For many years Archie . with great distinction . sailed the 45-li sloop Mavis in the early Islands and Montagu Island Races plus any other offshore race be could find . He later joined the Olympic classes , distinguishing himself in the Dragon class with his Dragon Mysttre winning many Stale championships . It was a great tragedy when his brother Ron , who h . 1d been a member for 20 years , was lost at sea whilM retumlng from the Pinwater as skipper of the yacht K11rrc1110 IV . The fo llowing tribute to Ron appeared in The A / fre11 ' s Navigator ' s Notebook :

The burgce wom by Sirius during her cruise around tl1e world in 1936-37 was preseored to lhe club by Harold Nossiter . owner / skipper of lhe yacht . The burgee is displayed in the Crystal Bay Room at Green Point

Sirius , the first Australian yachr to circumnavigare the world .

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Douglas , tl1e faml ly sailed the yacht Ro11Don to Sydney . Not a bad effon ns the year was about 1930 and lhe yacht hud been built in rheir backyard when Don was aged five and Archie ooe !

The brothers were adept sailors and competed in

0 .$ many ocean rocc ~ a . s possiblc- < hat meant practi · cally all of them . Archie ' s name firsr appears sailing for Tasmania in the Cadet dinghy class in R011gare when in 1925 he won the national 1itle before ii

became the Stonehaven Cup in 1927 . lt is inrcresting tharin 1928 . inAdelaide . thechampiooshipwaswon by our respected former member , Hero Weymouth .

The tragic loss al sea of Ron Robenson on the

15 June las1 whilst returning on Kurrewa IV from the Bird Island Race deeply shocked us nil . We venture to say 1ha1 with his quiet . friendly . un · assunung manner there was no beuer liked member in rile cnrire club . Ron bad been a member of the club since 1938 and was ooe of its siaunchest supponers . His achievcrocnis as a yachtsman arc so well known to us all ! bat any recapirulation of them here would be superfluous . Suffice it 10 sny that Australia has lost one of its finest yachtsmen and the club one of its most respected members .

There could have been no greater tribute 10 bis memory than the vast concourse of his yachting friends who , pulling all else aside , attended the memorial service held at St Mark ' s , Darling

Point ~ on 1hc2GJunc . 11te Rr : vc : u : u < l Oive Goud ~ win who conducted the service spoke feelingly and fittingly of Ron and of his many attributes as a man . llis wonls made a deep and lasting impres · sion upon those who had gathered 10 pay their last respccl5 . In the course of his remarks he emphasised that which must have occurred to u .~ all orunely the absence of any peace-time air-sea rcscueorganismion . J le pointed out that had there been such an organismion lhis tragedy might well hnve been overred and conctuded on this aspect with the observation rhat were such an orgru1isation set up even now ir would be a greater cribute to the memory ol ' Ron Robertson ! ban mere words could ever be . We would imagine thaJ there must have run through the minds of many of us when we first hea . rd of the tragedy , the words or Sir Thomas Moore uuered centuries ago in a somewhat different context , ' 1licrc but for the grace of God go II '. It is cenainly a maucr to which we as yachtsmen should give immediare anention with a view to awakening public interest and it is a matter of public inrerest because nQtonly yachtsmen but other members of rhe community at times find themselves " in peril on the sea '.

The deepest sympnrhy or every member of the club goes out 10 Ron ' s widow Alice . his son Timothy . his slsrers Thelma and Jean and his brothers Don . Nell . Archie and Doug in their sad bereavement .

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