In December 1970, BYRA hosted the VJ Commonwealth Championships. During the series, I visited the BYRA club with my Dad and my brother Craig, and took several photos on my little Kodak Instamatic camera.

Our family had joined the Concord & Ryde Sailing Club only a year earlier. No one in our family had ever sailed before, and we were invited along to the club by school friends who thought we might like to try the sport. Two of my school friends crewed on VJs at the club, and another older school friend actually skippered his own VJ. We fell in love with the sport straight away, and it was always magical being down at the sailing club, where nothing else seemed to matter, and the rest of your life just seemed to melt away for a while.

(Around this time, I also learned that another friend from high school, Craig Lawton, sailed a Mirror dinghy at BYRA with his family. Craig told me back then that membership at BYRA was thriving so much they actually had a long waiting list!)

During my first season at Concord & Ryde, I was 12 years old, and I mainly helped out Arthur Jones on the start boat because there weren't any VJ crewing positions available. We had a strong VJ fleet, which usually had 15-20 starters each Saturday. A few times when my schoolfriends were away, I got the chance to fill in as crew on their VJ, which was very exciting and offered much to learn. On the start boat, I sometimes took photos of the sailing and dreamed of the day when I might get a permanent crewing position on a VJ.

Well, the day came when I got the opportunity to crew for Martin Ohye on his VJ 'Vega' for the sailing season, which started in September 1970. Martin wasn't one of the top skippers, and his boat was a bit old and heavy, but none of this mattered. Martin was a really great guy and a very patient teacher, and even though he was only 17 or 18 years old (which seemed old to me then), Martin had gained great knowledge about sailing. Also amazing to me was the fact that Martin and his Dad made many things for his boat, such as the rudder and the leaning planks. They both had very good woodworking skills and explained to me how they did it. This season was a great introduction to sailing, and I couldn't wait to get down to the sailing club each Saturday morning. There was always fantastic information to be hoovered up from people like Martin and the other experienced club members.

Some of our top Concord & Ryde VJs qualified at interclub regattas to represent the Central Branch (Sydney Harbour and Pittwater zone) for the 1970-71 Commonwealth Championships at BYRA. We were very keen to see how they performed. Competitors travelled from WA, Victoria, and all over NSW, and the Championships started on Boxing Day, 26th December 1970, and ran until 2nd January 1971.

My uncle Cedric lived only about ten houses up the road from the BYRA club, and during the championships, we visited him. Later that afternoon, around the time that boats were returning from racing, we walked down to the club. It was low tide, as you can see from the photos, and one Western Australian boat is pictured sitting high and dry on the sand. We walked down to the water's edge, where the VJs were returning from racing, and I took several photos of the boats. Back at the rigging area I took photos of some of our Concord & Ryde boats, amongst these are Casino (dollar sign insignia), Inca (diamond square and 4 little circles insignia), Time (bent shaped T insignia), and our then Club Champion Delta sailed by Graeme and Paul Beath (the boat being unrigged on its side on the western side of the club).

My photos are the sepia-toned black-and-white shots. John Fairfax from the Australian Classic Dinghy Facebook group has also kindly supplied photos taken at BYRA that series by a WA skipper, including one of the family stopping for a break along the way, with VJ and equipment strapped to the car's roof racks. That is the way all of us travelled to regattas in those days, and hardly anyone had a trailer.

Also included are colour photos that I took on the start boat at Concord & Ryde in early 1970, also photos taken by Dad of my first VJ Astron launching at CRSC, and my 1973-74 Club Championship winning VJ Retroflect, here pictured rigging up and launching at Watsons Bay for the Vaucluse Regatta in December 1973. Our friends from BYRA (such as Rob Curtis skippering Mixo and Ian Greentree skippering Whisper) also competed in the regular Central Branch VJ regattas throughout the season, including Vaucluse. 

The original BYRA program has been lent to me by boatbuilder friend Max Sellars, who competed at these championships.

The 1970-71 VJ Commonwealth Championships were won by boats from Lake Macquarie clubs, the Senior division by Cygnet skippered by Speers Point's Richard Mann, and the Junior division (under 18 yrs old) by Gyro skippered by Belmont's Greg Asquith.

I hope you have enjoyed this little insight into sailing life back in 1970!

Best Wishes

Greg Fryer