CONFESSIONS OF A CHARTER SKIPPER

A university with its own sailing yacht, as the blurb for UTS (University of Technology) stated in its prospectus, caught my attention when I matriculated for my Masters degree. Having recently sold my yacht in southern Spain and emigrated to sunny Sydney, I was in need of boat, or at least a way to continue sailing. A fortuitous meeting at the Double Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) with Peter Russell changed my life for the next 16 lovely years.

Stalwart sailor, occasional crewman on the illustrious yacht Love & War and UTS lecturer, Peter had advised the university sports union to purchase a yacht in 1999. This proved a controversial buy, with some factions citing the elitism of being the only university with its own sailing yacht, which few students could experience.

But the economics of the programme worked, with income from the charters usually falling only a little (10-15%) short of each year’s routine maintenance costs. Finding responsible skippers, however, was proving problematical. I met