You know, there were a couple of things in the first sentence of your post , rocky, that triggered yet another journo story.

Bobbin Head is well know in yacht racing circles. When I saw Brooklyn I thought: Jack. As in Jack Rooklyn. My mind works in very mysterious ways.

Well, with the Sydney Hobart yacht race not far away, and because the Aussie thread needs some entertainment OTHER than cricket....

The first feature story I ever wrote as a cadet journo was after the finish of the Sydney Hobart race in 197?. Line honours, IIRC, was won by Ballyhoo, a new maxi (in those days 65' was a maxi) owned by Sydney millionaire and pokie machine king Jack Rooklyn. Did the interview in the cabin of the boat, blah, blah, blah about how good he was, replete with big cigar, how he had paid big dollars for the boat and how it was a ***** performer.

Anyway, a day later I'd heard that the designer of Ballyhoo was in town. I tracked him down and spent an hour talking to Bob Miller on the dock. About how Ballyhoo was his best design until Rooklyn decided he wanted a fully-fledged safe installed in the aft cabin. Miller was totally p!ssed because it upset entirely the boat's performance. He was amazed Ballyhoo had done so well. This was between the various idiosynchracies Miller displayed as I talked to him -- nothing serious, but a little distracting -- something that marked him as eccentric. He also had designed, again IIRC, Ceil III, which won a Sydney Hobart (maybe the same one where Ballyhoo was line honours winner) and a variety of other boats, including Apollos for the (in)famous Alan Bond.

Anyway, I thought Ballyhoo, in her green and white livery, was probably the prettiest maxi ever launched. She was eventually sold off by Rooklyn to someone in Hawaii and was renamed Mystic Miss (I think). She whipped @rse in various maxi series in the US after that bluddy safe was removed. Rooklyn bankrolled purchase of another maxi, Apollo, that also had mixed success in various ocean racers, ostensibly under the skippership of Rooklyn's son, Warwick. Miller continued designing yachts with varying levels of success.

Anyway, the feature article was published. I was pretty proud of it. Probably if I looked at it now, I would cower in the corner in embarrasment. But it was a portent.

Not long afterwards, Miller changed his name because of some *****fight over a commerical arrangements. He became... Ben Lexcen.

He went on to design the yacht that wrested the America's Cup from the seppos. and continued a close association with Alan Bond that had been generated with his Apollo designs.

Just thought you'd like to know... even if it sends you to sleep!!!!

(Sad, isn't it, I can't draw on magnificent cycling performances to justify my existence in the world?)