Tag: goodnews

When Walkmans were all the rage and petrol cost 52 cents a litre, a group of water skiers strode onto the Cairns navy base to execute an audacious plan to get into the Guinness Book of World Records.

The 1986 feat would be pretty much impossible today.

Back then, ten-deep crowds lined the foreshore as 100 water skiers fanned out behind a tourist ferry towing them through the city’s port.

Neville Fry was then vice-commodore of the Cairns and District Power Boat and Ski Club and still tears up when he reminisces about that time 37 years ago.

“I lived and breathed it for two years,” he said.

“My wife would wake up in the morning and say, ‘You did it five times last night in your sleep yelling, ‘Get those ropes ready’.”

Skier Paul O’Loughlin, now 77, said it was a golden age for waterskiing in Cairns.

‘That’s a silly thing to do’

The Cairns club was the first in Australia to pull off a mass waterski tow — first in 1983 with 54 water skiers then in 1984 with 80 skiers.

Its 1986 record with 100 skiers stood for more than two decades before a Tasmanian club broke it on its eighth attempt.

The initial idea came after seeing a mass towing record on American reality TV show That’s Incredible.

Neville Fry’s distant relative, Ray Fry, whose father owned shipbuilding firm NQEA, and Reg Reddicliffe, who was general manager of Hayles Cruises owned by his father-in-law, wondered if they could pull off something similar in Cairns.

“But after much convincing they got the approval from their father and father-in-law to put the event on.”

NQEA’s team of naval architects and engineers helped outfit Hayles’s 22-metre catamaran, Green Island Express for the first attempt on October 8, 1983.

Many skiers fell, including one who got dragged along with rope around his neck, but 54 managed to stay upright.

“We thought, OK, we’ve got to step it up,” Mr Fry said.

A year later, on October 13, 1984, all 80 skiers remained standing for the required nautical mile.

After a two-year hiatus, a third crack was planned with 110 water skiers.

Upping the ante

By 1986, Hayles had a new 30-metre catamaran, Reef Cat.

Engineers built longer 58-metre booms, which had to be lifted on with cranes, to cope with more skiers.

“We got 90 from Tully north,” Mr Fry said.

“Cairns was very, very strong in waterskiing and we had some of the best ski racers in the world so we had no problems finding people.”

After months of preparations, the morning of October 18, 1986 arrived and the harbour was closed for the record attempt.

The navy provided its jetty and the skiers filed onto the base to board the boat, including Ralph Cremer.

“We would never get anywhere near that front gate today with the security on a Defence establishment but they just had an open gate for us,” he said.

Although the inlet had far fewer crocodiles back then after decades of hunting, Mr Cremer said there was a reconnaissance to check on one resident croc.

Despite the harbour master’s initial protests, an 11-year-old boy named Wayne Mawer made the cut.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh Jesus, I better not stuff up because there’s a lot of people here and we’re trying to do something special,'” Mr Mawer said.

‘We got a bit of egg on our face’

The skiers walked out onto the booms and jumped in the water, then black smoke billowed as the engines roared to life.

As the skiers slowly started standing from the outboard in, a few tumbled.

“We lost 10 skiers out of the 110. Two ropes actually fell apart,” Mr Fry said.

The remaining 100 skiers were soon cruising down the inlet at 19.5 knots — around triple the current speed limit.

Flares from the boat signalled they had completed a nautical mile to set a new world record.

Then all 100 dropped a ski to do a second nautical mile on just one ski.

Sharryn Cremer skied in the previous attempts but was on the boat, pregnant, for the third.

“It was euphoric. It was just surreal,” she said.

“Then when we came around the corner and saw all the people along the foreshore, it was just unbelievable.”

Mr Fry said there was yelling and cheering from the jam-packed wharves, smaller boats tooting their horns, and planes and helicopters buzzing overhead.

Record finally toppled after 23 years

The booms were put away and despite challenges from around the world, the record remained safe.

Then in 2008, Tasmania’s Horsehead Water Ski Club launched the first of many costly bids to break it.

There were seven failed attempts — three in which booms made of plywood, gas pipeline then aluminium snapped, and one particularly painful effort where 99 skiers crossed the line, just two shy of toppling the record.

In 2010, the club finally succeeded in towing 114 skiers down the Gordon River in Strahan, ending Cairns’ 23-year reign.

In 2012, it set a bigger record with 145 skiers.

But Cairns’ single ski record is yet to be eclipsed.

“[The Tasmanians] just don’t have the water to go that extra nautical mile,” Mr O’Loughlin said.

“So we’ve still got that and who knows how long we will have it for. But it’s brilliant that we had [the double ski record] for so long.”

Sun sets on golden age of waterskiing

Wayne Mawer went on to win three ski racing world titles and became a wakeboarding world champion.

The Cremers continued skiing into their mid-60s and Mr O’Loughlin only called it quits at 75.

But Mr Fry said Cairns had changed a lot since the days thousands would flock to see waterski races off the Esplanade and the inlet was a playground for skiers.

Crocs aside, the skiers agreed the event could not be repeated in Cairns for myriad reasons, including the cost of insurance, stricter regulations and the waning popularity of the sport.

Mr Cremer said the support from the community and authorities at the time was extraordinary.

“I don’t think we can underestimate the amount of work that was done behind the scenes … for water skiers to turn up on a Saturday morning to have a nice ski down the inlet with 110 of their mates,” he said.