ON THE WALLABY –23rd November 2003

THE RUGBY WORLD CUP-THE WINNER IS RUGBY

What a game. England ahead 14-5 at half time, Australia England 14 all at full time, 17 all at halfway into extra time and with 30 seconds to go, Jonny Wilkinson pots a field goal; and the Poms take “Bill” back to England by winning 20-17!

With an audience of 83,000 at Telstra Stadium in Sydney and an estimated television audience of 300 million across the world, the real winner was Rugby and I just hope that the IRB (International Rugby Board) have the brains and nous to capitalise on this World Cup’s success and help develop Rugby further in the so called “minnow” nations such as Georgia, Romania, Namibia, Japan, Uruguay, Samoa, Fiji etc.

Rugby fever overtook the nation and supporters from adults to youngsters

like my grandson Lachlan Dillon, seen here with his mother Jenny, became ardent Wallaby supporters.

My overview of the Cup in various areas is:-

* Best match – Wallabies versus All Blacks

* Best team :- Wales- who came here as also rans and ended up nearly knocking off both the semi finalists in the All Blacks and eventual winners in England

* Most exciting team,:- Japan- played 81 minutes in every 80 minute game, fought well above their weight and who won the hearts of Townsville

* Star of the Cup- Jonny Wilkinson who amply showed why he is worth $3 million plus to English rugby

* My hero-Kees Meeuws, the All Black front rower who probably saved Australian prop Ben Darwin’s life when, on hearing Darwin cry “neck,neck”, in an instant stopped pushing and fell over him to protect him from the collapsing scrum

* Best Wallaby – Lote Tuquiri- wow, an excitement machine who never stopped trying, was ahead of the game nearly every moment and hopefully (if he doesn’t return to rugby league) will be a pivotal part of the RWC 2007 in France.

* Best supporter:- the Mayor of Launceston Tasmania who declared that when Romania played Namibia there in a Pool round, all even birthday dates people would follow one team and odd dated the other. The fact that nearly 25,000 Launceston and Taswegians turned up, as instructed, to follow a game they probably had no clue about, was a great demonstration of how Australia took Rugby to its heart over the last 6 weeks.

* My best moment- yesterday morning, whilst awaiting to conduct an auction I walked into an inner city coffee shop full of English supporters. In my best Billy Connelly Scottish voice, I stood at the door, arms wide open and called "Go the Wallabies"!

This was greeted, initially by silence and many stunned looks and then by a broad Pom accent asking why I was supporting the Wallabies and to which I replied, with a defiant Scots blood heritage look, "remember Longshanks!!"

Needless to say, I had to keep up my Scottish accent, which wasn't hard as the only bloke talking to me was the waiter!!

Hell, it felt guid tho!!

My quirkiest observation of the Final though was that all the Aussies were decked out in green and gold (our national colours) whilst our flag is red,white and blue with the oppositions flag is in its top left hand corner but they were usingh another flag, the Cross of St George!!

How about we flick the current flag and have our own green and gold one??

TEMPING THE GODS-HOW YOU GO ABOUT RENAMING A VESSEL

Whilst the below has been extracted from the members page of the Westsail Owners Site (www.westsail.org), it is pretty close to the formality we undertook when we re-named “Salty Dan” (our first Roberts Spray 33) to Tringriz, any other methods I would love to hear about!!

RENAMING:-

I once met a man in Florida who told me he'd owned 24 different yachts and renamed every single one of them.

"Did it bring you bad luck?" I asked.

"Not that I'm aware of," he said. "You don't believe in those old superstitions, do you?'

"Well, yes," I said. "As a matter of fact, I do. And so do a lot of other sailors who wouldn't consciously do anything to annoy the ancient gods of wind and sea. Out there, you need all the help you can get."

Actually, I've come to the conclusion that it's not so much being superstitious as being careful. It's part of good seamanship. That's why I had to invent a 'de-naming' ceremony some years ago to ward off bad luck when I wanted to change the name of my new 31-ft sloop from 'Our Way' to 'Freelance'.

I needed a formal ceremony to wipe the slate clean in preparation for the renaming. I searched in vain for one. But research showed that such a ceremony would consist of five parts: an invocation, an expression of gratitiude, a supplication, a rededication and a libation.

So I sat down and wrote my own ceremony. It worked perfectly. 'Freelance' carried us thousands of deep-sea miles and enjoyed good luck all the way.

The ceremony should be read with flair on the foredeck before a gathering of distinguished guests. Or it can be mumbled down below by the skipper alone if he or she finds these things embarassing.

The libation part, however, must be carried out at the bow, as was the original naming ceremony. And I would advise you to use nothing but the finest champagne and to pour it all on the boat. One thing the gods of the sea despise most is meanness, so don't try to do this part on the cheap.

How much time should you leave between the de-naming ceremony and the new-naming ceremony? There's no fixed limit. You can do the renaming right after the de-naming, if you want. But I'd prefer to see a gap of at least 24 hours to allow the demons time to clear out.

Oh, and one other thing - you have to remove all physical traces of the boat's old name before the de-naming ceremony. There may be official papers with the old name on them, of course. If you can't destroy them you should at least keep them well out of sight in a locker during the ceremony.

But don't neglect to wipe the name out in obvious place - bow, stern, dinghy, oars, logbook, lifering, charts and so on. Likewise, do not lace the new name anywhere on the boat before the de-naming ceremony is carried out. Hoo-boy, that would be tempting fate.

The ceremony:

"In the name of all who have sailed aboard this vessel in the past, and all who may sail aboard her in the future, we invoke the ancient gods of wind and sea to favor us with their blessing today.

"Mighty Neptune, king of all that moves on the waves, and might Aeolus, guardian of the winds and all that blows before them: we offer you our thanks for the protection you have afforded this vessel in the past. We voice our gratitude that she has always found shelter from tempest and storm and enjoyed safe passage to port.

"Now, therefore, we submit this supplication, that the name whereby this vessel has hitherto been known, '_________', be struck and removed from your records.

Further, we ask that when she is again presented for blessing with another name, she shall be recognized and shall be accorded once again the self-same priveleges she previously enjoyed.

"In return for this, we rededicate this vessel to thy domain in full knowledge that she shall be subject to the immutable laws of the gods of wind and sea.

"In consequence whereof, and in good faith, we seal this pact with a libation offered according to the hallowed ritual of the sea".

Now pop the cork, shake the bottle and spray the whole of the content over the bow. Then go quietly below and enjoy the other bottle yourselves. - John Vigor

FOUR DECADES ON SINCE THE JFK ASSASINATION

Sometimes when conversation dies down at social functions, someone invariably asks “what were you doing when?” and one of the most frequently used events amongst my generation is that of the day President Kennedy was assassinated, the 22nd November 1963.

In my case, I was having a shower when Mum came into the bathroom and told me but it was not until 1995, when PJ and I were visiting the USA on a speaking engagement, that this event fully hit home.

We went to Dallas, en route to achieving one of my lifetime ambitions of visiting The Alamo in San Antonia, Texas.

Of course, a visit to both Dealy Plaza (where the assassination occurred) and the Texas Book Repository building where assassin Lee Harvey Osborne hid and fired were on the top of my priority list in that Texan city.

Having now been there, to my dying day, no one will ever convince me that the killing was not a set up job!

When you stand at the spot looking out of the window, as Oswald did, you cannot hep but wonder just why the cavalcade made the turn that it did to drive around an embankment bringing JFK closer to Oswald if there was no ulterior motive?

It should just have been a matter of the cavalcade driving straight ahead but they made this sharp right hand turn, then left hand turn to bring it past both the Repository and a low knoll, both of which you could have thrown a stone from and hit that car!

The saddest part of visiting the Repository and now Museum (visited now by over 380,000 people a year) is reading the sheets of pages of comments from visitors.

The most poignant I read was a simple one that said “they killed my President and I want to know who and why?”. Many would agree to this day and maybe, just maybe, the truth will out at some time in the future.

Carpe diem,

Tony