About this website
This website has been produced as a service to my students and those I meet whilst “sailing around”. It's just a collection of information that I found useful.
For those who don’t know me, I have completed over 300,000 sea miles in a fantastic career of ocean racing and have enjoyed every minute of it (well almost every minute). Now qualified as an RYA Yachtmaster Instructor with a Commercial Master 5 and Marine Engine Driver certification, these days I spend much of my time teaching sailing, navigation and seamanship.
In my youth, I had the pleasure of sailing with an “old bastard” who had a lasting influence on me. Unknown to me at the time, he was a paid hand on "Rawhitti", a 60 footer sailing on Sydney Harbour before the First World War. Lockie Sims lived in Elvina Bay, home of the famous Beashel family. He taught me to approach a mooring as if the whole world was watching, to sail up to a wharf without scaring the children and to race every competitor without fear or favour even if they didn't know they were in a race. He always wanted to be a good sport, to hate motorboats and always paddle home after dark so the motorboat owners would never see you at a disadvantage. Lockie's boat, Adelante, was a "gaffer" when I first sailed it.
It is presently for sale, as pictured with the vendor. I wonder if he knows it's history?
Lockie's boats were classics; no motor, no winches, requiring technique and timing. A handful when you consider what we use for the halyard and sheet winches today!
Now we have internet on board our boats. We have resources available like weather maps, long range forecasts, current graphs and velocity prediction programs, things that Lockie could never have dreamed of. But I am sure he is still sailing up to his moorings in the sky.
Over the years, I have kept gathering teaching resources, missives and articles. But where do my students access them? And then there are the funny stories, I don't know if I have told them or not, but they are part of folklore.
To save me trying to scribble notes, recall details of websites and otherwise make a complete mess of what I am trying to illustrate, I have put these resources together on this website. I hope that it ads to your learning experience and makes us all better sailors.
Damien Parkes
And one thing we can all do, is join a team and do good things. One Sydney Hobart campaign, minimally funded, organised professionally and with training, good people and motivation, gets a good result. My son Nic (rhs) Ian,(centre) the Chief Instructor at PSS and I took this second hand Sydney 38 to 3rd Place overall in one Sydney Hobart Race with a bunch of willing students. Good planning. Good preparation. Easy to say, hard to achieve!
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"The great lesson about going to Hobart or any race is to see if you can finish in the same clothes you started in! At least then you know you still have a clean change of dry clothes somewhere".