Gaff Riggers Head for Sydney Harbour

by Cruising Editor on 25 Apr 2006 If you’re anywhere near Sydney Harbour this weekend, 60 gaff-rigged sailing vessels and Bermuda rigged yachts will be strutting their stuff in a spectacle not to be missed. It’s National Gaffers Day, held by Sydney Amateur Sailing Club (the Amateurs) every couple of years.

All these charming old vessels will be berthed at Sydney Amateur Sailing Club in Double Bay from 9.00am, and will then take part in races on the Harbour from 11.00am on. There’s even a spectator ferry, which will leave from Old Cremorne.

The most interesting vessel taking part is the 110-year-old 27-foot yawl Killala, totally restored and looking very spunky. The hero of the day is local boat builder Ian Thomas, who found her forlorn and falling apart on a mooring in McCarr’s Creek, and undertook the major restoration necessary to rebuild her to her original state.

She’ll be sailed by America’s Cup winning tactician Hugh Treharne. Joining Hugh will be the famous former skiff sailor Ken Beashel, who was a key member of the shore base team when Australia won the America’s Cup at Newport Rhode Island in 1983, Ian Thomas who has restored Killala, and the owner Les Galbraith’s son Mitchell.

Along with Killala, many other living reminders of the earlier years of yacht,also lovingly restored, will be sailed by their current owners.

For example, the line-up in Gaff Rigged Division I will include Redpa, a 30-footer built in Launceston by Ned Jack in 1911; Howana, which the noted yacht designer Joe Adams sailed around the world; the skiff-like Betty designed in the early 1920s by Bill Golding, a noted 18-footer designer, builder and sailor; and seven Ranger class yachts, including the original Ranger designed by Cliff Gale near 75 years ago.

Gaff Rigged Division II entrants included the restored Jenny Wren, designed by the famous Walter Reeks and built in the 1880s, and Pagan, which was sailed across the Pacific from Canada before World War II.

The Classic Bermudan Rigged fleet includes maxi yacht owner Neville Crichton’s beautiful Plym; the 6-metre class yacht Sjo Ro, built in Tasmania in the 1930s by Percy Coverdale; 1996 Sydney Hobart line honours winner Fidelis; another former ocean racer Lolita, which last Sunday won the CYCA’s Great Veterans Race; and a Tumlaren class sloop Svalan owned by the late Shiela Patrick, a pioneer of women’s sailing and a well-known yachting journalist of the 1950s.

HISTORY OF KILLALA:

Killala is believed to have been built in Sydney during the mid to late 1890s of New Zealand Kauri on grown hardwood frames, but was then shipped to Tasmania in the early 1900s.

After racing on the River Derwent in Hobart for some years, she was sold to a prominent Launceston yachtsman and raced from the Tamar Yacht Club from 1919-1923.

Photos of the little yawl sailing on the River Derwent in 1904 and the River Tamar in 1919 were located some years ago by the late Alec Campbell, the last surviving Gallipoli veteran who died in 2002 and who sailed on Killala on the Tamar in the 1920s.

Killala returned to Hobart on the register of the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania in 1927 and the following year her then owner, Norman Southey and a crew of Don Love and Doug Robertson sailed the 27-footer to Sydney. At that time she was considered the smallest yacht to make the passage, taking eight days, including stopovers.

Her history since returning to Sydney is rather vague, with reports that she was converted into a fishing boat during World War II, later restored with a smaller Bermudan rig and used for cruising on Pittwater, before being left neglected on a mooring in McCarrs Creek.

After various attempts at restoration, local boat-builder Ian Thomas bought Killala and began a major restoration at his shed at Duffy’s Forest, using the photos provided by Alec Campbell to assist in creating the original yawl rig. The beautiful work was completed and Killala launched once more at Church Point on 17 March, 2003.

Don’t forget, racing on National Gaffers Day will get under way in Athol Bight at 1300 hours on Saturday, 29 April, with the yachts and their crews berthed at the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club in Mosman Bay from 0900 hours.

The spectator ferry will leave Old Cremorne Wharf at 1200 hours. Bookings are essential for this. For any further information about National Gaffers Day or about the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club or for reservations for the spectator ferry, phone +61 2 9953 1433. Their website, currently being upgraded, is http://www.sasc.com.au/