Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, Commodore profile, Garry Linacre

by John Curnow on 2 Dec 2010 CYCA - He’s been in the post for a few months now, but the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Commodore, Garry Linacre, is not new to the scene or the sport, for that matter. On the contrary, Garry is eminently qualified for the role and above all of that, is one hell of a nice guy. In the Australian vernacular, you’d refer to him as a ‘top bloke’.

So where did it all start and how do you chart the course of a man who’s been involved with Solings, Incat fast ferries, ocean racers and the dramatic 18foot skiffs that adorn Sydney Harbour, much like the coloured gems in a priceless necklace?

Like most sailors of his generation, Garry was given a boat when he was very young. Six years of age, to be precise. However, unlike most of the others, he was given just the oars to go with his Sabot.

His grandfather, who had been a winning helmsman in the Forster Cup for 21footers, insisted that he teach the young Garry how to row and scull first. ‘For my seventh birthday I got the rig! Incidentally, the first person to take me sailing is the now President of Yachting Australia, Andrew Plympton.

He is two years older than me and had started that bit before me, so he took me out in my own boat on Melbourne’s Port Phillip’, said an amused Garry.

From there it was off to clinker-built, 12foot International Cadets, where Garry enjoyed moderate success. At 12 years of age, he went to do the Stonehaven Cup as Bruce McBriars mainhand. It was a regatta out of the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron that was won by ‘a heretic named Howard Piggott, who hailed from the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania was sailing a boat called Avenger.

Howard was looking for any sort of equipment advantage; here was a Tasmanian sailor in a South Australian built boat, which was crafted from Queensland grown timber’, said Garry.

In the early 70’s, Garry’s dad had a heart attack, which resulted in a now 20 year-old Garry obtaining the Soling KA1 that he sailed with a bunch of his dinghy club mates.

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This was the year that Ben Lexcen, Bob Terret and all of those guys like Dennis O’Neil won Olympic Selection. At the same time he started his foray into ocean racing.

When 1974 rolled around two years later, a boat with the ‘new and funky’ name of ‘Laser’ arrived on the scene and Garry was working with Andrew Plympton in Sydney.

Australia got six places in the 1976 Laser World Championships and Garry secured the sixth spot on the team, after doing well in the Australian titles, which were held at Black Rock on the shores of Melbourne’s Port Phillip. Garry had actually moved back to Melbourne at the time, in one of his many changes of locale over the years.

After the 1976 titles in Kiel, Germany, he sailed a lot of the Scandinavian regattas for John Kahlbetzer aboard Bumblebee 3 and then back in Australia there was a boat with the name of Superstar, where Garry got to sail with a certain John Bertrand.

‘Eventually there was a bunch of Hobart races on different boats. I was on Apollo in 1985 for the Line Honours win and also Windward Passage and Margaret Rintoul.

After that I got involved with the administration side of racing, as well. In 1987, I moved to Tasmania for about eight years and I bought a partnership in an Etchells down there with John Messenger. We had a wonderful Etchells Fleet sailing from Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, where I was a Committee Member, too. I was working with Bob Clifford of Incat, as the Sales and Marketing Manager, so enjoyed sailing against him on the weekend.’

Stemming from Garry’s involvement with Tasmania and Bob Clifford, is a shareholding in an export award-winning corporation. Liferaft Systems Australia employs over 60 people in the manufacture of evacuation systems for fast ferries and defence craft. An ex-sailmaker, Michael Grainger, is the MD of this highly specialised venture that has no leisure marine component.

They’re akin to the slides that come out of aircraft, except that they are stored in aluminium cases and have reinforced structures to cope with the ocean. Persons mass at evacuation slots and then 100 souls get in each raft for speedy, approved evacuation from high-speed vessels.

This is crucial when you may have up to 1200 passengers onboard one of the larger type ferries. They’re fitted to all the Australian export boats from Incat and Western Australia’s Austal Shipyards. Additionally, they are retrofitted to vessels running in Asia, Europe and Canada.

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‘It’s an absolute bonus from my time living there and I still love to go to Tasmania every year. Incat is back on stream now, as are the other yards around Australia, I understand. We, as in Australia, certainly are known around the globe for the large cats’, said Garry. ‘Michael and the gang have harnessed the gap in the market with a totally superior product.’

Yet another move occurred after Garry’s time in Tasmania and this time it was back to Sydney, again. ‘I joined a Western Australian group called AMI. They do a lot of specialised marine stuff from shipbuilding down to PLBs. They’re a sort of manufacturer’s agent and electronics company. AMI and I got involved with Navionics, which are the premier electronic chart provider and I have been the General Manager there for the last seven years.’

Immediate Past Commodores of the CYCA have an unwritten rule that they will put forward an individual that they think should be on Committee, as they depart themselves. It was Hugo Van Kretschmar who made the phone call to Garry to come back on the CYCA Committee.

'I had been on the board before I had left Sydney, as I had been doing a bit of Etchells sailing and they wanted to have one of the Etchells guys involved.’ What Garry is saying here is that he’d moved to Tasmania before the end of the 1987 season and been onboard Neville Crichton’s Etchells. A certain Iain Murray took over from there.

Any discussion about the CYCA could not help but mention the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and this article is certainly not able to disprove that point. ‘I wasn’t planning on doing it again, but Hugo rang me and I ended up back on the board, which was about 10 or 11 years ago’, said Garry.

It’s been a pretty tumultuous 10 years for the CYCA in a lot of ways, to which Garry said, ‘Well, it has. I came on shortly after the ‘98 Hobart.

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The club has gone through its issues and I have been there, somewhat part to a whole new regime of top-level risk management that was brought through the club from our wonderfully qualified members. Their support to the club and the documentation, the way that we handle the races now with checking and vetting and the safety issues; we are incredibly advanced compared with pre-1998. I’m sure that people know that we are in a lot better place than we were then.

We have worked on making these boats safe enough to sail and handle some of the risks involved. We treat it very much like a business situation and ensure that the crews’ skill sets are good enough to take the vessels to sea.’

The 2009 Flinders Islet race was like a reminder of the whole thing again and it was something that is particularly close to Garry. ‘I have done a lot of sailing with Andrew Short. I navigated for him on Brindabella around that islet, two years earlier.

I was aware of his strengths and possibly some of his weaknesses; Andrew was a great mate. It was a great for loss for me and the same goes for Sally Gordon, as a club member and friend. Only a few days before the race, I had a half hour chat with her at the club. Not a lot of things going wrong can lead to something as big as this. It is a sad and very moving occurrence. We need to make sure that people understand about charting and how to handle themselves in these races. It is most important to the sport.’

Moving on to something current and new, Garry is very pleased to be standing beside and talking about the model of the proposed developments of the Rushcutters Bay facility, which is so well known throughout the world.

It can be viewed just outside the Member’s Bar at the CYCA Clubhouse. ‘It is fantastic. We have a deferred commencement development approval for the works, which came through earlier in November.

Before we can begin work we require some work to be completed in preparing a remediation action plan for parts of the site, and finalise a lease with NSW Maritime for the additional area required for the extension of the D arm of the marina which when completed will accommodate an additional nine 18m berths.

The second instalment of the development will be the new and much larger hardstand, which allow for significant changes to the scale and operation of the CYCA’s Off The Beach type activities. It also allows for far better access to the C arm of the marina, which currently is only accessible from outside of the club’s existing walkways. This area will be on all new piers, to ensure a lengthy survival. Tenders and other small vessels will have berthing close to the club, as well.

The most significant phase of the development involves the total re-working of the sailing office, marina office, chandlery, shipwrights’ services and youth sailing academy currently situated North of the main entrance. All of the existing buildings are removed, the area dug up for an underground carpark and then on its roof, new buildings for services and tenants are installed.

They will offer virtually twice the area as is currently available. Most importantly, residents on the other side of the street are also beneficiaries of the works, with better views a by-product of the club’s efforts. Overall, if the club gets all the works done in four to five years, then they’ll be delighted.

‘The club is in a satisfactory place financially and we are ready to go ahead with much of the development. It will be quite a number of millions of dollars, so it is good that we are presently debt free. We are in a position to improve the club greatly, with significantly enhanced parking (97 spots), a much improved youth sailing academy with world class multi-purpose rooms, which will allow us able to take on some more training and development.

We won’t be removing any of the services that we currently have at the club. Additionally, we get two accesses to the pond abutting the redeveloped and larger hardstand, so that will improve the flow of vessels significantly’, Garry commented.

Garry is still very heavily involved in yachting administration. In addition to his duties at the CYCA, he is also the Principal Race Officer for the 18 foot skiffs.

However, he is determined to get back into more yachting himself and along with David Fuller, bought the Corby 49 originally known as Flirt and more recently as Limit. Vamp, which is her new name and pays homage to her original title, will be heading South this Christmas time in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. Roger Hickman will be taking a crew, which includes some very accomplished Russian sailors down to Hobart.

They will be in Australia primarily for the Dragon World Championships that are being held at Melbourne’s Royal Brighton Yacht Club from January 2 to 15. Apart from showcasing this most regal of boat classes, it is important to mention this event and club, as this is where Garry first began his career as a PRO, just a little while ago now.

‘The 2011 Hobart will be my turn to head South at Christmas. It will be excellent, as my son is also going to join us. We’ll do the Blue Water Point Score series, some Winter Series stuff including Middle Harbour, the Newcastle Category two race, Audi Sydney Gold Coast and go to Hamilton Island, as well.’

‘From a yachties point of view, I think the 2010 Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race has a fantastic fleet. There are 70+ ocean racing yachts contained in it, many of which could win their division, depending on what weather scenario is thrown up.

If you look at the divisional splits and competition amongst the really well sailed boats, it will make for some tremendous entertainment as a spectator. There is also a good overseas contingent to make it truly international. Of course, there are some celebrities onboard some vessels and with Wild Oats XI keen to make a statement, there will be some great media’, said Garry.

About the only event that Garry and co-owner David Fuller cannot make happen for Vamp, is Audi Victoria Week at Geelong. Garry is a bit sad about that, but with CYCA and 18footer duties around and over the Australia Day weekend, it was not really a possibility. Vamp will remain in Tasmania until after the Dragon World Championships and then her race crew will return Vamp back to the CYCA.

What is really interesting is how clear Garry is about getting to Hobart whilst he is Commodore. He’s done 11 Hobarts under sail and three as the Radio Relay Vessel. Of late, he’s been there pretty regularly as part of the Sailing Committee and back-up media man.

Still, he’s got some great memories of races with Peter Walker on Amazon and Hugh Treharne, when he quickly got the boat turned downhill after the forestay broke and in doing so, saved the rig. They were leading at the time. ‘When I went to work in Tasmania, I did not get asked as much to come on boats, so I am really excited about sailing again’, he said.

Garry’s 58 at the end of November, known as Movember in Australia and he urges all men, especially the over 45s to get their tests done.

He should know, for shortly after becoming Commodore in July this year, he was rushed in to surgery for prostate removal due to cancer. ‘I am cancer free and everything is great. It did sort of make the beginning of my term interesting, however.

I am a classic example, as mine was picked up in a routine test. Some might be saying that this test is inaccurate or whatever, but the point is, that if you have the test and they find something, then they are in a much better place to fix it. Just after getting back from Koh Samui, Thailand and a regatta that I used to do with Andrew Short, I had a prostate biopsy and it came back about as bad as you could get.

Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital having it out’, Garry said by way of urging all men to look after themselves. ‘Dick Pratt did not find it in time. The whole thing is, if you find it, it can be operated on. You won’t find it if you don’t actually have those tests.

’ Interestingly, the annual Heaven Can Wait 24-hour race on Lake Macquarie raised $45,000 for men’s cancer research earlier on this year a $100,000 target for next year. Ambitious maybe, but it is testament to the fact that for the moment it is all about test, test, and test.

This sentiment is something very much promoted by Sail-World.com and why the site carries so much coverage about it every October. Please support it next year or get involved with the virtual race to really make a difference.

So then, as the top man sets about getting imbedded into the top job, it might be helpful to know that he’s all about sailing. ‘We have maintained a sailing committee that is a good representation of the club.

I was Chairman of the Sailing Committee for three years before becoming Commodore and our purpose was to improve the sailing and make the members of the sailing club happier. Members actively campaigning yachts throughout the year is good for the club. We all get a better club as a result’, said Garry.

He’ll be busy over Summer, so having the 18 footers take a break for a few weeks will help him concentrate his energies on the role at CYCA. No doubt he’ll be keen to see them all again, for he was watching them every Sunday, well before he took on the Principal Race Officer’s role.

‘It has worked well for the club, I think, and it has worked well for me. It definitely keeps you in touch with a whole lot of top-level sailors and to some extent, it gives some credence to me; someone who understands a wide part of the sport. I am a racer and a competitor in other series and I obviously love the sport, very much.’