Double Bay Sailing Club March 1963 e ‘Wiggle’ pic courtesy of Rob Lowndes
VJ DBSC ‘Wiggle’ Mar 1963 c pic courtesy of Rob Lowndes
VJ DBSC ‘Wiggle’ Mar 1963 d pic courtesy of Rob Lowndes
Origins of my sailing and of Double Bay Sailing Club by Tim Lamble:
Males were not my mother’s strong point and, in many ways, she was out of her depth in dealing with her boy-child. So, strong-willed in some ways though not rebellious, perhaps I sought unconsciously for a father, and that’s where the waterfront of Double Bay slotted into my life.
Down there I found my real family. But what do I mean by ‘the waterfront’, and how did I get to be involved there?
John Sweetapple was my first ‘best friend’. We met at pre-school. Neither of us had a father, so that’s possibly where our connection started. In 1950, when I was about eight, I started to go to John’s house, about ten minute’s walk away at 4 Wiston Gardens, Double Bay. There I discovered The Ashley Book of Knots, a deeply mystical influence that became a biblical guide for my life. It spoke parables of boatswains, belaying pins, beeswax and the life of tall ships. Out of it arose my interest in knots and ropework, and maybe it even breathed the salt air into my lungs.
Arthur Ransome’s boating adventure books for kids also added to my understanding. Boats and boating suffused into me, without my knowing it. Boats became an extension of me; in just the same way as a violinist can play a note correctly without looking.
John’s father had owned a yacht, Antares.
Their sailing dinghy, Pippin, remained in the garage under their house, together with a workshop and remnants of yacht ownership. We seldom used Pippin because she was too heavy for us to carry. However a neighbour of John’s built him a simple, two-metre long, cat-rigged boat, out of four pieces of timber, a sheet of plywood and two wheels. The shape is hard to describe, but its name, Tub, gives away something of the character of the ‘yacht’ in which we voyaged around the world of Double Bay.
These times were long before Double Bay became the fashionable suburb it later became. What is important is not the locality – but rather the almost total freedom I had to go to John’s house as a little boy – freedom that became virtually unlimited as I roamed further along the waterfront in the next few years.
Waterfront fathers:
The Double Bay waterfront had three sheds housing small sailing boats—twelve and eighteen foot skiffs, a couple of VSs, and a handful of VJs. There were three boatshed businesses that hired out moorings: Ireland’s (beside the public wharf), Robertson and Lees’ (Beach Road), and Ernie Messenger’s (Castra Place). Marinas had not been invented.
There were also sandy beaches from which the smaller boats were launched. It was the owners and crews of these boats that I befriended.
I didn’t identify the people as family: that is an awareness that came much later. I simply called them all by their first names: Sam, Cliff, and Alan Monkhouse; Jules Epstein, Ed Bishop, Jack Olsen, Skinny Bolton, Desmond Lewis, Sandy Pearce, Jack Martin, Bill and Laurel Hilton, Bobby Burton, Alf Beashel, Syd Peterson, Charlie Lees, Boy Messenger; the list could go on.
Sam Monkhouse, Cliff’s and Alan’s father, had retired from work and was the oldest of the lot – maybe sixty plus. The others respected him – almost a tribal elder – a sun-dried string bean, and a smoker of cigarettes he rolled himself. We spent hours together mending nets, splicing ropes, and sometimes just being. Silence between us was easy and companionable.
All the men looked after me, fed me, took me to regattas, took me fishing and sailing, let me drive their boats, gave me advice on life, taught me practical skills, coached me in navigation, and unconsciously demonstrated to me models of living.
I wonder what they thought of me: just some kid who was always there, always willing to help, very dependable and responsible, even if so young. I must have become part of their lives also, because they came to rely on me. Nobody asked how I got to be there – there was never any parent to be seen – and although I was there all day, I had no lunch, nor money to buy it.
Sometimes someone gave me a sandwich or a piece of fruit, at other times I had nothing.
Today I could claim a number of the men as a father because they were caring, trusting, nurturing, and unpretentiously real. All of them treated me as an equal, or at least I never perceived being treated as anything else. They gave me a focus on boats that might almost be called an obsession: something that set me up to sail a yacht around the world leaving from Double Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) in 2003.
Waterfront routines:
By the time I was eleven (1953), my weekend boating routine was well established. On Saturday mornings I hung around Charlie Lees’ boatshed doing odd jobs, and in the afternoon there was a Vee Ess race of the Eastern Suburbs Sailing Club. The Double Bay Twelve-footer Flying Squadron raced on Sunday mornings, and then the same men raced in the afternoon in the eighteens.
Sam Monkhouse was the starter for the Sunday morning races, whilst his grown-up sons sailed. One morning Sam left me to record the finishing times. I rather botched the numbers, but before long I took over completely from Sam, thus setting a pattern for the next fifteen years of my life as a sailing race administrator.
Of course there were other times like after school, all of school holidays, and the whole of winter when it was too cold for open-boat sailing. In these times I did jobs for boat owners, worked increasingly for Charlie, and mended nets with Sam. When nothing was on, we just sat around and yarned, or rather they talked and I mostly listened: absorbing.
Origins of Double Bay Sailing Club:
In Double Bay, about 1954, the Pioneer Boat Club was formed at Robertson and Lees, and I joined as the only child member, aged 12. The president was Frank Madden, and the purpose of the club was to further the lot of boaters (mostly motor boaters). Other than meetings held on Frank’s launch, I don’t recall that much else happened other than a scheme to obtain discounted paint.
The Pioneer Boat Club’s burgee was a dark blue and red pennant, and that is the source of DBSC’s burgee.
One meeting, I was asked if I could get some of the boys with VJs in Charlie Lees’ shed to join. I suggested that they were unlikely to join unless they received something – perhaps races supervised by the adult members using their launches. The idea became a reality, and that was the very beginnings of what eventually became the Double Bay Sailing Club (DBSC).
I sailed on a couple of the VJs, one of which was Geronimo owned by Keith Piggin. Keith’s father, Ross Piggin, became the first president of DBSC.
When Robertson and Lees’ lease expired, in 1955 or 1956, I transferred to Ernie Messengers’ business, and established a strong bond with Boy Messenger (Ernie’s adult son). My connection with the VJ group thinned then, though I attended some meetings held by Reg Slight in the storeroom of the public toilet in Double Bay Park; and some in Ross Piggin’s house. I had minimal contact with the parents who sought to create a proper clubhouse for the VJ sailors.
At fifteen, in 1958, I changed school and met John Messenger and Philip Nielsen (Dart). Cliff and Alan Monkhouse, whom I had sailed with in the eighteens, were building the DBSC clubhouse at 79 Bay Street, Double Bay.
On Charlie Messenger’s request (through John), I tape recorded the opening ceremony of the clubhouse. As president, Charlie opened the clubhouse.
In 1959 I finished school, and in that glorious time after the leaving certificate, I spent long days with David Hogan making minor improvements to the clubhouse, and constructing mast and centreboard racks.
I became the third secretary in about 1960 or 1961.
By 1962, the club was well established and we hosted the national championships.
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Please click on the pdf link below for the 16 page programme that Tim Lamble has provided from the 1962-63 VJ & VS Commonwealth Championships which were hosted by Double Bay Sailing Club:
Tim Lamble was a key committee member of the VJ Amateur Sailing Association for many years, and also was involved in boatbuilding where he completed many Don Fairbrother wooden hulls.
Tim lists his VJ & VS ASA and Double Bay SC roles:
- 1960: Secretary Double Bay Sailing Club (also handicap, starter and judge)
- 1961: Federal secretary VJ & VS ASA
- 1962-63: Federal secretary VJ & VS ASA . Starter at Commonwealth champs at Double Bay Sydney
- 1963-64: Federal secretary VJ & VS ASA . Starter at Commonwealth champs at Perth
- 1964-65: Federal secretary VJ & VS ASA . Starter at Commonwealth champs at Chelsea Victoria
- 1965-66: Federal secretary VJ & VS ASA . Starter at Commonwealth champs at Belmont NSW
- 1965: Publication of VJ plans and building instructions that I produced
- 1966-67: Federal secretary VJ & VS ASA . Starter at Commonwealth champs at Perth
- 1966: Federal secretary VJ & VS ASA. I produced red and black information brochure with Daze on cover (Reg 8222)
- About 1967 or 1968 I stopped being Federal secretary VJ & VS ASA, but still active in SHPZone (Sydney Harbour Pittwater Zone)
- Daze 8222 Alex Dey (Commonwealth Champion)
- Revel III 8161 Ron Cant
- Compulsion III 8100 Tony Levett
- Hi-Lite 7633 Tony James
- Trad 7887 Phillip Nielsen
- Sundowner 7901 Tony George
- Plus at least one other, Saracen
Further information from the Double Bay Sailing Club website:
Please see: http://www.dbsc.com.au/history
The club was established on 13 July 1956.
In February 1958, the club announced it was going to build a club house on the current site to provide an “interest” to the “youngsters of this village”. Work started in August and was completed by 1959 by well known 18 Foot skipper, Bill Monkhouse at a cost of 7000 Pounds. The club was officially opened on 5 April 1959. Members raced Vaucluse Juniors on Sundays. Read about it here in a wonderful article from July 1959.
Robin Hawthorn, Jim Ley, David Hogan and other founding Double Bay Sailing Club members gave us this recollection for our Diamond Jubilee Party 2016.
As kids in Double Bay on the beach we often would speak to the men rigging up their 18footer sailing boats, with boat names such as AJAX, PATHFINDER, TOOGARA, MISS PEPSI and many others, we would persist in asking for a ride or a brief sail, they obviously were impressed with our interest in sailing and obliged to our delight with offers to have a sail. Some of the older boys had VJ’s and others were pestering their parents to acquire boats. The fleet initially was rather assorted in age and quality, Rob Hawthorn was one who eventually got an old VJ which was very heavy and together with his dad they worked on the boat for what seemed years trying to stop it leaking and reducing its weight to make it competitive.
Initially boats were stored in Piggins Boat shed at the bottom of Beach St off William St, others at the Pier Boatshed Rose Bay, people’s backyards and so on, and while this situation allowed us to gather together as a club on the beach at Double Bay it was realized that there was a need for a club house to be built. The initial Club was known as The Pioneer Boating Club having Club meetings in the Piggin’s boat shed, Reg Slight, Bob Hogan with the help of Bobby Reid and others with their classic timber power boats with putt-putt motors (one named ‘BUGGSIE’) became the race officials and pick up boats.
Parents of the youngsters including Charlie Messenger, Ross Piggin, Hedley Hawthorn, Patricia Ley, Reg Slight, Keith McCrowan, Dutchie Backhouse and many others comprised the foundation members of the Double Bay Sailing Club.
With permission granted from the Maritime Service Board to build over the water (our contact being Bill Longworth Jnr.) they then lobbied with Woollahra Municipal council to allow the club house to use the Park for access to the proposed building and with the support of Dutchy Backhouse who was a Woollahara councilor at the time, the Club gained initial approval to have access to the proposed building through the park. Initial funds were provided by parents taking debentures of 20 pounds repayable in the future when the club was financially able to do so The parents also sought bank finance approval with the assistance from George Kiernan, Theo Kelly and Mrs G Hornabrook to provide further building funds and this was successful. There was then resistance from a number of the local residents at the time who did not want the park vista disturbed by such activity, however with lobbying and the help of Theo Kelly (he was a very influential person) Woollahra council finally gave their approval.
At this significant period in the Clubs history two of the parents namely Ross Piggin and Patricia Ley suddenly passed away having been very active members of the group gaining these approvals to create the building now known as the Double Bay Sailing Club.
The future of the Club was assured when Cliff Monkhouse agreed to build and complete the Club in the mid 1950’s and then continued on to build the 18ft Skiff Sailing club next door.
The club became a social mecca for kids from Double Bay and adjoining suburbs. It was a meeting place where teenagers gathered to work on their boats and to socialize. The club took on its role as a venue to foster social events such as club dances and so on, it became a really popular meeting place for the kids in the area. The Club at one period also had a football team.
As the club grew in strength and numbers they commenced interclub events between Vaucluse VJ sailing club, Woollahra and many other clubs around Sydney Harbour and Middle Harbour.
It was with the help of Charlie Messenger’s Trawler fleet that often boats were towed to other venues for regattas, in a line of up to 8 or 10 VJ’s to places like Greenwich, Drummoyne and Middle Harbor and Northbridge sailing clubs to compete in interclub events.
The VJ at that stage together with the Moth Class were virtually the only small centerboard dinghy’s that teenagers and young adults could sail in. There was Australia wide competition with strong clubs competing in locations as far away as Melbourne Adelaide and Perth, boats were sailed in NSW in locations such as Cronulla, Port Hacking, Botany Bay, Lake Macquarie, Taree, Lake Illawarra and Toronto.
To gauge the popularity of the VJ class there was about 6000- 7000 VJ’s built and registered during that period of time from the initial design stage.
The competition to compete in the Australian titles at that time was fierce and it involved zone championships to qualify for state championships from which a team was selected to compete in the national title and it was a keenly fought competition and it was the basis from which many of our famous sailors had their beginning.
One favorite memory was of Bobby Reid our ever faithful pick up boat skipper. Bobby was special in two ways, he had been born with some spastic paralysis causing him speech and motor difficulty, but he was present every week to pull us half drowning kids out of the drink and get us back to the club. At one of the prize giving occasions the committee awarded Bobby with a captains hat and he never, from that day on, took it off. T o this day we remember Bobby fondly and in high regard.
As the club and its young sailors matured teams were sent to Melbourne and Perth for Australian titles. The Club gained prominence and was given the honor of running the Australian championship. In 1962-1963 season.
The Club provided its members with great memories and experiences that in later years placed many in Maritime situations of prominence.
Double Bay in the 1940s
July 1959 ‘Seacraft’ article about the opening of the Double Bay SC clubhouse:
vauclusejunior 
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