The Australian National Maritime Museum’s Hall Collection contains many images of 16-foot skiffs but they were generally not paid as much attention by the media as was given to the 18-footers. I am not as familiar with 16-footer insignia as I am with 18s, but when I noticed the V in an oval which I knew to be Queensland Champion 16-foot skiff VICTOR I realised it had to be from a National Championship. There were quite a few images of skiffs that seemed to be from the one day given the conditions, and one of the boats I could recognise was the R of RIVAL which still exists in the collection of the Sydney Heritage Fleet. RIVAL was launched in 1928 so it had to be after that. There were various other clues, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was complete in one shot and another shows the signal mast of HMAS SYDNEY on Bradleys Head, and it was erected in October 1934. The only Championship held in Sydney that suited was the 1934-35 season, and newspaper reports from the time contained several images which named boats with insignia. I was able to identify about half the fleet. Then a stroke of luck….while sorting boxes of AHSSA stuff for packing up for the painters in our house I came across an 18-footer programme (see below) which also contained the entry list for the 16-foot Championships! So all boats can be identified.
The images are all from the second heat of the Championships which was held over 3 heats in December 1934. The breeze that day Thursday 27 December was a light Sou’Easterly which meant that none of the images are particularly dramatic, but they cover the whole fleet.
The images are all from the second heat of the Championships which was held over 3 heats in December 1934. The breeze that day Thursday 27 December was a light Sou’Easterly which meant that none of the images are particularly dramatic, but they cover the whole fleet.
RIVAL (NSW) with R insignia and MISTRAL (NSW) with red cone.
AJAX VIII (H Crouch, Qld) won that day from BETTY III (H Ware, Old) with ACE (C Boulton, NSW) 3rd.
Heat 1 had been held in a Nor’Easter on Saturday 22 December and ACE had won from ECHO (NSW) and AEOLIAN (WA). The third Heat was on Saturday 29 December, when a storm broke before the start, but then cleared and the race was held in a light Nor’Easter. AEOLIAN (WA) won from MISTRAL (NSW) and ACE.
So overall the Championship was won by ACE (C Boulton, NSW) from AEOLIAN (WA) and AJAX VIII (Old). The title-holder from the previous year in Brisbane was VICTOR III but their performance was disappointing. This may have been because the skipper was S Lucas not Vic Lucas (brother?) Who had been dominant with VICTOR and VICTOR II in previous years.
AJAX VIII (H Crouch, Qld) won that day from BETTY III (H Ware, Old) with ACE (C Boulton, NSW) 3rd.
Heat 1 had been held in a Nor’Easter on Saturday 22 December and ACE had won from ECHO (NSW) and AEOLIAN (WA). The third Heat was on Saturday 29 December, when a storm broke before the start, but then cleared and the race was held in a light Nor’Easter. AEOLIAN (WA) won from MISTRAL (NSW) and ACE.
So overall the Championship was won by ACE (C Boulton, NSW) from AEOLIAN (WA) and AJAX VIII (Old). The title-holder from the previous year in Brisbane was VICTOR III but their performance was disappointing. This may have been because the skipper was S Lucas not Vic Lucas (brother?) Who had been dominant with VICTOR and VICTOR II in previous years.
Skippers of the winner AJAX VIII and 2nd boat BETTY III on the day these images are from. Horrie Crouch from the well-known Brisbane boatbuilding and sailing family, and a very young Chick Ware.
The start of the 2nd heat. CARESS II (QLD, Aus flag) at right, MISTRAL (NSW) with cone, RIVAL (NSW), AJAX VIII (Qld) with vertical bar, VICTOR III (Qld) with V in oval, ARIEL (NSW) with crescent and bar, AEOLIAN (WA) with A partially obscured by FLYING SPRAY (WA) with 3 stripes. The fish insignia (a blue kingfish) is on ECHO (NSW).
Very shortly after the previous shot. SIRENE IV (Qld) with black crescent is revealed as the boat that was obscured by RIVAL in the previous shot.
BURRAWANG (NSW) with star in pennant and RIVAL.
VICTOR III (Qld) the previous year’s titleholder
SIRENE IV (Qld)
FLYING SPRAY, one of two entries from WA
BETTY III shows in these 2 shots that they carried their ballooner to the Sow and Pigs and back again.
The fleet on a square run out of Rose Bay. The only boat not previously identified is the winged wheel on MISTRAL (Qld) and yes there were 2 MISTRALs in the race, one from NSW and one from Qld.
MISTRAL (NSW) on the run
ARIEL (NSW) and FLYING SPRAY (WA) on the way to the Sow and Pigs
ECHO (NSW) just ahead of another boat on the run
Two shots of CARESS II (Qld) on the run
AJAX VIII the winner of the race and 3rd in the series
An advantage of publishing these images first in the Australian Historical Sailing Skiff Association's Newsletter is that often a member will supply additional information. This bit came from member Colin Johnson: “A bit of trivia re AJAX V111. She was the last of Toby Whereat's boats, he passed away on 29th December 1932 while the Aust Championship was being sailed in WA. My mother , Toby's daughter Clarice took the helm as a 16 or 17 year old & raced with the Brisbane 16 ft Skiff club, I have a newspaper article about it all, she was eventually banned from the job as the members said " It is not the right place for a young lady to be sailing with the men" The helm was then given to Horry Crouch , a cousin of Toby's. You saw the half model of what would have been AJAX 1X, Toby was working on it when he died, That skiff would have had a double chine if she was built. The model has a double chine.”It would have been very interesting if Clarice had been allowed to continue steering AJAX VIII. As it happened, women had to wait until 2024 when Sarah Lee won the Australian 16ft Championship.
An advantage of publishing these images first in the Australian Historical Sailing Skiff Association's Newsletter is that often a member will supply additional information. This bit came from member Colin Johnson: “A bit of trivia re AJAX V111. She was the last of Toby Whereat's boats, he passed away on 29th December 1932 while the Aust Championship was being sailed in WA. My mother , Toby's daughter Clarice took the helm as a 16 or 17 year old & raced with the Brisbane 16 ft Skiff club, I have a newspaper article about it all, she was eventually banned from the job as the members said " It is not the right place for a young lady to be sailing with the men" The helm was then given to Horry Crouch , a cousin of Toby's. You saw the half model of what would have been AJAX 1X, Toby was working on it when he died, That skiff would have had a double chine if she was built. The model has a double chine.”It would have been very interesting if Clarice had been allowed to continue steering AJAX VIII. As it happened, women had to wait until 2024 when Sarah Lee won the Australian 16ft Championship.
Unfamiliar with the Harbour, Qld’s BETTY I hit the Sow and Pigs reef and capsized
Above:CARESS II and AJAX VIII and below: BETTY III approach the new Harbour Bridge on a run.
Below is the programme for the 1934 Australian 16ft Championship that enabled me to identify all of the boats in the fleet. This was published in the Open Boat, the SFS’s weekly programme for 18-footers.
Notice that a 17th boat INVICTA was entered, steered by Bert Swinbourne who later steered 18’s including TAREE in the 1938 Ist World’s 18-footer Championship in Sydney (which he won) and in 1939 in Auckland which he won but lost on protest. Bert had steered INVICTA in the 1931-32 Championships in Sydney and won one heat, but I can find no reports or images of the boat racing in the 1934 Championship. There must be a story there somewhere.