| Gordon Reynolds | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Status | Deceased |
| Nationality | Australia |
| Hometown | Sydney |
| Club | Middle Harbour Yacht Club |
| Boats Sailed On | Caprice of Huon Eudoria Eudoria II |
Gordon Reynolds
MHYC: The First 60 Years
Article by: Gordon Reynolds
Published: 1999
Gordon Reynolds joined the Middle Harbour Yacht Club in 1947, shortly after his discharge from the army. At the time, membership of the club was approximately 35. Gordon's only previous sailing experience was in gaff-rigged pearling luggers in Broome where he had lived before the war. As a newcomer to the sport of yachting, he found his mentor in his brother-in-law, Norman Way, who was Commodore from 1946 to 1955.
Norman had a 28-foot yacht Eudoria and a 36-foot George Griffin-designed Julnar-class yacht which he also called Eudoria. Jim Perry built the newer Eudoria in Griffin's shed at The Spit. She was about three minutes faster around the Manly/Neilsen Park course than the original Julnar sailed by George Griffin with Snowy Pearson and Jim Turner as crew. Norman discovered a car-top dinghy in the Yachting World magazine, sent away for the plans and had one built in the workshop of his department store, Ways, in Pitt Street. The dinghy was quite a success as a trainer for children and was later renamed Heron, a class that still exists and races at Clontarf on Sundays during summer.
Norman was an excellent sailor and under his guidance, Gordon found himself on a steep learning curve. After harbour racing for many years, Gordon decided that he wanted more ocean-racing experience. He sailed on a number of yachts before joining the crew of Caprice of Huon in 1965 to be part of the campaign for selection in the Australian team to challenge for the Admiral's Cup. Caprice of Huon was a member of the team with the MHYC yacht Camille, skippered by Ron Swanson, and the Halvorsen brothers' yacht Freya. Although Caprice of Huon won three of the four races ,the team did not perform well enough in the Fastnet race to wrest the cup from the British, and the Australians were runners up.
Gordon chartered Caprice to campaign for the 1967 challenge for the Admiral's Cup. The team -- Caprice of Huon skippered by Gordon, Balandra skippered by Bob Crichton-Browne, and Mercedes III skippered by Ted Kaufman - outperformed the opposition to win the Admiral's Cup for Australia for the first time. Gordon's involvement with subsequent Australian challenges for the Admiral's Cup continued, acting as the team manager up to 1981 (after which failing health curtailed most of his sailing activities).
Gordon's three children - Lynnette, Rob and Tony - are all keen sailors and took to sailing without any pushing from father or mother. Lynnette and her husband Bob have recently returned to Australia after completing five years of cruising around the world in their 40-foot Beneteau, of which they took delivery in France.
Rob's first memories of MHYC are of his early childhood days when he accompanied his parents to The Spit on weekends when the members built the new clubhouse in the 1950s. He first started racing at the club around 1960, sailing with David Noakes in the Bluebird class yachts.
He joined the crew of Fred Farrell's Safona, a 34-foot yacht that regularly raced in Number 1 inshore division. Rob sailed with Fred for around seven years and then moved into 16-foot skiffs. He returned to racing at the club by joining the crew of Lal McDonnell's Mottle 33 Rifleman.
In 1989 he acquired his first yacht, a Northshore 38 named Weekend Option. In 1993 he bought J44 Phoenix, a J44 class yacht which was built in the United States and launched in 1990. In 1999 he became Commodore of MHYC.
Gordon's son Tony started sailing at the club in the 1980s on various boats before sailing regularly with his brother on Weekend Option. Tony is still sailing on J44 Phoenix as well as on his J24 Abracadabra which he part owns with Brian Strathmore, Daniel Ballantyne and Rob's son, Jonathan.
Tony's two sons, Michael and David, have become junior members of the club and race their Manly Junior with the club's centreboard division.
Stories | Admirals Cup First Admirals Cup Team 1965 The 1965 first Australian Admiral's Cup Team - among which were 11 MHYC members. The team of 36' Camille, 39' Freya and 45 ' Caprice of Huon came second. MHYC's Camille was thee top scoring yacht, MHYC club members included Frank Likely, Ron Swanson, Peter Mounsey, Leo Reilly, Curly Curlewis, Dave Linton, Peter Green, Freddy McClure, Graham Newland, Colin Betts and Gordon Reynolds.
Vale VALE GORDON REYNOLDS MHYC Member since 1947, and CYCA Life Member, Gordon Reynolds, who led an Australian team to its first victory in the Admiral's Cup in England in 1967, has died in Sydney at the age of 84 after an extended illness. Gordon was one of the great breed of ocean racing yachtsmen of the late 1940's through to the 1970's who sailed Australia into the international sporting scene with great success. He was a founding member of Middle Harbour Yacht Club and was actively involved in building the first MHYC Clubhouse in the 1950's. He joined the CYCA in 1964 and was elected a Life Member in 1967 for his services to the sport of ocean racing, notably his contribution to Australian Admiral's Cup campaigns as a competitor and then as team manager. Gordon began his sailing shortly after discharge fi-om the Navy in the late 1940's on his brother-in-law, Norman Way's Eudoria. Between the 1950's and 1960's he sailed in about a dozen Sydney-Hobart Races, including aboard the little Carmen class boat Cavalier and British yacht Fanfare. When Gordon Ingate bought Caprice of Huon he asked Gordon Reynolds to join him as first mate and in 1965 Caprice of Huon was chosen, along with Trygve and Magnus Halvorsen's Freya and Ron Swanson's Camille of Seaforth, in a CYCA driven, inaugural Australian challenge for the Admiral's Cup in England. The Aussies caused a major shock to the 'establishment' of British yachting at Cowes by finishing second overall, with Caprice of Huon winning three of the Cup races. In 1%7, Australia mounted a second challenge and with Gordon Ingate involved in America's Cup trials, Gordon Reynolds chartered Caprice of Huon. At considerable personal expense, he completely refitted the boat and selected an excellent crew to race with him. Bob Crichton-Brown's Balandra and the newly launched Mercedes Ill, designed and skippered by Ted Kaufinan, joined Caprice of Huon in the Australian team. The Australians sailed brilliantly in an aggressive series, winning the Admiral's Cup by a record points' margin from the British team. Yachting journalist Lou d'Alpuget records in his book 'Yachting in Australia' how Caprice of Huon. in a race on The Solent, was forced about from right-of-way starboard tack to port tack to avoid a collision with a non-Cup yacht, Bloodhound. At the helm was the Duke of Edinburgh. The incident cost the Australian boat many places as it forced her into the notorious Solent tideline, but Reynolds did not lodge a protest, partly under the mistaken belief that it was unwritten law at Cowes that one gave royalty right of way. At a party aboard the Royal yacht Britannia that night, wrote d'Alpuget, Gordon Reynolds began to apologise to the Duke for the indignant antipodean yells that had come from Caprice of Huon during the incident on the water. Instead, he got an apology himself. "I was completely in the wrong to think that Bloodhound would turn quickly enough," said the Duke. "I've been on her helm only once in the last year and I'm very rusty. I hope I didn't hamper you too much?" Gordon was appointed team manager for Australia's 1969, 1971, 1973 and 1977 Cup challenges, a task he performed with great determination and dedication. He was rewarded with the team's finishing 2nd in 1969, 3rd in 1971 and 2nd in 1973, but the Aussies could not do better than 7th in 1977. Gordon was more than a manager. He was an on-water coach in all weathers and on several occasions invited me, as the team press officer, to join him in his little dinghy. On one occasion we were running practice races for the team and it was teeming rain and the borrowed dinghy began to till up with water. No bailer! So we had to use our caps and a mug to stem the rise of rainwater in the boat. Sadly, ill health from 1979 onwards limited his active participation in yachting, but he maintained a keen interest in the sport and his two Clubs, MHYC and the CYCA. Gordon, who lived at Forestville, is survived by his wife Sylvia, daughter Lynnette and sons Tony and Rob, both active Middle Harbour Yacht Club members with Rob being elected Commodore of MHYC in 1999. Rob and Tony's sons are maintaining the Reynolds dynasty at Middle Harbour. Australia has much to thank for those fine amateur yachtsmen who, in the first few decades after World War II. established the sport of ocean racing in this country and then led us to international success. John Hurley - MHYC
Peter Campbell - CYCA |
