wynnum manly radio yacht club

How the Wynnum Manly Radio Model Yacht Club is curing a sailing addiction for many yachties

Almost two dozen yachts — white sails unfurled and flapping in the breeze — race back and forth on a sparkling, blue sky day at Manly Harbour in Brisbane.

Passers-by, especially children, stop in awe of the action.

"Oh look at that one," a little boy calls to his parents.

"I like the red one and the orange one," he adds.

This is no ordinary yacht race.

That's because ordinary yachts are far too big for this event.

This is a race for radio-controlled model yachts, the largest of which is about one metre long.

Life-size boats and cruisers, moored in the harbour, provide a backdrop for the proceedings.

The yachties, mostly men over the age of 60 with a long love of boating, line the shore, eyes peeled as they manoeuvre rudders and sails via remote control.

"It's just a load of fun — using all of your experience, not getting wet, racing all the other guys," said Russell Gray, commodore of the Wynnum Manly Radio Model Yacht Club (WMRMYC).

"The banter is fantastic. We have a session every now and then about why old men are grumpy — they should be doing this!"

How it started

It all began when two men decided to sail their model yachts around the Wynnum wading pool in the late 1980s.

A club formed in 1996 and ever since, it's become a passion for a growing number of people.

Eduard (Eddie) Cowell is one of the two original sailors who started at the Wynnum wading pool. He now has a race named after him — a three-day international event, held at Kawana.

"The Eddie Cowell Perpetual Trophy! It's quite flattering to be honest," he said.

Eddie's love of sailing began at the age of 13, when Australia won the America's Cup in 1983.

But he would never hit the open ocean as he'd hoped, because a few years later, his life changed irrevocably.

"I had a diving accident — a diving accident at home," Eddie said.

"I jumped off a fence into a shallow pool when I was 17 years old."

"I'm a quadriplegic. It was terrible, but you get used to it and I've made the most of my life."

Despite the accident, Eddie's fascination for sailing never waned. When he saw a display for model boats at the supermarket, he decided to pursue it.

"I thought that's something I could get into. I tried to source one and found a guy in Toowoomba who would make them," he said.

"We just started sailing on a Monday morning and more and more people would walk past and say, 'where did you get that?'"

"So it just grew, and now they have world titles, they have state titles — all sorts of things."

Unlike other members of the club, whom Eddie affectionately calls the 'able-bods' (able-bodied), he cannot run up and down the shore to check how his yacht is tracking or even use two hands to operate his radio-controller.

"I can't use my fingers. I've got one control that does the winch and the rudder," he said.

"It's quite difficult. The 'able-bods' can't do it. They're amazed that I can," he added with a laugh.

"It's the only sport that I get to compete against able-bods — being disabled."

Eddie has won plenty of events over the years, from north Queensland to New South Wales.

"In my younger days I did. I'm not as competitive as I used to be. Now, I just do it more for social reasons," he said.

A cure for a sailing addiction

There are plenty of sailors just like him.

Andrew Wilson has been sailing since he was five years old.

"When my dad built my first boat on our kitchen table," he said.

He's taken part in some of Australia's biggest ocean races — the Sydney Hobart, Brisbane to Gladstone, Fremantle to Bali.

"If you are really serious about ocean racing then you need to be prepared for very little sleep. You've got to train and adapt your mind and body to sleeping 15 minutes on the hour — brutal regimes like that — as well as being cold and hungry," he said.

"I found out after a year or two of that, it wasn't for me."

However, there was no cure for his sailing addiction.

"There's a lot of fulfilment to sailing by yourself. You have a lot of time to think and a lot of time to relax and enjoy nature," he said.

"But a lot of people enjoy competition and this is a low cost competition where you can still be with a group of mates — have a laugh and play."

The club's closure threat

It was Andrew's know-how that was called upon a couple of years ago when a complaint — the club's first in 25 years — threatened to close them down.

A boat owner claimed that lines from the club's marker buoys could become entangled in propellers and cause a crash.

"We were told that we couldn't sail here anymore and I was looking around the members here — many of them well north of 80 years of age — and one or two had bloody tears in their eyes," he said.

"I wasn't happy about that so I went away and had a chat to a mate of mine who's very big on electronics and I said 'can we make anchorless buoys?'"

It turns out, they could.

"It's two little motors. There's a GPS, an accelerometer and a gyroscope in this little package. The GPS drives it to the location and when you tell it to stop, it stops and stays on that."

Not only did the invention mean the model yacht sailing could continue in Manly Harbour, but now there's offshore interest and orders for the motorised, GPS-fitted buoys.

A 'Men's Shed' on water

Russell Gray and his wife spent three years sailing the Queensland coast and learned so much in that time, he wanted to pass on the knowledge.

The club now offers a 10-week course in sailing model yachts.

"It's like a 'Men's Shed' on water," he said.

"The 'Men's Shed' is a meeting place for older people. It teaches you how to use the tools and that. We teach people how to sail or how to get better at sailing."

Grant McDuling is a recent graduate.

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After a career in the navy, he thought he knew a fair bit about boats, but discovered there was much more to learn.

"I originally thought there was not much to it — turning the rudder to port or starboard but a lot of that course was involved with the physics of sailing, the wind direction … and how to balance your boat," he said.

"Then of course there's a lot of stuff about the rules of racing. It's not just about getting to the end first."

His wife bought him his first radio-controlled yacht for his birthday in February, and even though he's still working on winning his first race, Grant sees grand things on the horizon.

"I can see another yacht coming along," he said, laughing.

"You know, they say he who has most toys wins!"

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