TICKET OF LEAVE - BOAT HISTORY

The following is a recollection from Kevin Wood (Oct 2020): Ticket of Leve was shipped from the factory in France to Sydney where the keel and rudder were profiled using the Farr templates. The hull was taken to a shipwright's yard in Parramatta for laser aligning of the keel and rudder once fitted. The boat was the trucked to Melbourne. There were some anxious moments when launching from the SYC hard stand as the crane's rear wheels lifted from the ground. The naming ceremony was a big event with a Jazz band and food & drinks being served to guests. The Club Chaplin used the Breton fisherman's ceremony to christen the boat. Kevin's wide Nancy then presented Kevin with his own ticket of leave certificate (giving him permission to travel), which was a copy of that given to her great, great convict grandfather when he was granted some land in Northen Tasmania.

Ticket of Leave was campaigned strongly with Kevin's well-established crew, including regular Sunday morning training sessions. Kevin constantly searched for performance improvements, including increasing the size of the spinnakers. The rating penalty was offset by the performance improvement, including recovery time for downwind "wipe-outs" , which occurred on two occasions, but they still won the race.

With considerable success in local SYC events, Ticket of Leave entered the Australian Offshore Sailing Championships in Adelaide. When crossing the finish in the penultimate race, the steering strap broke. Without a replacement, a temporary fix was assembled with Kevlar and Ticket of Leave started the final race as points leader. Unfortunately the temporary fix slipped under load and was too dangerous to continue racing. Ticket of Leave finished second in the series. A replacement strap was then flown from Melbourne and fitted in time for the race from Adelaide to Port Lincoln, in which Ticket of Leave placed 3rd. In the ensuing regatta in Port Lincoln, Tick of Leave placed second on a countback to Secret Men's Business. The crew enjoyed the regatta immensely, including the abundance of local seafood which included a box of lobsters awarded as prizes for individual races within the regatta.

Ticket of Leave journeyed to Sydney for the Southern Cross Cup and finished mid-fleet. After the regatta, the boat cruised around Sydney Harbour and Pittwater before returning to Melbourne. The Australia Keelboat Championship was held at RYCV and Ticket of Leave again performed well to win the series on a countback, which atoned for the previous year's result.

Kevin recalls a mysterious event with Ticket of Leave: Around 11:00pm one night Kevin received a call from SYC member George Shaw advising that the boat was motoring erratically around the marina and heading out to sea. The police were contacted and Rob Ware, Kevin and some policemen took Endeavour III out after Ticket of Leave. The boat was heading inshore towards Black Rock. A police searchlight from the shore was used to spot the boat, which after seeing the chasing Endeavour III turned toward Portarlington. After a chase, eventually Endeavour caught up with the boat which had slowed down and started doing circles with all cabin lights on. When police jumped on board they found the boat to be deserted. Returning to the SYC marina, they found no damage or missing items, part from the splash boards. The mystery remains unsolved to this day.

Ticket of Leave was taken north to compete in the Airlie Beach and Hamilton Is regattas, cruising from Mooloolaba via Lady Musgrave Is and Scawfell Is, where they met up with Lou Abrahams and the crew of Challenge. Ticket of Leave placed 2nd in both the Airlie Beach and Hamilton Is regattas. After considerable success with Ticket of Leave, the boat was sold to the Commodore of the Moolooaba Yacht Club in Qld. Unfortunately the boat ran into some rocks at Hamilton Is and thereafter fell into disrepair.