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Newspapers : 1958.

1957

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1959

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Victor Harbour Times
SA, 7 February 1958, page 3.

HENLEY WINS TITLE AT SURFERS'

Before an estimated crowd of 8,000 last Sunday at Surfers' Beach, Middleton, Henley Beach team won the State surf life saving championships, in ideal surfing conditions.
Results: Henley Beach, 64 1/2 points: Brighton, 40; Port Noarlunga, 28; Port Elliot, Glenelg.each 24; Moana, Christie's
Beach, Grange, 19; Seacliff 16 1/2; Chiton, 12.
The championships were opened by the Director of the S.A. Government Tourist Bureau. Mr. I. T. Ashton, and trophies to the value of £5(-0 were donated to championship winners by Mr. R. C. Chapman.
J. Brown (Grange) won the principal trophy, a malibu surf board made from balsa wood coated with fibre glass.
The senior rescue and resuscitation was abandoned on a technicality, and will take place at Boomer Beach next Sunday at
1.30 p.m.
During the day approximately £400 was collected for the S.A. Surf Life Saving Association.

Trove
1958 'HENLEY WINS TITLE AT SURFERS'', Victor Harbour Times (SA : 1932 - 1986), 7 February, p. 3. , viewed 01 Sep 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article186737434

The Australian Women's Weekly
26 March 1958, page 8.

ACROSS NULLARBOR TO SURF CONTESTS

PROUD MOMENT for Barry Stuart, of Maroubra, N.S.W.. winner of the single surf ski title during the

Australian and Interstate Surf Championships held at Scarborough Beach, Western Australia, this month.

SURF-BOAT RACE, showing onlookers and a pattern of surfboards and boats on the sand.
The Governor of Western Australia, Sir Charles Gairdner, and Lady Gairdner attended the second day.

These pictures are by
Laurie Kimber.

FINISH of surfboard race championship, with the judges in the water.
Winner was Ted Cahill, of Coogee, N.S.W., with E. Barling, of Maroubra, N.S.W. in second place.

Trove
1958 'ACROSS NULLARBOR TO SURF CONTESTS', The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), 26 March, p. 8. , viewed 28 Jul 2016,
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article51597622

The Australian Women's Weekly
21 May 1958, page 7.

Around world-in catamaran
By
RONALD McKIE

Built in snipti\
glued together*
to fulfil dream
Two Sydney bachelors who designed and prefabricated a Polynesian-type catamaran at Mt. Kosciusko, assembled it in a backyard at Earlwood, and launched it at Leichhardt plan to leave Sydney on May 20 to sail around the world.
One night two years ago the two men drew a full-size plan of their catamaran on the floor of the Ski Club of Australia at the Chalet- a uniquebirthplace for a boat.
Then, bit by bit, they transferred the plan to marine plywood and began to prefabricate their boat.
They worked through two Alpine winters, when Bill Hawkins, the engineer at the Chalet, found time to do some ski-ing and win the Rosemary Cup ("everyone else fell down") and to take part in snow rescues.

Then last February they packed their catamaran pieces
nn ci tnii-t nnH Krnncrrit tVlpm
knife-thin canoes, linked by a section shaped like part of an aeroplane wing.
The craft is propelled by sails from a 32ft. mast-conventional mainsail and jib when beating to windward, and twin side-set spinnakers when running.
The catamaran is no miniature; the hulIs are 35ft. long, with a maximum width of only 2ft. 3in.; the total width of the wing, which connects the two hulls, is li?ft. 8in.; and the total weight with 8001b.

admits, "because she is designed for what we want - speed.
"We hope that in a strong wind she'll do between 20 and 30 knots - the speed of a cruiser - and that will suit us fine.
"A catamaran built in Hawaii carries 16 passengers at 22 knots in a good wind, and another, the Hawaiian Surf, which took part in a Honolulu-San Francisco yacht race (though not as a competitor) against conventional yachts up to more than 90ft, 'surfed' at 30 knots in a 45 m.p.h. wind, and reached San Francisco 26 hours ahead of any other boat."

ABOVE: Ready for launching, the catamaran wag manoeuvred over the fence of the Earlwood, N.S.W.. home of Tony Cooper (right) and taken by trailer to Leichhardt.

LEFT: Cramped "living quarters."
Tony Cooper looks down an opening in a hull lo a bunk (right) that is 7ft. long. 2ft. .'ihi. wide, and only 18in. high at its widest point.
The bunk is 7ft. long, 2ft. 3in. wide, and only 18in. high at its highest point.
The aft, and thinnest, section of the wing also contains a combined steering compart

CO-BUILDERS Tony Cooper and Bill Hawkins.
Cooper has his feet in the entrance to the "emergency" engine room; Hawkins is at the galley opening.

THE two seagoing bachelors are: Bill Hawkins, 36, of Dee Why, a marine engineer, Air Force fitter, electrician, yachtsman, surfer, skier, skin diver, and student glider pilot.
Tony Cooper, 30, of Earlwood, a cabinetmaker-carpenter, surfer, photographer, judo expert, and student navigator and glider pilot.
And when these two powerful six-footers became firm friends some years ago while helping to build snow huts at Kosciusko they decided that one day they would circumnavigate the world in a catamaran.
They even decided to call her "Udra Patara," which in Sanskrit means "Flying Water Animal."

Science, skill

The catamaran idea developed in two ways: Tony Cooper had made a model from reports of catamarans in Hawaii.
And Bill Hawkins, who once held the record for paddling a surf-ski from Manly to Maroubra, and who, during World War II, paddled a native canoe 70 miles between Kiriwinj and Goodenough Islands, off New Guinea, "just to see how she would go," was particularly interested in the boat used in ancient Polynesian voyages.
But the Hawkins-Cooper craft was to be a catamaran with a difference, in which the principles of aerodynamics would be blended with the skill of early Polynesian boat designers.

to Sydney, where they began to assemble them in a shed in the backyard of Tony Cooper's Earlwood home.
Before assembly, each piece of the vessel was weighed to achieve perfect balance.
The catamaran, now at Careening Cove, Kirribilli, consists of two hulls

like deep, of stores, gear, and crew is
26001b., or more than a ton.
Because the hulls draw only 1 flin., the wing is high above the water.
This allows air to flow between the hulls and helps to lift the boat as she gains speed.

"She isn't as safe as a conventional craft," Bill Hawkins
The catamaran is built entirely of thin marine plywood held together with glue.
Yes - glue!
Up to her waterline the hulls are covered with fibreglass as protection against damage and attack by marine life.
In the two separated hulls are 10 watertight compartments.
Two are for stores and gear.
Two are for water and fuel - the catamaran carries an outboard motor - stored in fibre-glass tanks moulded to the sides of the hulls.
And two are for living space.

Cramped area

"Living space" is a wildly exaggerated term.
The area is only 5ft. 6in. long, 6ft. deep, and 2ft. 3in. at its widest, the top.
You can stand in it and just about sit down if your hips aren't too wide.
To sleep in the catamaran you crawl from the living space in either hull through an opening into a narrow, low bunk in the curved wing of the craft.

LEFT: Seated on the section that links the two hulls, Hawkins and Cooper plan their world voyage.

ment and chart room, and a galley containing a small fuel stove and a miniature stainless sink.
The stove is suspended at the base and swings, so that no matter what angle the boat, the stove is always level.

Safety belt

This total area is so small that you can't even sit in it.
You sit on the deck, at the extreme stern end of the wing, and put your feet into the compartment.
So that, except for the covering of the compartment, which lifts up and clamps to give a little protection when the catamaran is under sail, the steersman is continually exposed to sun, sea, and wind as he steers the boat with a tiller connected to two rudders
on the hulls.
As his position is not only exposed but dangerous in rough weather, he wears a safety belt attached to, a wire cable from the mast.
One of the nasty habits of catamarans is to "pitchpole."
As they ride over a wave and head down its other side they are inclined, if travelling fast, to nose in and tip over.
To prevent this, the designers have installed two retractable fins, like the pectoral fins of a shark, near the bows of the hulls.
The fins will act, like the landing-flaps on a plane, to control pitchpoling.

Bill Hawkins and Tony Cooper plan, as the first stage of their round - the - world voyage, to go to the Barrier Reef, and then to Darwin, Indonesia, Singapore, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Mediterranean, England.
But they don't want to do all their sailing at sea.
They hope to explore the canals and rivers of Holland and Germany, and one of their longest trips will be to sail up the St. Lawrence River, take the catamaran overland to the headwaters of the Mississippi,
and then sail down to New Orleans at its mouth.
"As money will be a bit of a problem," Bill Hawkins said, "we hope to earn a bit along the way by giving people rides, selling models, even taking jobs if we can get them.
"We may even give surf riding demonstrations because we're taking a board with us as a lifeboat in case our unsinkable boat sinks.
"We won't mind what we do so long as we see the world from the T'dra Patara'."

Trove
The Australian Women's Weekly (1933 - 1982), 21 May 1958, p. 7. , viewed 01 Sep 2016,
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47508014

1957

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1959

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Geoff Cater (2016) : Newspapers : Surfing, 1958.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1958_Newspapers.html