Some of the Girls of Early Model Yachting.

ARYA ARCHIVES - OUR PAST

ARYA HISTORIAN Steve CREWES

shcrewes@bigpond.net.au  

 One of the amazing things about this Model Yachting & R/C sailing is the fact that women participated in an otherwise men’s sport. This has been happening since the modern version started in 1964 in Adelaide.

 It must be said that they do bring to the sport / hobby a certain something, apart from the ‘blokey thing’. Mavis Smith of Adelaide was an English champion skipper before she came to Australia in the 6 metre Class, she won the Bournville Club’s 6 metre Harry Hacket Cup with ‘Oberon’ in 1962 and the 36 Restricted Class, the Birmingham Club’s Lawrence Bowl with ‘Jean 111’ in 1962.

 The fabulous thing about the 6 metre win was the fact that Mavis sailed the entire championship by herself. This is a great feat by anyone’s standard, for these races were always sailed with a mate to help on the opposite bank. She handled this incredible feat by being very expert in using a gye on the vane gear to tack the boat in or near the middle of the pond, so it would return (tack back) to her side of the pond. It’s a real gutsy way to sail, particularly in a championship. Mavis borrowed the boat for this championship from Ron Harris of the Bournville Club.

Mavis was the OOD (officer of the day) for the first Australian Marblehead National Championship held in this country and also owned the first Marblehead registered in Australia in 1964/5 called ‘Thea’, KA1.

 Another lady, Gillian Smith (no relation to Mavis), came to live in Adelaide also about this time from the Fleetwood Club in England.  Gillian liked to race a boat in Fleetwood, called ‘Embassy’ K420. It was raced in the British National A Class Championships in Aug.1955.  Gillian and her brother (P L Windsor) bought ‘Embassy’ from the late Allan Dawson at Fleetwood. Gillian came a creditable 30^th out of 40 boats.  Gillian feature in a story about A Class racing in Germany in 1962 with the legendary Kia Ipsen (photo 5). Gillian won the first Australian (vane) A Class National Championship on the Patamolonga River in South Australia in 1971. She skippered Ross Gamlin’s Highlander, ‘Phoenix’ KA2.

 There were other things the Girls did in furthering our sport. Take Myrtle Thompson for instance, from the Albert Park Club. I first met Myrtle in 1970 at the Interstate Teams event for vane Marbleheads held in Albert Park Lake each year. This race consisted of teams of three boats from any club in Australia who cared to race Marbleheads. Myrtle ran the Tea Room in the Women’s Rowing Hut just near where the Model Yachts started. This was great, us blokes from the interstate clubs including ACT, NSW, Bayside in SA and MSPBC in SA could get a cuppa almost any time, during the races, helping at times was Rhonda Brewer, Eleanor Dailey and Bonny Griggs, to name some. Myrtle went on in the years to come as a sort of ‘unofficial photographer’ for the Association at big events, like National Championships. If Myrtle hadn’t taken the photos that she did, then there would not have been any photo record of those events, today. Shown is an example of her incredible work. Photo courtesy Airbourne Magazine (AUST) March 85.

 Other ladies will be featured in a future article, for their time and effort that they have put into the sport of R/C Sailing.

I just want to again ask you all to think about our early History. The above story just goes to show what happens when we start to research these old happenings with the surprising things we find out about the early history of our Associations.

 I didn’t mention the little story of one brave soul who happened to be in a distant city for his Honeymoon and on making his acquaintance to the local model yacht group there, sailing their boats and going to a model yacht meeting after the races, while his new wife was waiting in the motel room. We won’t mention any names here, ‘what happens on tour, stays on tour’. But a certain lady has been giving him hell for close on 40 years, over that. The things the girls do for the blokes.

Stephen Crewes. National Historian  2006.