Sydneysider

At Home Base

Life With The

Other Half

( O n The Waterfront)

Once having adjusted himself to the 30-year sentence oi uymg a suburban house; having just about completed the in alments on the family car; and having polished 1 refrigerator, washing-machine and TV set in tancial noose does Mr. Average Sydneysider aim to put his

sT chances to one it’s got some hing to do with a boat. Not hat the idea, in itself, is new the kind of boat that comes that category. And not that hasn’t always been scope. • its size—now nudging two

>n there probably isn’t

ter city on earth which has any facilities for water sports, ;he climate to go with it. [inning at the north, there be waters of the Hawkesbury, enough to be regarded as outer bia; and the fiord-like fra Waters and Pittwater. is Middle Harbour and the eds of bays that run off y Harbour proper, and the waters where the Lane Cove Parramatta Rivers enter it. th of the city are Botany Bay George’s River—also more like than typical river; and of that again, Port Hacking ts dozen bays and a river Hows good-sized ferries to get up to Audley, in National Come the Revolution 'e never has been any lack ts on these waters since Euro came here to stay about 180 ago. Big yachts and 12 VJ’s and 18 footers; VS’s he rest—they are all here, have been motor boats, too

i, middling and frankly

-types; and the two-popping, •oat that you can hire by the r fishing.

„ none of these has created any revolution— not the sort of revolu tion we ve had in the last two That’s been caused by £nmn?o d f V ? nt of the speed-boat, a completely new kind of water vehicle that threatens to take over Sydneys waterways and maybe cut short a few citizen’s lives (though not necessarily those of the people who drive them). .It’s a trend that has followed a similar boom in the United States in recent years—born of new de signs and materials in these boats;

bigger and more powerful out motors; and congestion on the roads that makes people have a yen for elbow room and space To b My one of these space vehicles, it isn’t, of course, necessary to go down to any oyster-encrusted boat yard, take a dinghy and row out to a mooring to inspect vour prospective purchase. Instead, you < f e plush cit y an d near suburban showrooms that have sprung up in the last couple of years and there see the full Sitter what?s Verfng flbre ' gIaSS range of Nor could you call most of the people who buy these vehicles by the honorable title of “sailor”

They are essentially speed-hungry

Power boats of all sizes, outb oard motors, skiffs all in together await a growing army of buyers at a growing number of marine supply shops in Sydney.

torists who have simply taken to lew element. kit the speed-boat fad does not, course, affect only the fellow d owns one; it’s already had its ct on waterfront living in this fhen this “Sydneysider” came *ort Hacking to live in 1956, the ;est excitement that ever ruffled nea Bay was when one of the turned over his VJ and needed e help to stand on the keel to it upright again. Today it even safe to take out anything low as a VJ unless experienced jetting out of the way of the d demons from round the t. fmea was—and still is, for that ter —one of the most beautiful *ort Hacking’s bays. The bay is steep-to and although it ow stiff with houses, there is a jungle growth of gum trees a local pine that you can see a fraction of them, is still, too, comparatively quiet ays go in Sydney because all and is privately-owned right to waterfront and it is impossible he speed-boat boys from other rbs to bring their boats down ar trailers.

So Far—Good Enough

is private ownership of the :front is one of those real e accidents that date from back, and in this case, any the owners are far from the »naire class. st of them are on pensions of us kinds and they came out before the post-war suburban d into this Shire, st of the older inhabitants it their land 20 or 30 years One of my neighbours bought about 25 years ago, for £BO. 7 a similar block—if there were would bring around £3,000 or if the would-be purchaser was of the early land buyers elsewhere in Sydney and came )nly at the week-end, living in 3 or boathouses down on the front. Then, when they re they built permanent houses arer the road. Most of the are long and as time has on some of these have been ided, but the waterfront has iept intact. And so far, the las been kept comparatively But “so-far” and “com ply” are the operative words [’m sitting here writing this, coking about 80 feet down ' bay below. It’s a perfect y afternoon, late February; ky is deep blue, the sun but tempered by a light ster. bay is brighter blue than the Jn speckled, and until about a hour ago, reasonably peace-

£ ul - ° n ! of the local dlehards had rowed out to what they call the reef and was dangling his line. Someone in a 12 ft sailing boat, with very dirty sails, was runnmg before the breeze.

Then like the roar of a 707 let taking off, three speed boats swooped in from round the point One is of the jumping type that hits only every 10 feet; one is towing two skiers, cutting converging and diverging patterns of white foam on the blue water; the third is lust along for the hell of it.

They went three times round the bay as a starter, crossing just in front of the sail boat whose skipner apparently in doubt as to what avoiding action to take, merely dropped everything and wallowed m the churned-up wake of boats and skiers.

Chicken!

Then thev decided to have fun with our fisherman, darting in passing close, while the skiers played chicken with each other and with him, and his boat bobbed like a cork in the tumbled water.

I couldn’t hear what he said from here—but I could almost see it.

Now he’s pulled up his kellick cleared out for shore, leaving the field to this new generation of water sportsmen.

Until now, of course, a water frontage has been considered the most desirable piece of Sydney real estate. But I can see the time coming when it isn’t. I’m told that house values have fallen by about £2,000 at Kangaroo Point—until a year ago the classiest place on George’s River in which to live— because the residents have to spend their summer week-ends with their ears stuffed with cotton-wool.

George’s River is recognised around these parts as a speedway for the new boats.

It is paradoxical, of course, that although waterfrontages are heavily land rated and then sur taxed, landholders seem to have no redress from the speed fiends who arrive like some special week end locust plague wherever there is a ramp from which they can launch a boat.

There is no driving licence re quired of a speed boat driver: no tax at all on his craft.

There is only one small ray of hope in this thing they call the ‘trend” for more and bigger speed boats—that’s what is known here abouts as the Australian “credit squeeze”.

As a result, there has been a falling off in the sales of these boats, for which waterfront dwellers can thank God —and, of course, Prime Minister Menzies and Treasurer Holt.