Bungoona

Designed by David Philp, Naval Architect, in Sydney in 1946. The son of a Hobart shipping agent and respected authority on both shipping and whaling in the early days of Tasmania, David trained as an architect of buildings but had strong family connections with yachts.

In the early 1940s David moved to Sydney, opening his own practice in Pitt Street, and gained some reputation over a relatively short period of time both as a yacht designer/skipper and in his role as official measurer for the Cruising Yacht Club in the early Sydney to Hobart races. David and his family moved to Fiji where he worked with his architect brother Colin developing one of the early resort hotels. David died in 1969.

Commissioned by J.E. Moore and built of local timbers, Bungoona (meaning ‘Sandy Creek’ in the language of the local Dharawal Nation) was launched on Sydney Harbour on 15 February 1950 to no great fanfare.

Rumour has it that the original rig was a bit too small to satisfy Mr Moore’s racing ambitions and in 1957 he engaged a young Alan Payne – the designer of many famous Australian yachts including Gretel, a challenger for the America’s Cup – to design a new rig.

For many years Bungoona was a regular entrant in the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron’s Sydney Harbour racing circuit, before being brought to Melbourne in 1998 by her former owners, Ernst Zacher and Col Bandy.

She has been a part of the CYAA fleet ever since. The original drawings and specification documents have always been retained by the owners and attest to the quality of her construction and the minimal changes during her 60 years on the water.