RQYS MAINSHEET 2025

Feature: Finn’s Boat Shed

Our Squadron’s silent ‘engine room’ A ‘Baker’s dozen’ of Volunteers in Finn’s Boat Shed is the quiet power underpinning our Club’s ongoing operations. They’re ‘hiding in plain sight’ behind a forest of masts in a corner of the RQYS Precinct — and prefer it that way, as Matthew Tesch discovered, when asked to illuminate the invaluable efforts of these (mostly) retirees, whose generous gifts of time, knowledge, skills, experience and expertise enable the safe operation of all our Club’s watercraft.

“If it doesn’t float, we don’t touch it,” is the unofficial motto of the Finn’s Shed crew, says its ‘chief engineer’ Noel (“Patto”) Paterson, our unassuming winner of the 2024 Australian Sailing (Queensland) Lifetime Achievement Award ( see last year’s Mainsheet, page 9 ) who was ‘forced’ to celebrate his 75th birthday in fine style — and with a special cake! — at the RQYS Bistro earlier this year. “That’s maybe not 100 per-cent true,” Patto goes on to say, after a thoughtful pause, “but keeping RQYS boats — of all kinds — on the water and ready for use is certainly our primary goal. We do everything that needs to be done to keep these boats operational, and I think we’ve got upwards of 70 or so …” It’s a modest understatement from a bloke who’s been a driver of the essential support, repair and renewal services given to our Squadron, its gear and to our Members, and who keeps getting caught in the headlights of numerous awards, accolades and recognition of his Volunteering and ‘giving back’ ethos, despite eschewing such limelights. Finn’s Shed is, officially, six years-old this year, but 2018 is when the story really started: Mick “St Mick” Mallan was looking for something productive on which to focus after retiring and Patto, as a Volunteer on the Sailing Committee, was lamenting the lack of affordable maintenance work on the Squadron’s flotillas of Optis, RhIBs and various other boats on the rolls. According to Patto today, Sailing Manager Mark Dingley’s response then to his repeated “whingeing about maintenance” (Patto’s words) is either unrecalled or unprintable (depending on who you talk to) but the outcome quickly coalesced around a core group of Volunteers determined to do something about the issue. They started operating from a ‘temporary’ 20-foot TEU container before shifting to a shed (which, for 10 years, was the Sailing Office) until — several concrete slabs, some posts and new roofing later — the Finn’s Shed crew found themselves, at last, in 2025, in a dedicated new home (and a “mini-chandlery” workshop) with a 40-foot TEU as an adjunct facility, one kitted-out with benches lined with donated machines, tools and electrical equipment. And that’s one thing about truly passionate personal commitments: they become a bright light which attracts others similarly inclined — whether it’s to (privately) donate equipment or to (publicly-ish) give of time and talent — in support of a worthy cause and a shared vision and sense of responsibility and duty. Origins

L: Patto receives his 75th birthday cake at a special RQYS Bistro gathering earlier

this year. (Pic: MM)

Background image: Mick “St Mick” Mallan sits guard over the immaculate fresh (still wet!) coat of varnish on an expansive benchtop. (Pic: MT)

L: Patto presides over just one section of the “ “mini-chandlery” that is crucial to the Finn’s Shed Volunteers’ work. (Pic: MT)

Mainsheet 2025

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Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron Yearbook