From saddle to steerage skills: 50 years of sailing in Abu Dhabi

It’s a little-known fact that in the late 1960s, western expatriates in the small fishing village of Abu Dhabi used to entertain themselves by riding police horses.
"We did that for a while," says Frauke Heard-Bey, a German who followed her husband David Heard to Abu Dhabi in 1967. "My husband was given a horse once, which kept trotting along the railings all the time. Then we discovered it couldn’t see in one eye, so no wonder it did that."
Then six Kestrel boats were donated to the residents by Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company in 1967. Mrs Heard-Bey says it was a great relief to find a new hobby.
For those who did not know how to sail it was an incentive to learn, and the Abu Dhabi Sailing Club was born.
"David and I decided to learn sailing," Mrs Heard-Bey says. "After that, we stopped riding the police horses."
She says that in other parts of the Middle East at the time, the international oil companies were building "very well-appointed compounds with shops, central air conditioning and facilities of all kinds".
"But in Abu Dhabi they just built 36 houses. The oil company donated these sailing boats to compensate for this lack of care for the social side of things, in a town where there weren’t yet any streets."
From those small beginnings the sailing club, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, now has 75 modern sailing dinghies in its fleet.
These days, the craft are sailed from Mina Zayed in relatively calm waters, as the sea is buffered by Al Maryah and Al Reem islands on the other side of the lagoon. But in the 1960s and ’70s, sharp sailing skills were needed to negotiate strong tides.
Western expats worked six-day weeks, with a half-day on Thursdays. Races took place on Thursday afternoons.
Racers sailed around two larger, stationary vessels they used as landmarks – Orianda, which belonged to Abu Dhabi’s medical chief Phillip Hornico, and Sujar, a yacht from Monaco that had belonged to Sheikh Shakhbut, which was moored permanently.
One sweltering evening in May 1970, Scottish desalination expert Iain McGregor stepped off a plane at Abu Dhabi Airport and walked over to the terminal building – a rusty Nissen hut lit by two 60-watt bulbs.
"All the luggage was stacked high in one big pile and you had to go drag it out yourself, there was no Customs," says Mr McGregor.
He returned five years later, this time to a new, more luxurious terminal building, to start a job for the Government as a water production superintendent, with wife Christine and daughters Karen, 8, and Mandy, 5.
The sailing club’s history is entirely entertwined with that of The Club, launched five years prior, in 1962. It had two-year waiting list when they arrived in 1975, and membership was a privilege not to be taken lightly.
"You had to attend a cocktail party to check if you were a suitable candidate for membership," says Mrs McGregor, who passed the test. "The Club was very formal in those days. In the dining room after 7.30pm, the rule was long dresses and dinner suits."
Mr McGregor, became a commodore, retired and moved back to Scotland with his wife in 2002. But on Wednesday evening, he is returning to The Club to share his memories of sailing in Abu Dhabi during those early years.
"Sailing gave me a sense of freedom. You could get away and explore a different world," he says. "One of the joys was that on a holiday weekend, you could get off to the islands to camp overnight near natural mangroves, and escape the noise of the city.
"On Saadiyat there were areas with camel shelters, so you had shade from the sun."

Source : The National