'Redfern to Hobart': first Indigenous boat to set sail after 16 years of dreaming

All year, a shop at the intersection of Lawson Square and Regent Street has hung from its window a banner that reads “Happy 2016, the year of Redfern”. The banner is a wordplay on the suburb’s postcode – 2016 – and in many ways the promise has rung true for the local Indigenous community.

In July the Aboriginal Medical Service celebrated its 45th anniversary, in August the Redfern All Blacks won the South Sydney rugby league competition in front of an adoring crowd at Redfern Oval, and in October – after a year of meticulous planning – the All Blacks hosted and won the annual Koori Knockout tournament.

And now, after 16 years of dreaming, a few months of training, a crowd-funding campaign and despite a late change of vessel, an Indigenous crew will set sail for the first time in the iconic Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Indigenous communities along the coast of NSW are preparing to conduct smoking ceremonies to greet the yacht as it travels south, and the Southern Excellence 11 will fly a four-by-three metre Aboriginal flag from the main sail.

At the centre of it all is Shane Phillips: crew member, life member of the Redfern All Blacks and head of the Tribal Warrior Association. Based in Redfern, Tribal Warrior is a not-for-profit cultural engagement organisation that trains Indigenous people with maritime and other employment skills. Already Phillips is calling this race “the Redfern to Hobart”.

Planning for the big moment, however, has not been without a few setbacks. Just weeks ago, the keel on the Kayle yacht that the crew had been preparing to sail snapped, and repairs could not be completed in time for the race.

This misfortune meant that Tribal Warrior was unable to register an alternative vessel on deadline, although organisers have since allowed the crew to race the Southern Excellence 11 from a different starting position. Technically their involvement will be considered a training exercise, but as Phillips says, “we’re actually there to race”.

Tribal Warrior has also set up a crowd-funding campaign to meet the $58,000 budget. “What we’re trying to do is get sponsors involved,” says Phillips. “We got knocked back by a lot of people, but it’s amazing, now that we’re at the starting line people are starting to offer support. There are families and grandmothers, there are anonymous donors. We started with almost nothing.”

The son of Richard Phillips, aka Dickie Blair, an Aboriginal pastor and boxing champion, Shane Phillips was raised on The Block. He has seen the drugs and the crime and the conflicts, and for the past few years has been the centrifugal force driving community renewal.

With support from Redfern Local Area Commander Superintendent, Luke Freudenstein, Phillips conducts early-morning community boxing sessions at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence in Redfern for the Clean Slate Without Prejudice program; as well as running water, strapping sore joints and coaching footy players at the Redfern All Blacks.

When Phillips joined Tribal Warrior in 2000, The Block was “at its worst”, he says. “We represented death and destruction – it was pretty bad. We had to change it ourselves and own it. It’s not happening quick enough, and one of the reasons we’re doing this race is to keep upping the ante.”

Skippered by Andrew Wenham and Wayne Jones, the crew members are mostly from Sydney’s Indigenous communities of Redfern and La Perouse. Many have been through their own personal hurdles to be there.

View image in fullscreen

For example, the two bowman at the front of the yacht are Isaiah Dore, 22, and Athol Boney, 36. Dore, who grew up in 17 different foster homes, only started sailing on a yacht this year. Boney grew up in Moree, a regional town more than 400 kilometres inland from the ocean. Until recently Boney, a Gamilaraay man who now works with Indigenous youth on the Central Coast, hadn’t even swum in the sea. Now, after just 11 weeks of contact with Tribal Warrior and 10 training sessions, he’s ready to conquer one of the toughest yacht races in the world.

“I’m only a beginner,” says Boney. “I’m very fresh to it. I’ve only swum in the ocean a couple of times, and my second time on a boat was when I got on the yacht! Its a great opportunity for me to show the boys to not be shame to try something new, and to not be scared of failure. I can’t wait – I’ve barely thought about Christmas. I wish I’d started [sailing] a lot earlier. I didn’t realise how much I love it.”

The intensive training and survival courses have now been completed, and the crew are putting the final touches on preparation before the Boxing Day start. Phillips hopes that participating in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race will be an experience of a lifetime for the crew, as well as an incentive for the younger members of his community in Redfern. As always, he is talking reinvention.

“All we want to do is move the lens and let people see all of what Aboriginal people can do, and particularly Redfern,” explains Phillips. “Good things can come out of Redfern. We want to take it away from footy and boxing.

“People keep asking us, ‘why are you doing maritime’. We say, ‘hey, our people have been out at sea for thousands of years, why shouldn’t we?’ This is not new, it’s just a different vessel.”