Us 18-footer sailors are a pretty diverse lot, but one skipper from the 1930s and ‘40s stands out for making a major contribution to medical science. He is Vivian Ebsary (Richard Vivian Ebsary AM,1905-1992). Viv designed the first portable anaesthetic machine to be used in Australia, as well as the first hypothermia machine, and the first cardiovascular by-pass (heart-lung machine) as well as many other medical inventions.
Born in Perth in 1905, he left school at 13 and became a self-taught fitter and turner and designed and built a number of pumps and set up a business to manufacture them. From an early age he was interested in sailing and designed a 22-footsailing yacht in which he won many races including 4 State Championships in Perth in the early 1920s. In 1927 he moved to Sydney and set up a factory making industrial pumps in the city and later in Darlinghurst and became quite successful. He shipped his 22-foot yacht Miranda from Perth and began to sail it with the Royal Prince Edward Yacht Club and the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club and won so many races that he upset the Club committees and was banned from racing! In the 1934-35 season he became the skipper of the SFS 18-footer Kiwi, and may have owned it from this point. Kiwi was built by Jack Whereat in Brisbane for Monckton and Murray who already owned Defiance, and who sometimes struggled to find enough crew to keep both boats on the water. Kiwi was not a particularly successful boat in its first few seasons, mostly steered by Ossie Hahn, but J Hordern got it going by its third season, even getting the boat in to equal scratch for a short period, but soon went out to mid-field again.
Kiwi crosses Pastime in a race between 1929 and 1932, just before Viv Ebsary took over. ANMM Hall Collection
Viv Ebsary skippered the boat from the 1934-35 season and won several races including the final race of the season, and repeated this mid-field success in the 1935-36 season. In his third season with the boat Viv introduced a couple of novelties including a fully-battened jib, a short-boomed main and a thick streamlined rudder, but these things did not improve race results. In September 1937 Kiwi was sold to N Maloney and renamed McNishky. Unsuccessful that season it was sold to C Seymour and S O’Donnell and resumed the name Kiwi and was skippered for a few seasons by Frank Deady a graduate of the Balmain 10-footers, before being sold again and renamed Top Dog, but this name was moved over to the former Taree in November 1940 and Kiwi disappears from the record.
Kiwi in the early 1930’s. ANMM Hall Collection.
Viv Ebsary commissioned Bill Fisher to build an 18-footer to Viv’s design which he named Mirandaafter his radical yacht, and incorporated some of the same features such as a very flared bow, and launched it for the 1937-38 season. The boat was a heel-less skiff-type 7-foot beamer, of the type that had caused the split in 18-footer sailing just a few years before, and the Sydney Flying Squadron had only just changed the rules to allow boats of that type to race. Viv Ebsary had been the main driving force behind that decision. Miranda though did not live up to Viv’s hopes, and though he won a few handicap races the boat was no better than mid-field, never doing better than 6th place in a scratch start race. Viv sailed Miranda until the 1942-43 season. Unfortunately I haven’t found a decent photo of Miranda. Viv then became a mentor to junior sailors, helping set up the Balmain Police Boys Club Sailing group, and training them to sail the 18-footer JLGlick which was owned by the Police Boys Clubs Association. Always a public-spirited and generous man, Viv invented a hypothermia machine and a heart-lung machine and volunteered at the Princess Alexandra Children’s Hospital every Thursday to tend the latter machine for some years. During the Polio epidemic in 1961 and 1962 he developed a respiratory Intensive Care Unit at Prince Henry Hospital, and later built the hyperbaric unit at that Hospital also. Many other medical inventions followed, including various apparatus for correcting spinal deformities, and several chair lifts and other access appliances. The Children’s Hospital named their cardiac award after Viv in 1984, and he was awarded membership of the Order of Australia in 1989. He died in 1992. Ebsray pumps (his name simplified) are still produced to this day. Viv Ebsary was a great man whose achievements should be celebrated beyond the medical field.
Kiwi can just be seen in the middle of the leading pack in this Championship start which is probably the State Championship on 14 January 1933, won by Sid Barnett in Argo, with shield insignia partially obscured at far right. Hall Collection ANMM. Kiwi was unplaced.