Working For The Sport Of Yachting Away From The Public Eye

Dorothy interviews Ray Harrison, a man deeply involved in the yachting world

With America’s Cup Fever gripping many New Zealanders and the media full of

yachting news, almost all Kiwis know the names and faces of people in the Black Magic crew like Russell Coutts, Brad Butterworth and Dean Barker and the commentators, Peter Montgomery and Peter Lester.

For a glimpse of the work of some of the people behind the scenes in the yachting world I spoke to Ray Harrison who has served the sport of yachting in many roles, most notably as an International Yachting Judge.

How did Ray first become involved in yachting? Sailing was in Ray’s blood. His great grandfather was a sea captain of a sailing vessel based in England, and his grandfather and great uncle were foundation members of the Christchurch Yacht Club. His father sailed at Charteris Bay in the Lyttelton Harbour.

Ray’s first experience of sailing was in his teens as a social sailor on the Avon/Heathcote Estuary near Christchurch, and in spite of the prominence given to competitive sailors he is a firm believer in the importance of fun sailors to the sport. He shares the view of Ratty in Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows when he said “There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats”.

“I was an adult before I competed in my first race,” said Ray, “and the bug really bit me.” Over the years he raced extensively in Finns, Idle Alongs, catamarans and other classes. He owned his first yacht when he was twenty four, a sailing dinghy with a rig of his own design, built in water-resistant ply – unusual for those days.

“The way most youngsters sailed then would be condemned as reckless today,” Ray commented. “There were no life jackets, no built-in buoyancy, and we weren’t too interested in postponing races.”

Sailing on the Avon/Heathcote Estuary When I asked him to evaluate the Estuary as a training place for sailors he said that it offered poor sailing if you consider the sandbanks and the tidal rips, but teaches sailors to be cunning and to learn about the currents and how they work and to cope with changeable winds. He recalled a race in the 1960s where the first marker was towards Shag Rock to the east of the Christchurch Yacht Club and there was a strong easterly blowing. Conditions for the boats were so difficult that the local paper headed its article about the race as “Fiasco on the Estuary”. Peter Mander (link to the article about him)
had excellent local knowledge and as he sailed up the Estuary while the mass of the fleet were endeavouring to round the first mark, he confided to Ray, “Hug the shore”. With this advice Ray sailed around the first marker easily.

Sailing in Tonga Spending seven years as a teacher in Tonga including three years as foundation head of Tonga High School gave Ray different experiences in sailing.

In 1949 he was a foundation member of the Nuku’alofa Yacht and Motorboat Club and served as Club Captain from 1950 until he left Tonga in 1953. Ray had been used to mainly class racing in New Zealand, but in Tonga at that time it was handicap racing with a mixed fleet. Today the Nuku’alofa Yacht Club is purely a social club. He felled trees, cured the milled timber, and built a yacht to ‘Rudder’s’ Skippy design and called it Marama.

He sailed it to win the Nuku’alofa Yacht and Motorboat Club’s major challenge trophy in 1952. The wind in Tonga was much more steady than in New Zealand. Ray compared it with the varying wind in the fourth America’s Cup Race. Changes in wind direction are a real test for the sailors, whereas in Tonga you could sail a yacht like a motor boat and you knew what the wind was doing. You could sail into different channels through gaps in the coral only 3 metres wide.

Alarming experience in Tonga “Once when I was out with my three small children aboard three huge sharks followed us for an hour,” Ray recalled. “Those sharks were about as long as the boat and we had one in front and two behind in neat formation. I hauled the centreboard out to reduce the risk of the sharks capsizing the yacht, but that meant that we couldn’t get home. Home was a dead beat and we could only sail across the wind, so we had to sail backwards and forwards until they disappeared.”

Building a Sunburst In 1978 Ray built a Sunburst in a winter programme at the Mount Pleasant Yacht Club on the Estuary. He believes that building a boat is a valuable experience for any one involved in yachting, giving a more intimate awareness of the boat’s sailing qualities and stimulating more serious thought about what is done when sailing the boat.

Increasing involvement in administration Ray greatly enjoyed active involvement in sailing, but as he became increasingly involved with the administrative aspects of the sport this active involvement necessarily suffered.

Interested in rules and law from his teens When deciding on his future career Ray looked seriously at two alternatives – teaching or law. He chose teaching and attended Christchurch Teachers’ Training College.

He joined the territorials at sixteen – two years under age – thanks to an enrolment officer who chose to take a flexible attitude to dates. He served in the artillery. When war broke out in 1939 he enlisted in the infantry, because they were being mobilised whereas the artillery were not. He earned a commission at eighteen and became so keenly interested in military law that he was able to defend some soldiers who found themselves in trouble. He was invalided out before he was posted to overseas service. He returned to teaching and studied the law as it related to teachers.

It was natural to him to move into the legal side of yachting. He became an expert in the complicated laws of yachting and believes that not only the judges, but everyone who is taking part in the sport, should have a good grasp of these rules. He is disappointed in the attitude of some yachties who will not take the trouble to learn them.

President of the Canterbury Yachting Association (CYA) Ray became president of CYA in 1978 and declared it as his particular concern to give special attention to intermediate yachting. He felt it was one of the sport’s weakest areas and that in the gap between P Class sailing and the seniors a lot of participants were lost. An intermediate committee aimed to offer guidance to yachties in this age group. It would have two functions, offering support to youngsters wanting to sail and giving non-commercial advice on purchasing a yacht and associated gear.

The need for training As a teacher, Ray could see the need for training on three aspects of the sport: sound practical seamanship, knowledge of the rules and race administration. As a relatively mediocre sailor he appreciated that talented young yachties would soon outgrow what he had to give them, and so he concentrated on the rules and race administration. At both national and provincial levels, there are now ample opportunities for promising youngsters, both boys and girls, to get high level coaching which takes them to national and international levels. But Ray’s pioneering work in running workshops on yachting racing rules, race administration and protest panels has been carried on by others locally, nationally and internationally.

Appointment as International Yachting Judge In 1986 Ray became the first South Islander to be appointed an international judge by the sports world body, the International Yacht Racing Union.

I asked Ray how he trained and became eligible for this appointment. He explained that John Faire, a Hamilton lawyer, who was President of the New Zealand Yachting Federation, was looking for some more talent “south of the Bombay Hills”.

Ray had been involved in the quasi-judicial side of yacht racing initially at club level, then provincial level, followed by national and ultimately international.

He was invited to be on the five- member jury for the World Youth Series in Auckland. “Those on the jury are either international judges or aspiring international judges, and if you show a grasp of yachting laws your name goes forward to the International Yachting Racing Union,” Ray explained. There are two facets to the international role. They form the group from which an appeals panel may be selected whenever a yachtie feels he or she has been short-changed by a club or inter-club protest committee. They also form a higher powered protest committee for major events or are part of an international jury to supervise and to adjudicate on international events.

In his role as International Yachting Judge Ray has worked in Australia and New Zealand and attended a workshop in London. Judges from the Southern Hemisphere are seldom invited to judge in the Northern Hemisphere as there are many judges living there. Expenses must always be considered carefully so travel costs are kept to a minimum. Usually judges have their fares paid and some sort of accommodation provided, though it may be only a caravan. They donate their time.

Those who judge the World Youth Series pay all their own expenses as the young sailors cannot afford to pay huge entry fees and there is no money to subsidise the expenses of the judges. For a huge regatta like this there may be up to seven or eight judges.

New Zealand Yachting Federation’s Award of Honour In October 1988 Ray Harrison, Ian Treleaven and Paul Pritchett were presented with the New Zealand Yachting Federation’s Award of Honour, an award designed to honour the contributions of club members who have not reached the headlines through successes on the water.

Race Management Manual Ray Harrison and Jim Park both served as chairman of the contest committee of the New Zealand Yachting Federation (NZYF) so they were appropriate people to write NZYF’s “Race Management Manual”.

This book, 192 pages in length, incorporated the 1989-92 international rule changes. It was produced in a loose leaf ring binder format so that it could be updated in future years. It covered every aspect of race organisation and management. The addition of twenty two appendices gave an indication of how thoroughly the authors had covered their subject.

The authors ran a series of seminars to introduce the manual to yachties in all parts of the country.

The rules set down for races held by the yacht clubs also apply to Model Yacht Club racing.

Ebb and Flow, A Centennial History of the Christchurch Yacht Club 1891-1991 For many years Ray was interested in history, especially local history. He served on the national executive of the Genealogical Society, and collected material on the lives of the people buried in the old Barbadoes Street cemetery. He also gathered information on the history of the Christchurch Yacht Club and when a centennial history was wanted for the club Ray undertook the task and produced the informative and interesting book, Ebb and Flow, A Centennial History of the Christchurch Yacht Club 1891-1991,

If you would like to buy a copy contact the Christchurch Yacht Club P.O. Box 19 724 Woolston Christchurch

Yachting in New Zealand today New Zealand yachting enthusiasts are euphoric about the results of the America’s Cup, but the membership of clubs is declining. Ray is full of admiration for the work of parents and other club members who do a tremendous amount of work supervising, training and catering for young yachties. It is to be hoped that the recent Cup successes will encourage more young people to join in the sport of yachting.