Sailing Magazine
by Richard Crockett
At a loss for where to stat the week in term of archive material I went back to our roots and have chosen several pages from the very first issue of Yachtsman RSA newspaper in 1975 as its main headline screamed “350 yachts sail in False Bay National”, plus there are reports on the Finns, Fireballs, Flying Dutchman and 505 nationals.
If anything these pages are something of a “blast from the past” as so many names bring back so many memories of people in our sport way back then – 47 years ago.
But for me, the best part of all these reports is the sidebar entitled “General Recall!” which tells a delightful story and is accompanied by a cartoon of the incident. It’s reproduced here in full just so that you don’t miss it:
“Finn skipper Ross Robson tells a delightful story about the last Finn race at the national regatta. It shows the trials and tribulations bridge crews have to go through when running races. It goes something like this. · .
“The Finns were coming up to their start in virtually windless conditions. Ross had placed his boat close to the committee boat for his start and he could hear the countdown. . , “5,4,3,2,1, gun. Recall!·” Ross, in his inimitable style, thinking there were too many boats over the line for his liking shouted: “General recall! ” Dutifully, a third gun went off, much to his amusement.
“There was some consternation on the committee boat and the person with the gun was asked why he had fired a third gun – making three sound signals for a general recall.
“He pointed rather sheepishly to the still becalmed Ross Robson and said: ‘.’He told me to.”
Please remember to LIKE, SHARE and especially COMMENT.
READ IT ALL HERE: Pages from 1975 04 – Yachtsman RSA – OCR – 002140
