"It'll Do" Joins the Fleet

We were on holiday in Adelaide for Christmas, plus competing in the Australian Heron championships at Henley Sailing Club in January. Dad and I were sailing together and my sister was crewing for someone else from Whyalla (probably Roy Ward or Ross Stacey). As I recall the Whyalla boats were typically placing around 30th in a fleet of about 100 Herons.

Dad decided to purchase a somewhat run down Holdfast Trainer for my brother Kym to sail.

The Holdfast Trainer, which was designed in 1948, is a great boat for 8–15 year olds. They are sailed mainly in South Australia and are a modified Sabot with the addition of a deck, bowsprit and a jib. These additions improved the boats performance and made them suitable for a crew of two young children to learn to sail.

Our Holdfast Trainer had been professionally built with one design racing in mind and had a very good set of sails.

On returning home to Whyalla, Dad and I began to quickly get the boat in shape. The phrase "It'll Do" was used quite a bit during the process and when it came time to name the boat, that was the name that stuck.

And so Kym proceeded to learn to sail in "It'll Do" on Sunday mornings with his mate Simon Finch in the Whyalla Yacht Club's junior class. And in the afternoon they'd go racing.

One time, whilst racing in the Heron class, Dad and I noticed Kym going the wrong way during a race. He was chatting away to Simon, totally oblivious as to what was happening. And he still won the race that day!