Our Past

by ARYA HISTORIAN Steve CREWES

 

  • FEATURE STORY

Australia has a rich history in model yachting and ARYA has acknowledged this by the creation, a number of years ago,  of the position of Archivist/Historian.   The current Historian, Steve Crewes,  has done much work in seeking out our model heritage and has contributed a number of articles for ARYA’s magazine, Radio Waves.   Steve is always on the look out for things historic and can be found  via the contacts page.   The first of our feature stories however is one from my pen which takes us back to times before Federation and the story of  Hobart’s unique 50 inchers.  These little craft were often raced from their home at Hobart’s Battery Point  to round the Iron Pot Light at the entrance to the Derwent Estuary and return, a distance of some 15 nautical miles. The story originally appeared in Radio Waves in August 2000.

 

  • MODEL YACHTING IN TASMANIA - THE EARLY YEARS

An island State, Tasmania has a long maritime history  and in the early days of the colony, sailing ships provided the link between the townships scattered around the coast line.  It was a natural progression to competitive sailing which early records show started around the 1820’s, and from there to the racing of models in the off  season months.

 

The history of organised model racing started with the formation in 1898 of a model yacht club by members of the Derwent Sailing Club who sailed  their models during the winter months.    This club known as the Derwent Model Yacht Club had as its flag officers many of the well known yachtsmen of the day. The clubhouse was a hulk moored alongside a jetty at Battery Point.

 

The rules provided for a maximum length of 50 inches on deck and the craft were gaff rigged  and carried topsails and spinnakers .  These rules also provided that “No bad language to be used by any member while the Club’s flag is flying”. The craft were tended  from a chase dinghy, typically 8-10 feet in length,  and only members were allowed to row the dinghy and sail the model.  The member  rowing was the only person allowed to trim the sails and control the craft.

 

Many of Tasmania’s champion yachtsmen gained their start in these little craft  including  W.P.“Skipper” Batt later to gain prominence as the designer and helmsman of the famous  21 foot Restricted Class “Tassies”.   As a child he and his brother Harry haunted the Battery Point waterfront  sailing their models and   William began to design and build the type of model yacht used by yachtsmen during the winter months.  His “King Billy” (see photo) was the champion yacht of  the club for the years 1899, 1900 and 1901.  This style of model continued through to the 1920’s  when  craft became bermudan rigged.

 

In his book “Maritime Reflections” another  famous Tasmanian designer, boat builder and yachtsman, the late E.J. “Jock” Muir,  describes his introduction to both yacht designing and sailing “through these famous little craft”.   The boats of his day  had a beam of 20 inches, a mast of up to nine feet  in height and carried 50 pounds of lead on the keel. He said “we used to be constantly changing a little bit here and a little bit there and achieving near perfection in the end.  The big thing was they had to be able to sail themselves.  We had none of the electronic aids of today’s model racers”.

 

The Second World War saw the demise of  competition for these craft  although a few still exist, at least one in the hands of the  original owner.

                                    

Ken Dobbie

 

Acknowledgements:

George Fish for his contacts with the Batt family for early history and photographs.

June Batt for  photographs and for providing excerpts from her manuscript “Life on the Derwent Waterfront”

    A History of the Batt family in the sport of yachting.

“Maritime Reflections” by E.J. Muir (Published 1991)

 

 

Photo from the Batt Family Collection

“King Billy”owned by William Percival (Skipper) Batt.. “King Billy” was the Champion of the Derwent Model Yacht Club for the years 1899, 1900 and 1901. Included among her trophies was the dinghy  “Narra” used as a model chaser for many years by the Batt brothers, Percy and Harry.         

Model Yachting in the Early Years in Tasmania.

An Update.

 

Like all history, a constant search goes on to find all we can about our past in model yachting. The story done by Ken Dobbie on the “Early years in Tasmania” is no exception. Since he first did it, the class of boat, which is shown in the photo has grown enormously in known survivors of that period. One might have thought that the models was so old that they would have rotted away years ago, not so.

 

 At the recent Wooden Boat Show in Constitution dock in Hobart, this class came out in its full glory again. Admittedly it was in the guize  of three different eras within the one Derwent 50” class. For the boats of this era, that are in reasonable condition, number around 20.

 

 A register of this class has now been established in Hobart and the information this Register carries is the era of each boat, who owns it, the builder and where it was sailed originally.

 

One of the fascinating things with this class is that most of them are in excellent condition, with perhaps the sails or rigging needing replacing.

 

 I originally saw some of these boats in the Hobart Maritime Museum during my first trip in that part of Australia in 2003. Well, since then the people interested in them, including one, Stuart Harris, has become the Quasi class leader of it all. Stuart has recently completed a really top class model of the old ‘Tassie 11’ out of Huon Pine, under the tutorledge of the famous Carver at the Royal Yacht Club of Tasmania, Jack Hansen. This Tassie 11 was also shown along with these old models at the recent Wooden Boat Show (Feb 05).

 

 On the subject of the model in the original photo with the rowing boat. This was shown with the model, it appears much older that the winning boat, I viewed it in the flesh, restored, which leads to my thinking it may not have been a prize after all, that that fact may have come down to us in folk law from legends of “Skipper” Batt.

 

I might add that Stuart Harris’s grand father sailed with the legendary ‘Skipper’ Batt as crew on the original “Tassie 11”.

 

 I have collected some photos of these old models on my many trips down there recently and I want to thank Ken Dobbie in helping with research and his vast local knowledge and indeed sailing knowledge in general, was very helpful in this quest.

 

Stephen Crewes. National Historian ARYA 2005.

 The legendary Skipper Batts Derwent 50 model

A pair of Derwent 50s

Stuart Harris with his Tassie

 

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