A slighty out of date Bio. Extraordinary!

Frank Bethwaite

Airline Pilot

Frank was born in Wanganui, a town on the east coast of New Zealand's north island, in 1920. During camping holidays spent at Lake Taupo his father introduced him to the water with a collapsible canvas canoe. When he was 10 years old, he graduated to a kayak with a sail.

It wasn't long before he built a 16ft sailing canoe which he sailed either in the Wanganui River or, in favourable weather, off the west coast at Castlecliff. However, he was also interested in model aeroplanes and designed and built many innovative models. (Frank attributes his later boat designing skills to the study of aerodynamics and meteorology learned during this time.) Manfred Curry's "The Aerodynamics of Sails" had just been published and made a tremendous impression. "Sailing Theory and Practice" by Marchaj was another fundamental influence 30 years later. He played normal school team sports at Wanganui Collegiate School, but his preference was for sailing and model building.

A 12ft long, 6ft wide sailing dinghy, the "Idle Along" was designed in 1935 to take advantage of Wellington's strong winds and Frank built "Merlin" which he sailed it at Wanganui Sailing Club, and later in National Championships at Paramata and in Wellington Harbour.

RNZAF (Royal New Zealand Air Force)

In 1938, Frank joined the Civil Reserve of Pilots where he learned to fly with the Wanganui Aero Club. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the RNZAF (Royal New Zealand Air Force). After graduating from the first intake of pilots, he was retained in New Zealand as an instructor (much to his disappointment ) and spent two years training pilots at the Woodbourne Air Station in the South Island. From there he was chosen as a Test Pilot to fly and check out planes which had been serviced. From the last two years of the war he was flying bombing planes (Venturas) on operations in the Pacific. He attained the rank of Squadron Leader and was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross for outstanding service.
Nel was a Section Officer in Codes and Cyphers with the Womens' RNZAF and she and Frank met in 1942 in Hamilton. Nel spent two years at the RNZAF Flying Boat Station at Lauthala Bay in Suva, Fiji, while Frank was on active service in the Solomons' area. They were married just before the end of the war in 1945.

When commitments with the air force were finished in 1946, Frank was invited to join Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL). This was a Government owned airline which established the flying boat service between Auckland and Sydney and Melbourne and Christchurch as well as on the Pacific route to Raratonga and Tahiti. In those days the crossing from Auckland to Sydney took about eight hours and this made for prolonged periods away from base. Frank rose from Second Officer to Captain by 1955. Tasman Airways later became Air New Zealand.

Nel and Frank settled in Torbay, a coastal village on the east coast of the north shore in Auckland in 1946. Roster instability with the airline precluded regular activities such as weekend sailing. Instead, model aeroplane pursuits moved to the forefront again. A friend, Les Wright, invented a reliable radio control system that enabled endurance flying. Frank designed a model glider with the object of trying for an endurance record. The model needed to stay aloft and stay within sight so that it could be manoeuvred to take advantage of the coastline breezes and thermal lifts.

There was an initial problem with seagulls pecking at the tail of the models but gradually, as the designs became more streamlined, the planes flew higher and higher, eventually at twice the height of the birds. The model had to be fast enough (weight and size) to not blow backwards in the strongest gust but the sinking speed had to be low enough so that the model would remain supported by updrafts in the lightest lull. After five years of testing various designs and studying thermal lifts along the coastline, Frank won the world endurance record of over nine hours aloft in 1952.

During this time, Nel and Frank had two children, Christine and Mark. Frank had taught Nel to sail in the Idle Along during the war years, but because he could not sail in regular club races, he gave the boat away to a neighbour. John Spencer, a small boat designer, had a boatshed in Browns Bay nearby. John had designed the Cherub class boat which was just beginning to become popular in New Zealand. Frank bought Cherub #47. Although the airline roster hadn't improved, he managed to sail it with Nel, Christine and Mark from time to time.

Two more children arrived (Nicky and Julian) and then the family moved to Sydney in 1958. Frank had been headhunted by a scientific research facility, CSIRO, to take charge of flying operations for the cloud seeding operations. His experience with flying and observations of weather patterns from flying the Tasman for over ten years made his input invaluable. It was the most interesting work in which Frank had ever participated. Essentially, this was early experimentation into why some clouds rained and others did not. The main experiments were situated over the Darling Downs, the Snowy area, and the Ord River in the Kimberleys in north-western Australia. Frank also spent some time in Israel assisting the setup of cloud seeding experiments there.

Northbridge, on Sydney's lower north shore where the family settled, had no open areas to fly model aeroplanes, so Frank's attention was again focused on sailing. The local sailing club raced VJs, so while Christine and Mark sailed with them, Frank and Nel sailed the Cherub amongst a group of Seniors' dinghies. They became enthusiastic members of the Northbridge Sailing Club. Because there was no suitable small boat to enable Nicky and Julian to learn to sail in safety, he designed the Northbridge Junior (now 9er), a small scow with a single sail, simple controls and a flat deck that did not hold water. When capsized, it could be righted easily and sailed on.

The next step was to introduce a class which would be suitable for the 12 to 14 year olds. Another of John Spencer's designs was the Flying Ant which Mark and his friend Ron Holland had badgered John into designing for them. Frank built the first two boats in his garage and they were sailed by Christine and Mark.

In 1963, Frank was approached by a group of the Seniors' Dinghy sailors to help design a two-handed lightweight racing dinghy that could be sailed by both men and women. The Northbridge Senior was a collaborative effort that took shape on Frank's living room floor. The first one was 14 feet long and 5' 9" wide with a mainsail and jib of 100 sq ft, and weighed 140 lbs. This was the beginning of the Northbridge Senior or NS14 class and quickly became very popular, with many differing designs being built over the next ten years.

Up until this time the Northbridge Sailing Club had operated from a narrow strip of sand on Clive Park in Sailors' Bay. This was totally inadequate for the growing numbers of members which had resulted from the influx of new designs. Frank was a prime mover with a group of enthusiasts into the building of a much-needed clubhouse.This was completed in 1965 and Frank was awarded Life Membership for his leadership in this project.

By 1968, the cloud seeding experiment had been abandoned when the Radiophysics Department withdrew its finances in favour of the development of the radio telescope at Parkes to monitor the Moon Landing project. At the age of 48, Frank was retrenched and after a short period with the Qantas Training Scheme, decided to commercialise what he had been doing voluntarily, and that was to design and build masts, centreboards and sailing dinghies. So Starboard Products began, first of all by making centreboards in a backyard shed and then moving into sprawling premises in Naremburn. To begin with, there was just Frank making the goods, with Nel keeping the books, but gradually the company grew.

The next project was a request from the Northbridge Club to design a craft for the 16 to 18 year olds. After careful research as to weight and stature, the A-12 or advanced Twelve came into being. This was a 12 foot monocoque craft with trapeze and single sail. It was similar to a Moth, but much stronger. It attracted a good number of adherents, gracing the waters of Sailors Bay and elsewhere with its sky-blue sails making a dramatic statement as they danced across the water like a ballet corps.

Nova and Tasar

By 1970, with the development of new technology to improve the efficiency of the sails and rig, the NS14 was easily controllable by light-weight crews. Unfortunately this meant that adult men and women were out-classed in races and the tendency was for women to be supplanted by eight-year olds as crew. To rectify this problem, Frank adapted the latest Champion NS14, which had been designed by son Mark, added larger sails and introduced a class rule which prohibited light-weight crews, brought back the women and established a new class - the Nova.

In 1972, Mark was the Australian representative to sail a Flying Dutchman in the Olympics which were sailed at Kiel in Germany. Frank and Nel accompanied the Australian team, with Frank advising on meteorology. Whilst there, he met with Ian Bruce whose company had introduced the Laser which has become the most widely sailed dinghy in history. Ian visited Sydney, sailed the Nova and requested that a similar design be produced as a two-person dinghy. Frank then spent six months in Montreal where he produced a prototype retaining the main characteristics of the Nova, but deepening the hull to cater for the colder waters of Canada, a sloping bow and with Ian designed the ergonomically efficient cockpit. This new boat was named the Tasar.

At first Tasars were built and marketed in Canada, the USA and Europe, and over 800 were sold in the first year. It was not until 1976, that the first Tasars were imported into Australia. From then on they were manufactured by Starboard Products and over 3000 have been sold world-wide. After an intensive evaluation, the Royal Australian Navy adopted the Tasar as its training and recreation craft. The Tasar was introduced into Japan and World Championships are held in the northern and southern hemisphere countries on an eighteen month rotation. These have been held in Australia, Canada, England, Japan and USA. The Tasar is now an International Class recognised by the I.S.A.F.

1976 was a big year for the Bethwaite family, with Mark again winning Australian representation to the Montreal Olympics in the Flying Dutchman. This time Frank was also officially a member of the Australian Olympic Team as their meteorologist and the wind data he collected from Kingston, Ontario (the venue for the sailing) has helped to identify one of the behaviours of wind as outlined in Frank's book, High Performance Sailing. Also in 1976, Nicky and Julian teamed up to win the Cherub World Championships held in Adelaide, South Australia. Their Cherub was equipped with the new over-rotating rig that Frank (and Mark) had developed on the NS14 and Tasar.

As Julian started his sailing career in 18ft skiffs during the late 70s, Frank was right alongside advising on hull and rig design. It wasn't long before Julian developed this expertise even further but it started one of the most exciting collaborations seen in skiff sailing. To this day, Frank and Julian operate as a team, and it is no accident that if you half close your eyes and envisage the Tasar, modern 18s, 49er, and 29er, there are far more similarities than differences.

Frank's latest project, the sailing simulator, developed in collaborationwith scientist Prof Norman Saunders and researcher Jonathon Binns (currently completing his PhD), is occupying most of his time. Since 2001 this has undergone rapid development so that it can now accelerate learning to sail, allowing novices to take their boats out on the water, after a couple of hours on the simulator, with confidence and enjoyment. Frank is also completing his 2nd book, Higher Performance Sailing, a definitive text on apparent wind sailing.