Rhubarb 2017

36 ST EDWARD’S r h u b a r b

skied off the back of one of his ships, a 10,000 hp ski boat is pretty good. He would take time out from his career on the oceans. For a couple of years he was in Kano, Nigeria, managing a tank farm for ground nut oil. He enjoyed rallying in the desert in his dusty old VW. Then back to sea for a while, then a year following the hippy trail, touring Nepal, India and the Indian Ocean Islands. In 1967 a mate in Oxford needed Jay’s help. He volunteered, before finding out the challenge was driving his car to Australia. The two large men in a very small Mini drove all the way, having many adventures through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, then across the Khyber Pass to Pakistan and India. Jay’s career and travels took him to many remote parts of the world, his generous and infectious enthusiasm formed strong bonds with the people, and a deeper understanding of local issues. As history evolved around the world, Jay had a more personal view of world events, not always in synch with the popular western perspective. In 1971, he finished his Master Mariner's ticket at the same time as I finished my engineering degree. Jay decided that the pair of us should travel the world, it sounded like a pretty good idea to me! We had no specific plans until Jay called me one evening and told me we would go to Perth to build yachts, despite the fact we knew nothing about it. The decision to start a yacht business was Jay’s, and the name came from the Windrush River that runs through our hometown near Oxford. It sounded like a fun

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John (Jay) Macfarlane

idea, one small decision which changed our lives and gave so much enjoyment to us and to our many customers. Jay always had good business sense, vital in the tricky marine business. Jay’s favourite sail was to Rottnest at night, we would rig up the Surfcats on the beach, go to the Stoned Crow in Fremantle until they threw us out at midnight, then sail to

Rotto on the easterly. It would be a magic sail in the moonlight. One night, Jay jumped across the trampoline and seemed to be wrestling with a jellyfish that was determined to escape. It turned out that we had a wine cask lashed to the mast, and the cardboard had dissolved, Jay’s quick thinking had averted the disaster of losing the plastic bag of wine overboard.

Jay came up with the idea to sail 90km offshore from Geraldton, to the Abrolhos Islands to visit the wreck of the Batavia. This was a crazy idea in small Surfcats, before the days of GPS, radios or rescue beacons, and with the low islands only visible for a few miles. But with careful navigation we made it ok. In the Abrolhos one of us would jump