Dallas Brooks Trophy

Large silver trophy decorated with grape vines around the top rim, mounted on a plastic base, and engraved with the years and names of its various winners. The Dallas Brooks trophy, named in honour of a former Governor of Victoria, was awarded annually from 1951 to the winners of Australian 12sq. Metre Championships and Australian Lightweight Sharpie Championships. South Australian, Sir James Hardy, was one of the most accomplished sailors of this type of vessel in Australia and won the trophy in 1959. The museum owns four of his vessels including his sharpie ‘Tintara’, built for the Olympic trials in Melbourne in 1956. Certain forms of sail technology were refined or popularised in South Australia. Lightweight sharpies with shallow drafts were suitable for South Australia's gulf waters and were embraced with enthusiasm. The Australian Sharpie is a three-person sailing dinghy which has evolved from the 12-square-metre class sailed in the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. Australian Sharpies are 19 feet, 11 3⁄4 inches long, with a planing hull and a single mast. Sharpies race with a fully battened mainsail, a jib and a spinnaker. They are sailed competitively in all six Australian states.