We had had our luck so the impossible was now up to Jock. In the late afternoon with a light head wind we tacked up the Derwent with Margaret Rintoul and Trade Winds again increasing their lead. Then the light breeze dropped as the sun disappeared. The sails on the other boats sagged and their crews lost concentration as Jock coaxed Waltzing Matilda 200 yards or more into the lead before we too were becalmed. The breeze came in again as the shore lights were going on. We won the sprint for the line and took the gun." Commodore Merv Davey of the Cruising Yacht Club won on handicap with Trade Winds. unfortunately, Waltzing Matilda had, inadvertenfly, been given a slightly excessive rating at the start which diminished Jock's chances of a momentous line and handicap double: "The Sydney measurer disregarded the extra freeboard in twenty feet of raised deck amidships in respect of freeboard height. Whereas in UK, where the RORC system originated, they take it into account, averaging it over the total length." Waltzing Matilda finished second on handicap to Trade Winds with Ellida third and Margaret Rintoul fourth.
1950 - Sailing Master on Mistral V
"The following year, I was invited to be sailing master on the American designed and Guy Rex owned 49-foot sloop Mistral V. The local media had planted us as firm favourites for the race, but the fleet of 16 boats were well and truly wide-open with some outstanding yachts and crews participating, and as anyone worth his salt would tell you, there's no such thing as a certainty, especially in yachting." It was to be a tremendous race from start to finish and much closer than had been expected by the media. Mistral V headed the fleet out of Sydney Harbour and down the New South Wales coast into a 30-knot southerly breeze which lasted for two and a half days. The previous year's second placegetter, the 44-foot sydney yawl Margaret Rintoul, skippered by Merv Davey, was hard on Mistral V heels and behind her, one of Jock's old rivals, the 40-foot cutter Kintail. The rest of the fleet was headed by the largest boat in the race, the 65-foot staysail schooner Mistral II, then followed the Sydney cutter Gipsy Queen and the 45-foot South Australian yawl Nerida. She was ahead of the new Sydney sloop Solveig, which had been specifically designed by the Halvorsen brothers for the event. The rest were spread out some 10 to 12 miles astern of these: