Peter Luke, co-founder in 1944 of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, died on 23 September, aged 92.
He began his boating career as a very young boy when he lived at Taylors Bay on Sydney Harbour. His father, Monte Luke, a prominent Sydney photographer, gave him a 2.4 m (8ft) dinghy with a 1hp outboard motor, and it wasn’t long before Peter had converted it – with a sugar bag for a sail hung off a broomstick for a mast. In the ensuing years he graduated from dinghies to keelboats, culminating with the launching of his Alden-designed 12.6m yawl, Wayfarer, in 1942.
Peter finished his schooling at The Kings School, Parramatta at 15 and the very next day went to work in his father’s photographic studio, in the darkroom. He stayed with the studio reluctantly for the next 35 years, not enjoying the commercial side of photography but feeling as an only child he owed it to his parents to continue in the family business.
When the war came along he joined the Volunteer Coastal Patrol and spent all night long several nights a week patrolling the harbour in Wayfarer, doing sentry duty around navy ships and at strategic facilities such as fuel storage depots and the munitions store at Bantry Bay. He had acute memories of the Japanese attacks on Sydney in 1942.
With a sailor’s eye for a good-looking yacht and a photographer’s eye for a graceful line, he spotted in March 1944 another Alden designed yacht, Asgard, sailing on Pittwater, and always having a camera it his side, he photographed it and later gave the pictures to its owner, Charlie Cooper, a wholesale fruit agent. Charlie reciprocated with a box of fruit. Not long afterwards Charlie rang Peter and suggested they form a cruising club for like-minded sailors, as neither of them wanted to spend their Saturday afternoons racing around the buoys on the harbour. About June 1944 a group of eight yachtsmen met at Monte Luke’s studio in Castlereagh Street and conducted the first meeting.
Peter became the chief recruiting officer for the fledgling club. With his good looks and easy-going friendly manner, he would sail Wayfarer around the harbour or Pittwater until he spotted a likely candidate, and he would pull up alongside and say “What a nice looking yacht! We’ve just formed a cruising club; would you like to come along to one of our meetings?” He held various offices as secretary, Vice Commodore and Commodore during the first years of the club.
The fact that the first race to Hobart was originally intended to be a cruise is now well known. In May 1945, a British naval officer stationed at Garden Island, Commander John Illingworth, addressed a meeting of the club, and when asked to join a planned cruise to Hobart is alleged to have said “Why don’t we make a race of it?” The rest is history. The first race was a thriller, with storms and yachts thought for days to be lost. Peter Luke set a record in that race that stands today – the longest-ever time to finish the 628 nautical mile course, 11 days 6 hours 20 minutes. He used to say with a twinkle, “a record not exceeded even by an all-girl crew”.
Almost before they knew what was happening, the Cruising Yacht Club was headed off in a completely different direction from the one its co-founders had intended. Who would have thought that the ‘Cruising Yacht Club’ would become Australia’s premier ocean-racing club, and that cruising from December 1945 onwards would occupy only a minor part of the club’s activities.
Peter had a passion for sailing and read widely on the subject, developing a great understanding of sailing yachts and how they’re handled but was cruising man at heart. He participated in a total of four Hobart races in Wayfarer, 1945, 1946, 1950 and 1951, finishing only two of them.
He participated in many of the club’s coastal races and was an active contributor to the club’s magazine Seacall in the early to mid 1950s. As competition became keener every year, and to compete successfully one had to spend a lot of money, Peter increasingly lost interest. He was a staunch Corinthian and developed a distaste for commercialism, even his own commercial photography.
Peter was elected to life membership with two others in 1957 (the first members given this honour). When the club took on the first commercial sponsorship with naming rights for the Sydney Hobart Race in 1976 (with the Japanese company Hitachi), he resigned his life membership in protest, both at the commercialism and because of his memories of World War II. He was persuaded to accept it back in 1994 when at the age of 79 he sailed in the 50th anniversary race with Jim Lawler on Charisma.
Peter gave up photography in the mid-1960s and for several years held a number of jobs in the marine industry before retiring about 1975 to Port Stephens with his second wife, Monnie, and Wayfarer, living aboard the yacht while they found a place to live. He is survived by Monnie and her daughter Pauline, and his first wife, Betty and their two children, Lindy and Roland. – David Colfelt
