CWBF Talk: 'World Sailing Women' - Australian National Maritime Museum

Sunday 3 May 2020

11am - 12.30pm

The Australian Sailing Hall of Fame is now in its fourth year, managed by the Australian National Maritime Museum and Australian Sailing. Dedicated to honouring and promoting Australia’s sailors and supporters of the sport of sailing, it now includes 16 honourees (individuals or teams). Your host Daina Fletcher is the museum’s Senior Curator and in this discussion session will sketch some of the highlights from the Hall of Fame and introduce you to some of its honourees.

Delight in stories from Australia's blue ribbon sailors, be inspired by their techniques and tricks, and learn how they stay ahead of the game. Coach Mike Fletcher AM coached skipper John Bertrand’s incredible Australia II crew in 1983 to wrestle the America’s Cup from the New York Yacht Club for the first time after 132 years of US domination. Adrienne Cahalan OAM, navigator, has competed in multiple iconic bluewater events including the Sydney to Hobart and Whitbread races with great success. In 2004 she was part of the fastest crew around the world on the maxi-catamaran Cheyenne.

We'll also explore stories of sailing in colonial Australia. John 'Steamer' Stanley from the Sydney Flying Squadron will join Daina in a Q&A session with stories from the life of SFS founder Mark Foy (1865-1950), the colourful innovator and bon vivant who changed the face of sailing in Australia forever.

Note: This talk is part of the 2020 Classic Wooden Boat Festival

Main image: America's Cup - balloons from one of the Australian supporter boats surround AUSTRALIA II after another victory. © Sally Samins, 1983. ANMM Collection 00000403

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	Mike Fletcher AM is renowned as one of Australia’s top sailing coaches. A champion sailor and experienced ocean yachtsman in his own right, he was already established as a top sailmaker before he started coaching in the 1970s. Mike Fletcher has mentored champion sailors and yachtsmen in local and international classes, ocean racing, the Olympics and most famously as coach for the victorious Australia II America’s Cup team in 1983. He is universally known as Coach - Mike Fletcher. We are privileged to welcome him as a guest speaker at the 2020 Classic & Wooden Boat Festival.

	Adrienne Cahalan OAM began sailing as a teenager on a family holiday and quickly progressed through 12-foot skiffs to 18-footers on Sydney Harbour. She sailed her first Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1984 and started sailing as a professional in 1988 on 18-foot skiffs. Her racing and campaigning were done while balancing university studies and being admitted to practice law in 1991. Adrienne raced her first Whitbread as a navigator in the 1993 and 1994 race, and was watch leader on Nicorette when it broke the Transatlantic record in 1997. She has been nominated for Female World Sailor of the Year four times in 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

	John 'Steamer' Stanley is one of the national treasures of Australian sailing. From his beginnings as a bailer boy on 16-foot skiffs to the America’s Cup and countless offshore races and deliveries, 'Steamer' has helped forge the modern traditions of the sport. His participation in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race stretches over four decades, including handicap victories. But perhaps his most memorable race was in the tragic 1998 event when he managed to survive the sinking of the yacht Winston Churchill. In retirement, Stanley is now Honorary Historian of the Sydney Flying Squadron.

	Presenter and host: Daina Fletcher is a Senior Curator at the Australian National Maritime Museum. Her curatorial life covers many aspects of seafaring and sailing history with time as curator of sport, leisure, travel and tourism, developer of the Australian Register of Historic Vessels and more recently the Australian Sailing Hall of Fame, in league with Australian Sailing. More a swimmer than a sailor she finds the lure of the ocean compelling, and more as an observer than observed.

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