We fueled up and re provisioned and spent a day or two exploring parts of the harbour unfamiliar to me as they were west of the Harbour Bridge, a part of the harbour we had rarely ventured to when I was a kid. Passing Greenwich on the way revived a memory from my days of sailing the Manly Junior.
As kids we had once sailed in a regatta at Greenwich which has gone down in family history as the one time dad thought he was going to have to explain to mum how he had been present but unable to assist (as he wasn't in the rescue boat that day, as it wasn't our club), and he wasn't sure we were going to make it ashore in tact. A southerly buster came through flattening the fleet - all participants aged somewhere between 13 and 6 years old.
I recall we capsized , righted her, baled like crazy ,got the venturi sucking away and of course continued racing to the bottom turning mark, sailing through our competitors who were all in the same predicament of being capsized. Both of us (weighing I guess perhaps a combined 50kg ringing wet -which we were ) hiking as far aft as we could and we were planing- the ultimate speed buzz, until we tried working back to windward again.
Capsized again , and now the chop/sea state was up. We were buggered after re-righting and immediately capsizing several times consecutively.
Out of the pelting rain appeared the bluff grey shape of what I now know was a naval landing vessel. Someone up there yelled out did we need assistance .Yes was my screamed answer .'NO' was my brothers answer -'go away we are ok'.
This was an early lesson in the line of command. My brother was the skipper, I the crew. His word won. Now of course I understand totally,well intentioned as the navy's offer was we would probably have been crushed by them in the attempted rescue.
Eventually the club rescue boat got to us and took us in tow- but the story hasn't ended yet.
We had no way of lowering the mainsail as it was lashed to the top of the mast and not on a halyard. As we were taken in tow , we kept flipping each time we got upright. They couldn't tow us upside down, so it was an endless cycle of righting and flipping and we were just sort of being towed along.
Throughout this I was hanging on to the mainsheet to ensure that I stayed with the boat,something that had been instilled in us from the beginning of our sailing days,never ever leave the boat if you found yourself capsized or in trouble.
Well we were both, as far as I was concerned .
Hanging on grimly to the mainsheet and now trailing along behind the boat having been flipped out time and again, the mainsheet and my wrist became entwined, so I think I probably was doing an impression of a seal rolling along and coming up for air on each roll. Geoff was frantically trying to get the attention of those in the rescue boat so that they would stop and I could be disentangled. At which point my interest in sailing,being crew or any further aquatic adventures was stretched to breaking and I was finally hoisted into the rescue boat, leaving the skipper to fend for himself and the boat.
Suffice to say , we survived ,but have never entirely forgotten.
Seared into my memory bank as clearly as it was 53 years ago, is just how green then black the sky to the east of the Harbour Bridge looked as the front came at us. Watch and be wary is a very apt family saying that has stuck with me ever since .
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| I was recuperating from appendicitis when this was taken -but they were flying |
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