Remembering Steve
Steve Fairfax, the club’s extraordinary boatman, committee member and competing rower, passed away in 2007.
Steve worked tirelessly to maintain the fleet in working order and almost single-handedly rebuilt the entire singles fleet. He was a generous and considerate person who loved his rowing and the club community.
He left a funding legacy to the Club for the purchase of singles. The intention is to purchase boats from the interest to preserve the capital.
To honour Steve, a Steve Fairfax award was created and awarded for the first time in August 2008. A shield has also been purchased which will list the names of boats acquired under the fund.
He is missed by members and by the Club.
“Christening of the Steve Fairfax
Saturday 30 August 2008
Some words from Mary McCarter
Mary Quilty invited me to come back for a reunion row and to say a few words about Steve as part of christening a club boat in his memory. The last time I saw some of you was in Sydney at Steve’s funeral and afterwards at his sister Julie’s house. So I’m pleased to be here today to celebrate Steve’s memory where we knew him best, on the water and in the shed.
Steve was one of the first people I spotted when I joined the club in late 2004. If he wasn’t out rowing with Mary, or out on his own, either way carefully fitted out with elaborate high tech gear to monitor his every movement and level of performance he was in the shed repairing boats. And there was a lot of repairing. As fast as we learnt to row as fast as his workload expanded.
One of my greatest fears at Black Mountain Rowing Club, apart from falling in the lake, in winter, or crashing into another boat was having to fess up to Steve that I’d damaged a scull, and could he fix it. He was a good sport. He didn’t make a fuss. He just got on with the job. It was meticulous exacting work of which Steve was a master. At times he could have been mistaken for preparing to perform a complex surgical procedure!
Steve and I worked together on re-painting and re-labeling the oars. Or should I say I helped him set them up for a club working bee to sand and re-paint them. Steve was thorough in his preparation and planning. He researched the market far and wide to find the most technically advanced and cost effective labeling machine available. He then nutted out how to use it, which without the IT wizardry of a school kid wasn’t easy. Then decisions had to be taken about numbering the oars, where to locate the numbers – to the right or to the left of centre, where to position the club name to avoid losing them on racing days. And so the preparations continued. It was Steve’s dry and sharp sense of humour that got us through.
I recall one time coming back in a single, full of water. I’d fallen in mid course. I got back in and rowed to the club as fast as I could. I wondered how I was going to get the boat back into the shed without anyone noticing! I was exhausted, and feeling second rate. Steve was at the jetty, but oblivious to the situation. He was absorbed in his sophisticated performance monitoring bits and pieces. Eventually I had to get out of the boat, secure it, and chase after him all the while looking like something the cat had dragged in. Of course, then he gallantly stepped in and helped drain the boat and get it back to the shed. But he didn’t approve. He had high standards not only on performance on the water but also on rowing basics such as being self sufficient, able to look after yourself and your boat at all times and certainly not falling in!
I can’t think of a more deserving person to name a Black Mountain Rowing Club boat after. I’m just sorry he’s not here to celebrate with us this moment, and to know how much we thought of him, including the significant contribution he made to the club. I think it’s apt it is a double as he won a lot of medals teaming up with Mary, in just such a boat. I understand that rowers need Captain or Vice Captain permission to use the boat. Steve would have liked that.
So now to the christening. It gives me great pleasure to christen this boat and name it Steve Fairfax. I hope it brings good luck to many Black Mountain Club rowers and wins lots of races.”