Setting Sail for the Great War

The book

On 27 March 1916 the Sydney Flying Squadron and the Sydney Sailing Club unveiled a joint Honor Roll of their members who had enlisted. The Daily Telegraph reported that every boat on the club register was represented on it. The Roll closed in August 1917, when the board was full, with 149 names.

Setting Sail for the Great War tells the stories of 109 of those men: their lives, their sailing and their service, from the decorated to the scallywags who found serious disciplinary trouble. Three club volunteers, Adrienne Jackson and Steve and Veronica Scully, researched and wrote it. It runs to 186 pages, with photographs, portraits and documents, and a bibliography.

The launch

The Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, and Lady Cosgrove came to the club on Easter Sunday, 27 March 2016, a hundred years to the day after the unveiling, as guests of the club's President, John Winning AM, and Sir Peter launched the book. The first printing sold out that day, and the club reprinted it.

Six more sailors, missed when the board filled, were found later. Their names went on an extension tablet in Illawarra cedar, hung beside the Roll in 2018 and dedicated to Julian North.

The club published the book and has sold it from the office; to ask whether copies remain, contact the club. Bookshops do not stock it. The National Library, the State Libraries of NSW and Victoria, the Australian War Memorial and the City of Sydney Archives all hold it.

• AbeBooks, second-hand: two copies signed by the authors, from US$32.54 plus postage

Prices as the sellers listed them on 28 October 2026.

Libraries that hold it: National Library of Australia, State Library of NSW, State Library Victoria, Australian War Memorial, City of Sydney Archives.