Images(3)

The immense overhangs typical of the square metre class show in this image taken when the new o…

Wings

Vessel numberHV000299

Vessel Registration NumberKT791N

Sail NumberM 5

Sail Number315

Builder Harry Bond

Date1938

DimensionsVessel Dimensions: 13.41 m x 9.75 m x 2.13 m x 1.52 m, 2.95 tonnes (44 ft x 32 ft x 7 ft x 5 ft, 3 tons)

DescriptionWINGS is 13.4 metres (44 feet) in length and was designed and built by its first owner Harry Bond, at Lake Macquarie near Newcastle, New South Wales. Bond built it in his backyard and launched the yacht in 1938. It was then called WHITE WINGS. He raced it for almost 10 years and it was very well known in the region, setting some fast times in races on Lake Macquarie. One record-breaking win was in its first season when it completed a 28 mile event in 4hrs 14 mins at an average speed of 6.6 knots.

Lake Macquarie had a small fleet of square metre boats as it was an ideal place to race these low freeboard yachts. Eric Graham bought the boat in 1947 and it was then called WINGS. Around 1960 Arch Sinclair became the owner and he raced out of Lake Macquarie Yacht Club. When the yacht was sold to an owner in Sydney, understood to have been John Burnheim, it raced with both Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club and Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron and raced three other 30 Square Metre class yachts that were based with Sydney clubs. It was then renamed SCYTHE, before reverting to WINGS.

During 2002 it was based in Melbourne and competed in Classic Yacht Association events held on Port Phillip Bay but then returned to Sydney.

The yacht was lightly constructed in cedar and in 2009 was being strengthened and repaired to continue racing on Sydney Harbour.

SignificanceWINGS is a wooden racing yacht built in NSW in the late 1930s. It is an International 30 Square Metre class yacht with the distinction of being both designed and built in Australia, when almost all of the other local examples of this Class, between ten and twenty in number, were either imported or built from European designs.