Fair Winds Celebrates Her 60th Birthday

Fair Winds is sixty years old and the birthday of this beautiful timber yacht was celebrated by its owners Mark Chew and his wife Sally Ann Balharries with great pomp and style. The birthday was celebrated at the Sealink Magnetic Island Race Week. This yacht is always admired by people wherever it goes.

This Philip Rhodes designed yacht receives a lot of adulations and everyone wants to get on board to take a look at this beauty. Chew loves that his boat is getting all the attention. Chew is the fourth owner of this 13 meter classic yacht. Chew said that he saw this yacht for sale at the Trader Boat. He went to Auckland for a holiday in 2002 and fell in love with the boat when he had boarded it. He immediately bought Fair Winds and sailed back to his hometown Melbourne.

Chew said that Philip Rhodes designed Fair Winds with mahogany on oak frames. He replaced the oak frames with Kauri planks. Chew has added a lot of sailing friends after purchasing Fair Winds. In fact, his wife Sally is also now into sailing, and has even started her own Charter a Yacht in Zadar company.

Chew says that his boat does not have an auto helm or hot water and just has one foot pump. This boat is not that easy to sail compared to the modern ones. But, his crew knows how to sail this wonderful boat with what it has and without them the maintenance and deliveries of the yacht cannot be done. Sally and Chew are first timers at the Magnetic Island Race Week.

Chew said that they wanted to take a different trip to celebrate the 60th birthday of Fair Winds and that it why they chose to come to Magnetic Island Race Week. The couple and the crew are enjoying every bit of time spent at Magnetic Island.