Frank Bethwaite Remembered
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Editor’s Note:
A few months ago Frank Bethwaite was inducted into the Australian Sailing Hall of Fame. (You can read more about that and watch a video HERE.) We asked Frank’s son and long-time DBSC member Mark Bethwaite to write a biographical piece about his father as we felt a snapshot of Frank’s life as it relates to sailing would be a fascinating read for our members. We’re grateful to Mark for taking the time to pen the following remembrance.
Frank Bethwaite DFC OAM was born in1920 and in his 92 years on this earth he excelled in fields as varied as
Military and civil aviation
Model aeronautics
Cloud physics
Sailing and yacht design
Meteorology, particularly wind behaviour and prediction and
Authorship of three outstanding books on high performance sailing.
Frank’s school years and early sailing were in Wanganui. He enlisted in 1939 at the outbreak of WW2
His tertiary education was at the sharp end of a fighter bomber over the Pacific. As in Bomber Command in England, the attrition rate among pilots was high. To survive was to excel – Frank was a Squadron Leader at the age of 25 and was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1946.
In his own words, Frank had a good war – he survived, but more than that he met and courted my mother Nel in Fiji where she worked in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. So began a 67 year marriage.
When Frank was demobilized after the war, he joined Tasman Empire Airways Limited, the forerunner of Air New Zealand. So began his airline flying career.
My earliest memories of Frank were him making the most beautiful model aircraft from balsa wood covered with doped tissue paper. He set World Records for model aircraft flight duration as his glider designs were way ahead of his time.
One day when I was seven, I expressed interest in sailing and my life changed. Within a week I was in an old P Class trainer which cost the sum of 10 pounds. Not only did Frank teach me to sail, he taught me how to build and rig boats.
By the late 1950s, Frank was a senior Captain with Air New Zealand – he had excelled at civil aviation as he had in the military. He had mainly flown Solent Flying Boats which in Sydney was out of the Rose Bay Flying Boat Base in Sydney (now Woollahra Sailing Club).
In 1958, he and Nel moved the family to Sydney – Frank had joined the Cloud Physics Division of CSIRO where he was in charge of rainmaking experiments and operations. Once again he excelled and the papers he co-published within CSIRO were groundbreaking in establishing best practice in cloud seeding.
Soon Frank turned his mind and energy to sailing – he set up Starboard Products (then Bethwaite Design) and focused on the Northbridge Sailing Club.
Frank may have lacked tertiary qualifications, but he was perhaps the best scientist I have ever known. He felt very keenly my failure at the 1972 Olympics to come home with a medal – Tim Alexander and I were a fast Flying Dutchman beaten by the light winds and huge shifts off Kiel.
To allow better prediction of wind shifts, Frank applied himself to the science of micro-meteorology, drawing on his observations over a thirty year flying career, augmented by surface wind measurements correlated with clouds, temperature, synoptic charts and every other variable he could think of.
Along the way he was selected in the 1976 Olympic Yachting Team. He and I became one of the very few fathers and sons to be members of the same Australian Olympic Team.
The results of a lifetime of observations, research and original thought were published as “High Performance Sailing” in 1993. That book has been reprinted many times, translated into 12 languages and has sold many thousands of copies.
“Higher Performance Sailing” was published in 2008. His third book “Fast Handling Techniques” was published after his death.
Three extraordinary books from an extraordinary man – he excelled as an author just as he had excelled in so many other fields all through his life.
Frank designed a number classes - the Northbridge Junior and Senior, the Laser 2 and Tasar. He assisted Julian with the design of the 49er and 29er.
It is remarkable how Frank’s genius in aero and hydro dynamics was picked up by Julian to result in 18 footer designs that were unbeatable, then the 49er, 29er and Scud designs all of which are current Olympic and Paralympic classes.
Did the man have faults – yes, as we all do. He was a generous man - generous with his love to his family, generous with his warmth to friends and generous with his time to Northbridge Sailing Club.
He was also generous with advice – there were times when he gave people more information about laminar flow, Reynolds number, convergent and divergent synoptic situations etc than they really needed at that time – or any time for that matter!
In 2000 Frank was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to sailing and in late 2020 he was inducted into the Australian Sailing Hall of fame.
That he was a great contributor to sailing, there is no doubt, but he was also a great contributor to
aviation in times of war and of peace
cloud physics and micro-meteorology
sailing boat design and the thousands of people who have enjoyed sailing his boats
advancing the science of sailing, boat design and wind behaviour
Northbridge Sailing Club and the people who have been introduced to sailing and the number of World Champions and Olympians who have come from there.
His four children share great pride ride in being sons and daughters of this great man and our beautiful mother.
Frank in uniform in his 20s or 30s.
Frank, Nel and Mark not long before Frank died in 2011.