His dedication to building or modifying his yachts to the simple junk rig and proving their seaworthiness has been inspirational to a yachting community of minimalists who find it most important to be at sea or with a community of like-minded sailors.His independent philosophy of design and construction has allowed him to sail the world’s oceans without the burden of sophisticated and expensive systems.

That said, observing the race from 10,000 nautical miles away does give a degree of objectivity, that is sometimes lost in the hurly burly of holiday time Australian sports coverage. So I’ll take the plunge and give you (in no particular order) half a dozen of my personal take aways from the 2025 Sydney Hobart Yacht Race…  and yes, of course its all seen through the distorted lens of traditional sailing values!

She ultimately came into the ownership of Don and Tim Armitage. Geoff, a Salthouse-trained boatbuilder, and a team took on the project. It was just in time as Arcturus was in a very bad state. Working from Alden’s original plans, a 15,000-hour restoration commenced. The hull was stripped, the ballast keel removed and flipped! Carvel planked yellow pine with iron fastenings had no future so major structure planking was replaced with kauri and laminated floors. 

Starting the new year with a few sailing related stories from around the web and the world.

They trudged home at dusk through the tea-tree scrub with their pikau (a sack-backpack) heavy with gum. On the flats, gum was found two to six feet down; in the swamps, as deep as twelve. Experienced diggers sometimes struck rich veins — but more often, the earth yielded little.

“We had a great three days of Classic Yacht racing on Sydney Harbour. We seem to have established a tradition of sailors in beautiful boats enjoying the company of others enjoying the same thing. I’m already looking forward to the next one.”

SWS was present at that first Festival based in Jellicoe Harbour and there is no way we are going to miss out on edition two!
We invite you to join us to experience the celebration of Pacific Maritime Culture and extraordinary food and wine, all set in one of the world’s great harbour cities. Airbnb still has over 1000 properties available for the dates and return air flights from Sydney or Melbourne are still under $600. So what’s stopping you?

So far this year, 116,000 individual people have visited the SWS website and they have read 187,000 pages. I point this out not to be self congratulatory, but indicate the strength and size of the community that sees the value in promoting traditional maritime culture.

But the distaste for rhyme goes back further than that. Early modernist poets like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein reacted strongly against Victorian and Edwardian verse, where rhyme was often predictable and ornamental, and they argued that it encouraged poets to choose words for sound rather than for accuracy or emotional truth. Free verse came to stand for honesty, immediacy, and a closer fit between thought and language

This week’s sailing stories from around the web and the world.

The racing was tight and thrilling, even if the give way rules were unclear. Doing about nine knots we wove in and out of the local craft going about their daily business, and by the bottom mark we were coming third. When, on the first beat, the boat sailing just to windward of us shattered its boom sending splinters onto our deck, we moved into second.

This week’s sailing stories from around the web and the world.

I don’t want it to appear that I am in the habit of taking big risks. I never planned to go out in big seas or high winds, but often the wind and sea becomes more than you would desire. At such times your experience, and the capability of the boat must be beyond doubt. But also at such times, fear will be a component, and a good component, for if it is used properly a bit of fear will give anybody the ability to overcome any reasonable challenge.

CORSAIR´s design was developed around 1955 as a 35ft boat very much with the US market in mind. The design became the big success commercially for the company and was soon extended to 36′ soon, allegedly to make her eligible to the Bermuda Race. She was designed as a cruiser but quickly proved to be a good racer which gave her the name “THE RACING MACHINE”. 

Vigo only made four films. This story, which follows a young couple's life aboard a canal barge, is about love, separation, and reconciliation and the way it’s presented demands that you are in the right frame of mind before settling down to watch it. It’s the antithesis of today’s Tiktok driven world.; slow paced, languid and thoughtful.

Some sailing related stories that piqued our interest from around the web and the world this week.

With the jib sheet in one hand, and spinnaker sheet in the other from the port side, I braced my feet on the starboard gunwale and stood out trapeze style using the sheet as my wire. This alone didn’t provide sufficient leverage to right the boat, so with each passing wave lifting the port side slightly, I bounced my weight to accentuate the effect. It was apparent this was wasn’t sufficient, so I conserved my energy until I saw the wind too added force when the gunwale lifted. The combination of my levered weight bouncing when a large wave arrived, and the sudden strong wind gust, worked, and I walked up the hull as she lifted, and flopped right way up.

This fleet has proudly called Docklands home for over 15 years, and now they face a critical moment. The Victorian government plans to hand over the current site to developers on January 1, 2026, leaving the fleet without a suitable home.   This places the vessels, the heritage equipment, the volunteers, the community at risk.This has motivated stakeholders to organise a day of action and protest this Sunday the 7th December.

So the solution to managing the perils of social media is to be strict with the inputs. Regular culling of the feed is cathartic. It’s like putting out the bins on a Thursday evening… a bit of a hassle, but it feels good when its done.

The wind began to howl down from the hills, pummelling the sea into frenzied ripples. “George” had his first taste of front line action holding the tiller down while I lunged forward to disarm the rioting mainsail. The jib strained, I pulled her away and we were away. “Sundance” planed, quickly draining out through the bailer whatever water she’d shipped.