the America‘s Cup competition underpinned the Australian attempts for the cup in the 1960s and 1980s, providing symbolic connections between yachting and Australian identity. These links between sailing, yachting, the sea and Australian identity are ongoing. Australia lost the America‘s Cup in Fremantle in 1987, but the 1988 bicentenary was celebrated with more maritime festivals. Yachts raced amongst the fleet of tall ships and recreational sailors maintained the traditions of sail and the maritime heritage of European settlement. Kay Cottee became the first woman to complete an unassisted solo circumnavigation of the world, returning to Sydney Harbour in June that year. Jesse Martin and then Jessica Watson completed the feat of being the youngest person to complete the voyage in 1997 and 2010 respectively. In each case the attempt was imagined as an examples of Australian endeavour. Regarding Watson‘s voyage, the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stated ‗Here you have a young Queenslander, young Australian who has shown great courage, great determination. … I believe she‘s an inspiration to all Australians‘.31 The Sydney-Hobart has also maintained its status as an Australian tradition. After the milestone of the 50th race in 1994, with a fleet of more than 300 yachts including the ‗veteran‘ division of vintage boats, and the tragedy associated with the 1998 disaster, the race has maintained its popularity. Over a six-week period in 2009, a national literary project called sea things collected more than 300 verses, stories and recorded messages reflecting people‘s thoughts on Australia‘s love affair with the ocean. Starting in Hobart, a series of vessels traversed the coast collecting works drawn from people of all ages and walks of life. These were then returned aboard the

30 ‗The International Yacht Race‘, Australian Town and Country Journal, 7 October, 1899, p. 23-25. 31 Kevin Rudd, quoted by Belinda Cranston, ‗Jessica faces ‗nasty‘ Southern Ocean, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April, 2010.

207 The America’s Cup: Conclusion

British yacht Adventure of Hornet via the Sydney-Hobart Yacht race.32 The description of the 2011 event still celebrated the popular tradition:

Over the past 66 years, the Rolex Sydney Hobart has become an icon of Australia‘s summer sport, ranking in public interest with such national events as the Melbourne Cup horse race, the Davis Cup tennis and the cricket tests between Australia and England. No regular annual yachting event in the world attracts such huge media coverage than does the start on Sydney Harbour.33

The America‘s Cup represented the beginnings of modern yachting in the nineteenth century. The aristocratic tradition of yachting became an international competition between modern nation states. The sport was still limited to the extremely wealthy, but yachting was taking on new meanings in the western world, associated with progress, capitalism, and nation. Over the next century, the pastime would see dramatic shifts in technology, participation and ‗democratisation‘ to form the basis of contemporary sailing and yachting. The statement that yachting is no longer an elite sport because the amateur crew might be made up of the proverbial ‗tradesmen, teachers, bank clerks, bus drivers, public servants‘ is evidence of these changes.34 However, Brian Stoddart argues that: ‗crew members are placed in a serving capacity by their financial inability to be the owners of major craft‘.35 Recreational sailing and yachting began in the Australian colonies at the beginning of these broad shifts. They were always modern cultures in the way that they were imported and appropriated in a colonial setting. They were built upon the idea that sailing and yachting represented progress, technology, material wealth, and respectability, characteristics embraced by the Australian colonies. At the same time, they were sentimental and nostalgic. Yachting demonstrated that the old traditions of the mother country were not forgotten in Australia. Amateur sailors who adopted the practices and traditions of a ‗seafaring race‘ now maintained British heritage and identity in the Australian setting. So sailing and yachting was both modern and nostalgic, looking to the future and the past at the same time.

32 ‗Hobart the duffle bag has landed!‘, The Red Room Company, Darlinghurst NSW, Media release, 31 December 2009. 33 ‗About the Race‘, Official site of the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, http://rolexsydneyhobart.com/editorial.asp?key=527, accessed 23 February 2012. 34 See for example, David Salter, ‗Class Struggle‘, All Piss and Wind: Sailing Through Life, Random House, Milson‘s Pint, NSW, 2006, p. 20. 35 Brian Stoddart, Saturday Afternoon Fever: Sport in the Australian Culture, Angus and Robinson, North Ryde, NSW, 1986, p. 41.

208 The America’s Cup: Conclusion

Eighteen eighty-eight to 1945 was a period of technological, social, and political change that underscored the development of sailing and yachting in Australian culture. Over this period, sail was slowly replaced by steam in nearly all commercial activities and recreational sailors now maintain sailing traditions. Broeze explained that the world of commerce and shipping was ‗conditioned by the slow rhythm of the sailing-ship‘, but a ‗new spirit‘ arose with American independence, the breaking down of commercial monopolies, the promise of steam power and faster communications: ‗Shipping was at the dawn of the modern age and a new technology‘. The introduction of the steamship, independent from wind and weather, was ‗the most important change‘ in Australian shipping, ‗taming‘ the distance between Australia and the rest of the world. The ‗modernisation‘ of coastal shipping through mechanisation began as early as 1831 when Sydney merchants imported a steamer, Sophia Jane. Broeze writes: ‗Very quickly, on the Australian coast as elsewhere in the world, the steamer captured the cream of the freight market: passengers, mail, valuable low-bulk commodities and perishables‘. By the 1880s, the coastal trade had shifted decisively in favour of the steamship.36 Old seafaring traditions were maintained in a new context. Cruising sailors looked to the experiences of displaces professional mariners like Joshua Slocum and John Voss and well as the pioneers of amateur cruising who sailed their own boats in the nineteenth century. As commercial sailing waned, recreational sailors imagined the joys of sailing on the sea, and maintained its culture. Changes were seen in boat design and the pursuit of ever-faster craft based on scientific principles. Racing yachts and sailing boats generally became smaller and more affordable. Large yachts sailed by full professional crews, typical of elite English yachting, were never numerous in Australia. They had all but disappeared by the twentieth century, when the small rater resembled the pinnacle of scientific design. Even the open boats, famous for having monstrous sail plans and many crew became smaller, narrower, and faster carrying less hands. With the introduction of the inboard engine, mechanisation influenced recreational sailing making cruising particularly easier and safer for the amateur sailor. Descriptions of the ‗handy auxiliary‘ celebrated the convenience if the inboard

36 Frank Broeze, Island Nation: A History of Australians and the Sea, Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 1998, pp. 88-97, 90, 131-133; John Bach, A Maritime History of Australia, Thomas Nelson Australia, West Melbourne, 1976, p. 57, 134.

209 The America’s Cup: Conclusion engines, combined with the seaworthy characteristics of old working boats like the Norwegian double ender. With smaller, more easily sailed, and usually more affordable boats, sailing was democratised in Australian waters. The open boat boom in Sydney represented an extreme of this process. Sailing clubs were established out of the working class harbour suburbs of Sydney such as Balmain Pyrmont, and Woolloomooloo in the early 1890s. They were based on a collective ethos, maintaining low membership fees, offering boats for hire, and subsidising racing by promoting spectatorship. The boats also reflected this ethos. With large sails they carried a large crew meaning that the sailing was available to more people. In the context of the class struggle of the 1890s, the conservative yachting community resisted open boat sailing. The boats from the Sydney Flying Squadron with their coloured sails were banned from the Anniversary Regatta in 1892, and a successful rival event was held in its place. More criticisms of the boats were aired in the Australian Yachtsman and Canoeist in an acrimonious debate over the sailing qualities of ‗deep-keelers‘ and open boats. Notwithstanding this conflict, a loosening of social barriers was seen in the elite royal yacht clubs at the same time. Membership generally increased, and the clubs catered for smaller yachts. Royal patronage was awarded to more sailing clubs in the twentieth century and the warrant became less exclusive than it had been earlier in the nineteenth century. As sailing and yachting became available to more people, they also became commodities. Professional open boat represented the commercialisation of sailing culture in one form as the sport was essentially sold to spectators. In another form the joys of sailing and cruising were sold through aquatic publications. The Motor Boat and Yachting Monthly established in 1925, particularly supported the Australian boating industry. It promoted aquatic sports, published designs from local boat builders, and provided a forum for descriptions of Australian cruising. Yachting and sailing were imported sports in Australia over the rise and decline of the British imperialism. Britishness was a constant refrain in yachting culture seen in the symbols and traditions of the royal yacht clubs, comments about race, heritage and tradition, and the links with naval defence. This also changed over time. Initially, expressions of British and colonial nationalism could be seen in sailing and yachting culture and the regatta tradition, but the inauguration of the Australian commonwealth created a new political edifice to which the modern ‗yachtsman‘ could direct ‗his‘ loyalty. The modern ‗yachtsman‘s‘ interest in naval defence demonstrated

210 The America’s Cup: Conclusion that the maritime connections to empire forged by naval traditions could be applied to the Australian commonwealth. Local sailing traditions took on national significance, as Australians were encouraged to buy local products. The commercialisation of sailing and yachting ultimately sought a national market, but this would not fully develop until later in the twentieth century. Nineteen forty-five was a turning point in Australian history, marking the end of hostilities in World War II and the hesitant beginning of a long period of prosperity and growth. The Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race quickly became a symbol of these changes in the context of yachting. However, these changes also built upon the period studied in this thesis. The democratisation of sailing that began in the nineteenth century continued at a grass roots level with an increase in sailing clubs and classes since the 1950s. The Sydney-Hobart fleets fluctuated in numbers but generally increased up to the 1980s when fleets of more than 100 yachts were regularly seen. The popularisation and commercialisation of yachting continued as the coloured sails of the open boats were replaced with sponsor‘s logos in the 1970s. The Sydney- Hobart also began to receive commercial sponsorship at this time. When legends of Australian yachting were defined in The Sailing Australians and Yachting in Australia at the beginning of the 1980s they looked to the Sydney-Hobart, but a longer tradition of sailing and Australian identity has been considered in this thesis. Finally in the 1990s, the race took on a more self consciously historic character with the fiftieth race in 1994, and the introduction of a ‗veteran‘ division of historic yachts. The connection between history and sailing and yachting in Australian waters was deeper than this. Sailings traditions were associated with a sense of history and identity since the beginning of recreational sailing in the Australian colonies. They have contributed to the culture of a society that has looked towards the bush, the city and the sea for identity and meaning.

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