Some stay the same

In 1987, it was an analog world and there was no internet or mobile phones (except for the odd geek). A Tablet was something you took for your hangover and our Prime Minister held the world record for skolling 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds. (The one before that was famously caught pantless between rooms in a Memphis hotel with no recollection of where his pants were! Talk about needing a tablet.)

A slide night involved projecting a bright light through an anlaog photo negative onto a sheet. It was digitising my old slides that I found this old friend. She’s aged better than most of us and you can almost make out the brown paper bags with a good crew out the back.

Here you can just make out the Long Reef hydrofoil. She was purchased from Italy (ex Fraccia di Mergellina) in 1978 and served until 1991.

For the record, these pics were from a trip to watch the 1987 Coke Classic (won by Damien Hardman) which was co-sponsored by Sydney Water prior to the deep ocean outfall becoming operational. In a bit of a PR disaster, an unfortunate SE wind had the world’s finest paddling out in raw sewerage.