Phillip Wright

Philip was born in Lakes Entrance, Victoria, in 1943 where he learnt to sail as a young boy. He trained as a Mechanical Engineer but his great love was the sea and sailing. He even named his dog Bosun.

Phillip with dog Bosun

Blue Water Sailing and Canada

As a kid, I went sailing on the Gippsland lakes. Living in Sydney in the 70’s, I got involved in blue water sailing. I did seven Sydney to Hobart yacht races. I was navigator on Ragamuffin. 

I had bought this beautiful masthead sloop Reprieve, 37 foot long, a very strong boat. It was built in South Australia, designed by the famous naval architect Alan Payne. So I decided to sail it solo to Canada.

I started by sailing south from Hobart around the bottom of New Zealand.  I topped up on stores in New Zealand and sailed south again, eventually coming up in Tahiti. I went south in a big curve like that which is actually the shortest way. 

I then headed up to Hawaii, stayed there for a few days and then sailed north from there for about 1000 nautical miles until finally I turned right and sailed into Vancouver.

Phillip’s vessel Reprieve

Map of Phillip’s journey to Canada

An encounter with a Canadian grizzly

From Vancouver I sailed up the coast north towards Alaska and had a strange occurrence with a bear - black bear - nasty looking thing.

Canada is beautiful and I was up at this place on my own. It was high summer and I wanted to anchor for the night and of course the waters are so deep in the little coves that the anchor won't lay enough chain on the bottom. So I thought, to stop it swinging I'll row a line ashore and put it around that tree over there. I joined two lines together and tied a lovely bowline knot around the tree. I rode back happily to the boat and went to sleep.

Well, in the morning I was just awake and I felt the boat rocking. I thought that's strange, it must be a ship come up on the outside with the wake disturbing me. I got up and there was no sign of anything but I looked round behind me and there was a bear…a big bear pulling on my rope and looking at me. I stood up, it stood up. I immediately realised I should not have tied that rope around that tree. I should have just wound it round the tree in a big loop and back to the back of the boat so that I could just pull it free. And I was saying oh shit, oh shit...

Image found on https://wallpapersafari.com/w/JMKjz9

I left in a hurry but before I did I put the rope in the water with a buoy and a small weight on it like a sash cord. I thought the bear can have the rope if push comes to shove. Lovely rope, beautiful, very expensive stuff, marine quality. Anyway I dropped the buoy in the water and I said I'll be coming back this way…

Several days later I was sailing back and thought I'll go and see if I can get my rope back. The buoy was still there, I could see the rope around the tree, everything was fine. I got my dinghy over the side of the boat and set off rowing towards the thing. I looked around very nervously I can tell you because I thought the bear's obviously tricking me. The bear's obviously got me ready to eat because they do. They eat you. 

But the bear wasn't there. I nudged my boat ashore, furtively looking around, darted ashore as quick as I could, undid that knot, raced back and got into the dinghy and started paddling back to my boat which was still drifting offshore. That was a very exciting little interlude.

Philip’s story was part of the Mornington Peninsula Shire presentation of Telling Tales at the Rosebud Italian Club in 2015.