Why Venus? I moved to Melbourne in 1975from Sydney (Sans Souci) where I lived half a kilometre from the Endeavour Boat Shed, birth place of Endeavour Yachts. I sailed with the local sailing club from 11 years old, the proud owner of a very old and overweight VJ – you can see nothing much has changed with my first yacht purchase.

After a few very cold sails in Melbourne I gave up the idea of ever sailing while living here. Just over twenty years later my wife and I decided on a sea change and in 1996 we moved from Warrandyte to Williamstown. Why not give sailing another go? This time I considered a yacht rather than a sailing boat – may not be as cold! Apart from a Blue Bird, the next lowest entry cost was an Endeavour. I knew they could sail ok, but things had changed a lot in 20 years. The Endeavour was now described to me as an “FJ Holden afloat” – safe and reliable and good in its day.

Frank Brown had an Endeavour 26 called Venus (built in 1973) for sale at “Parson's Marina , so I went down and had a look. She had only two previous owners and had a pretty good sailing record at Geelong and later Blairgowrie Yacht Club. She had spent the last 5 years on the hard stand. I wandered into the “Royals” and “Hobbo's” to have a look, and decided there were a lot of well loved boats like Venus at Hobbo's, so I bought Venus for $14,000 in 1997 and joined the Hobsons Bay Yacht Club – a good move!

I had a friend who had never sailed before so in 2002 we started to compete in the “Stern Chaser” events. All the sails were “original.” I blew the Number 1 genoa in 2003 so we sailed the next season with our Number 2. In 2004 the number 2 became unrepairable so I bought a swanky big Number 1 genoa. What a difference this made! Before the handicapper caught up with us we had won the 2004/5 Summer Pursuit.

By this time Peter Hardiman had become a “crew member” at Hobbo's and we started to sail in the 2 handed spinaker events. The inevitable happened, we blew our mainsail, so in 2006 Venus started the season with a good number 1, a new main, new number 2 and new number 3. With all the new gear, this year we decided to sail in the Club Aggregate event. Brian Green (from Hot Chocolat) made up the crew and away we sailed, setting two club records.

Proudest memory of the season, being selected to represent my Club in the Association Cup on the 3 rd May. Most pleasurable moments this season, keeping all those 50 and 60 foot flying machines waiting while Venus completed the course on Association Cup day, and the loud, positive cheer we received from the crew of “Living Doll” as she overlapped us for the second time in the fourth heat of the Association Cup.