Australian square metre association

For Australian square metre yacht enthusiasts

Wings

Launch Date : 1938

Originally named White Wings, she is based on the Knud Reimers designed Waterwitch which was published in the 1937 book, Racing, Cruising and Design, written by Uffa Fox. A 4 foot model of Wings was built first in the back yard of Harry Bond's home in Lake Macquarie. Harry Bond then went on to build Wings. Her constrution is Redwood planking over spotted gum frames.

 

Harry caused quite a quite a stir in Lake Macquarie when Wings beat the skiffs in the round the lakes race. She also broke the lakes long distance race record covering 28 miles in 4 hours 14 mins. She was considered one of the gun boats at LMYC with the nickname Mighty Wings.

She raced other 30 squares on Lake Macquarie until about 1958. Renamed Scythe (with her long stern), she was moved down to Sydney Harbour where she successfully competed against the Sydney square metre yachts.

At some point during this period she collided with a ferry losing her stern which was replaced some years later. 

Her latter years were spent racing the other 30s and some 8 metres at the SASC,  Balmain and Drummoyne near where the boat was kept under her shortened name of Wings. In 2001 she won both summer point scores at those clubs. She also had a year in Melbourne at the RBYC and raced in the Classic Yacht Association events. 

Currently she is located in Middle Harbour.

 

Vessel Dimensions
LOA: 13.41 m (44 ft)
LWL: 9.75 m (32 ft)
Breadth overall: 2.13 m (7 ft)
Draft of Hull: 1.52 m (5 ft)

Album 1 Current images

Album 2 Restoration process

Album 3 Historic images