By the last stanza, however, the language has drawn closer to its object, as the same headlong rhythm draws ancient and modern into a poetic continuum.

But the price of his adventures had ultimately to be paid by others, in the succession of families he created, then broke apart; and many of his actions brought him into conflict with the feelings of friends and contemporaries. We may legitimately ask ‘was it really all worth it?’

It was Martyr who suggested the present-day course to the Fastnet, of a similar distance to the Bermuda Race – 615 miles. This established a trend in offshore races of that length, spawning the Sydney-Hobart (1945), China Sea Race (1962) Middle Sea Race (1968) and more recently the RORC Caribbean 600 (2009).

The top end of the course near Port Melbourne means tricky twisting shifts off the beach and apartment infill but flat water. The southern end exposed beyond Altona produced difficult rolling slop for the downhill legs. Thrown in on both days on the western side of the course was a huge tidal outflow from the Yarra and Maribyrnong Rivers with recent rain and floods.

The adventure started by putting her on a truck to come back to my region, in Brittany. The mast was put on a different truck. It took a while to organiSe the expedition and I decided to create my own shipyard to start the renovation.

Turns out you can teach an old Regatta new tricks. For the very first time, The Balmain Regatta includes a Work Boat Convoy.

For those of us lucky enough to be attending next years festival, the live symposium provides a level of scholarship and intellect rarely applied to the world of wooden boats. The program is now out!

Abandoned at sea by commercial fishing boats, these ghost nets once drifted aimlessly along the ocean floor, silently trapping and killing marine life

A tricky day on Port Phillip, with torrents of brown water gushing out of the Yarra and wind from 14-28 knots with rain squalls. Big congratulations to the boats that completed the two races.

Nurminen was regarded as a wizard for his ability to work his chartered Tumlare class yacht YVONNE to windward. He was rarely beaten by the top skippers pitted against him. In YVONNE, he won over 300 races, including 17 State titles, the last 11 in succession.

After two years of planning thirteen Couta Boats travelled from Melbourne along with two crews from Perth for the 2022 Sydney Harbour Gaffers Regatta.

During last week’s phone call he very excitedly told us about two of his most recent reads. He’s awarded “Greatest Book Ever” to Small Is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher and “Most Favourite Book” to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden or Life in the Woods.

Here at SWS we are big believers in safety. But we wonder how sailors are meant to learn to handle bad weather if they are never given the opportunity to experience it while racing. Whatever your feelings about the pros and cons of abandoning an ocean race, the admiration for the first crews in this historic race can only be enhanced by such a decision.

ADVENTURE REELS TV - it’s all in the name - a platform that collects stories about Adventures, Water, Boats and Dogs - the perfect combination in our book.

The boats themselves are the sculptures…. but sometimes too much “trickery” shouts “look at me, the clever photographer” rather than look at this image and understand a little of what it is like to witness this awe-inspiring sight.

SWS readers can hear a conversation from earlier this week with Tom Robinson, live from the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Each Day we lived in hope that we would discover a Contessa, that was within our budget, but such was their reputation, that they rarely came on the market, and when they did the instant demand spiralled the price right out of our reach.

Sal and Mark - Editors of SWS - walk you through what’s to be undertaken in the 8 weeks prior to departure.

The child of Cambodian refugees Rita found her way to boats via a ‘curiosity of floating’. This led her to questioning, how do boats work? Having just completed a three month introduction to boatbuilding, this young shipwright is looking for an apprenticeship. Can you help her?

Given the development of user friendly measurement handicap systems over the last few years I think the time has come for one of the Australian or New Zealand Classic Yacht fleets to trial a system based on actual data rather than performance.