Big fella Part 1
There are a small handful of ‘Aussie yachties’ who have both made a genuine big impression as well as prevailed in all the popular international racing disciplines. A smaller handful played a big part in developing Australia’s yachting industry. And the sub-set who magicked up and then ran serious America’s Cup challenges… now you are down to a very few fingers indeed. Blue Robinson puts on the cocoa and settles in for a long one with Mr Australian Sailing himself, Iain Murray
40 SEAHORSE
Always an ambitious kid I was born in Sydney in 1958 and grew up in Seaforth where I went to the local schools – to be honest I probably didn’t apply myself widely at school. But I was selective… I wasn’t interested in English but things like tech drawing, maths and science I took to right away. My father was keen on sailing having
grown up on Scotland Island in Pittwater, where the family moved to when he was two in 1926. His father in turn was a marine engineer and boatman and he looked after some pretty impressive boats… he also drove the Admiral’s Barge here at Garden Island just after the war, so there is quite a historic family connection with the water. My grandfather also used to take my dad to watch the 18ft Skiffs on the harbour… More on them later! So I was living at Seaforth and playing
some rugby, and our rugby coach was Paul Bedford who also happened to be the Commodore of Middle Harbour 16ft Skiff Club. After rugby training one day I stayed in the car and ended up at the sailing club; the interesting thing is I am still there. But I’ve got little choice to be honest… because now I own those marinas. My father moved that forwards by
enrolling me in some sailing lessons with Buster Brown, Alan Chemister and Ron Adams. So it all started in a Manly Junior up on the hardstand, mounted up on a swivel where they gybed and tacked you on the shore to teach you the basics. After that my father bought me a new
boat, a plywood Flying Ant number 113 called Antelope. Now things were getting serious! A kid called Chris Wright steered and I crewed. I was still both only 10 but pretty quickly I was helming with my own crew, Robert Gough. That was a popular class, with 40-odd
Flying Ants out there. Gary Gietz was the hot shot in Mean Mover #142, plus the Oatleys were around back then too. The first season it was all learning; then the second season I got a fibreglass boat that wasn’t finished, so with my father I put a deck on it in the man-cave under the house and came fifth in the nationals. I picked up the basic woodwork and
build skills from my father plus a bit at school, then the next year my father bought me a Cherub. It was a production fibreglass boat that wasn’t great, but we still got fifth in the state titles. Then at the end of the year I told my father that I wanted to design and build my own boat,
BOB ROSS/FRANK QUEALEY
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