His Final Sail

by Peter Campbell on 5 Aug 2005 MHYC Member since 1947, and CYCA Life Member, Gordon Reynolds, who led an Australian team to its first victory in the Admiral’s Cup in England in 1967, has died in Sydney at the age of 84 after an extended illness.

Gordon was one of the great breed of ocean racing yachtsmen of the late 1940's through to the 1970's who sailed Australia into the international sporting scene with great success.

When Gordon joined MHYC in 1947, membership of MHYC was approximately 35, and he became actively involved in building the first MHYC clubhouse in the 1950's. He joined the CYCA in 1964 and was elected a Life Member in 1967 for his services to the sport of ocean racing, notably his contribution to Australian Admiral’s Cup campaigns as a competitor and then as team manager.

Gordon began his sailing shortly after discharge from the Navy in the late 1940's on his brother-in-law Norman Way’s Eudoria. Between the 1950's and 1960's he sailed in about a dozen Sydney Hobart Races, including aboard the little Carmen class boat Cavalier and British yacht Fanfare.

When Gordon Ingate bought Caprice of Huon he asked Gordon Reynolds to join him as first mate and in 1965 Caprice of Huon was chosen, along with Trygve and Magnus Halvorsen’s Freya and Ron Swanson’s Camille of Seaforth, in a CYCA-driven, inaugural Australian challenge for the Admiral’s Cup in England. The Aussies caused a major shock to the “establishment” of British yachting at Cowes by finishing second overall, with Caprice of Huon winning three of the Cup races.

In 1967, Australia mounted a second challenge and with Gordon Ingate involved in America’s Cup trials, Gordon Reynolds chartered Caprice of Huon. At considerable personal expense, he completely refitted the boat and selected an excellent crew to race with him. Bob Crichton-Brown’s Balandra and the newly launched Mercedes III, designed and skippered by Ted Kaufman, joined Caprice in the Australian team.

The Australians sailed brilliantly in an aggressive series, winning the Admiral’s Cup by a record points margin from the British team. Yachting journalist Lou d’Alpuget records in his book “Yachting in Australia” how Caprice of Huon, in a race on The Solent, was forced about from right-of-way starboard tack to port tack to avoid a collision with a non-Cup yacht, Bloodhound. At the helm was the Duke of Edinburgh. The incident cost the Australian boat many places as it forced her into the notorious Solent tideline, but Reynolds did not lodge a protest, partly under the mistaken belief that it was unwritten law at Cowes that one gave royalty right of way.

At a party aboard the Royal yacht Britannia that night, wrote d’Alpuget, Gordon Reynolds began to apologise to the Duke for the indignant antipodean yells that had come from Caprice of Huon during the incident on the water.. Instead he got an apology himself. “I was completely in the wrong to think that Bloodhound would turn quickly enough” said the Duke. “I’ve been on her helm only once in the last year and I’m very rusty. I hope I didn’t hamper you too much?”

Gordon was appointed team manager for Australia’s in 1969, 1971, 1973 and 1977 Cup challenges, a task he performed with great determination and dedication. He was rewarded with the teams finishing 2nd in 1969, 3rd in 1971 and 2nd in 1973, but the Aussies could do not better than 7th in 1977.

Gordon was more than a manager, he was an on-the-water coach in all weathers and on several occasions invited me, as the team press officer, to join him in his little dinghy. On one occasion we were running practice races for the team, it was teeming rain and the borrowed dinghy began to fill up with water. No bailer! So we had use our caps and a mug to stem the rise of rainwater in the boat.

Sadly, ill health from 1979 onwards limited his active participation in yachting, but he maintained a keen interest in the sport and his two clubs, MHYC and the CYCA.

Gordon, who lived at Forestville, is survived by his wife Sylvia, daughter Lynnette and sons Tony and Rob, both are active Middle Harbour Yacht Club members, with Rob serving as Commodore of MHYC from 1999 to 2002, and as a Director until 2004. Rob and Tony’s sons are maintaining the Reynolds dynasty at Middle Harbour.

Australia has much to thank for those fine amateur yachtsmen who in the first few decades after World War II established the sport of ocean racing in this country and then led us to international success.

Gordon's Funeral will be held on Tuesday 9 August 2005 at 10:30am in the East Chapel at Northern Suburbs Crematorium.

The Reynolds Family welcome his friends to attend the Funeral and join them afterwards at Middle Harbour Yacht Club for a Traditional Yachtsman's Wake.