Centreboards and Sails: The Rise of Open-Boat Racing in Sydney During the 1890s

Abstract

Open-boat sailing boomed in Sydney, Australia, during the 1890s, as a number of new sailing clubs emerged in the city's working waterfront suburbs. Open boats have since been remembered as ‘typically Australian’, radically opposed to the forms and ceremonies of the yachting establishment, and even as sharing the characteristics of the bushman, an archetype of Australian national identity. This article traces the rise of open-boat sailing as a working-class spectator sport and the associated image of an ‘open boat legend’. It argues that open-boat sailing remained a Sydney legend in the 1890s. However, links to working traditions and place have made it possible for popular histories of sailing and yachting to present the open boats and sailors of the period with identifiably Australian characteristics.