Trusty remembers……

By Trevor Gourlay, past Commodore

Before the marina we used to just raft up to each other in front of the club – Fantasy, Maggie McGill, Flyaway, Goldrush, Hot Bubbles II and Incredible.  I remember one year (I was 18 or 19 at the time), one boat owner strolled out of the club on nightfall to take his boat home up the canal.  His was the inside vessel and he successfully untied his boat plus the four or five outside of him and chugged off home. You have never seen so many yachties running away from the main bar in pursuit of the boats rafted together on an outgoing tide.

Another memory with the 24/ 7 bar open. A Sydney to Mooloolaba Race I was on Friction, from memory, but certainly we were at the back end of the fleet. The bar was packed when we got in and so was the grassed area out the front. Diane, one of the bar staff and very attractive she was, was doing the glass pick-ups around the lawn area; you couldn’t move. Next minute a line of yachties passed all the trays of dirty glasses over their heads in a conga type of line to deliver into the 20-deep line of people. Then Dianne was picked up and passed along the same line so she could keep the drinks coming. No signs of touch-ups or anything like that, just good honest fun.

My early recollections of the Hawkwind Cup (I believe it was donated by then Commodore, John Bates) was that it was true ladies race, not just lady skipper. This was hotly contested by boats like Innocent Bystander (Margie Brown), Sneaky Snake (Christine Harvey), Footloose (Thalia Dawson) and many more. At the time we still did the full figurehead before every ladies race (sometimes inside the harbour, sometimes outside), however I did volunteer to be on the start vessel for every Hawkwind Cup race. Pity we didn’t have smart phones in that era.

Sydney to Mooloolaba, it might have been 1987. As Commodore I raced up on Tony Patch’s Animal Farm with many notables still around today. We had a good race. Once we finished I needed to organise a large marquee on the front lawn which was swiftly erected by the crew members – Steve Latty and Big Dog. Gardiner. I went home for a sleep, came back to the club to find Latts and the Dog still around the famous table (the bar was open 24/7 in those days). I had another session then went home for another sleep the next night only to return yet again to find these two still there drinking. That morning Lorraine Latty rang to ask Steve Latty when he was coming home, to which he replied, ‘we only just got here love’. Unbeknown to Steve, Animal Farm had a full picture on the back page of the Sunshine Coast Daily noting our finishing time two days prior. Latts quickly went home.

Ed: Steve Lattey adds to the story of that race on Animal Farm. When we arrived down in Sydney, Big Dog and myself took upon ourselves to go and get all the food for the race. We have Trusty the job of filling the gas bottles. He took the gas bottle ashore. We went got everything done and Trusty’s up in the bar having a good time with all the Sydney boys.

On the race day, we started the race and then Big Dog said, ‘I’ll put a spag bol on for the night’. There’s Groggo and Sparkles and everyone else, and we are off up the coast, and here’s this gas gone out. So, Big Dog is down at the back of the boat ready to turn the gas bottle over, and then ‘what gas bottle?’.

Trusty had left the empty bottle in the bar and we had all this food on the boat for a three or four-day trip.

We had no means of heating or cooking. We tried hotdogs using the hot water from the motor exhaust to cook the hotdogs, we made cold stuff out of dehydrated peas and carrots. At least sandwiches were okay.

Steve’s nickname for Trevor quickly became ‘Gas Bottles’.