Max has been a member of Fremantle Sailing Club for 28 years. During this time, he has held a number of board/committee positions including Vice Commodore and an eight-year stint as Chairman of Cruising.

Max turns 86 this year, and during a recent interview with BWB, it became apparent that cruising remains a passion.

This is part of his fascinating life story.

Max Sheen

Born in 1918 in South Perth, Max Shean joined the Royal Australian Navy in 1940 and was discharged at the end of the Second World War.

"That was the agreement - we all came in just for the war. I was trained in anti-submarine warfare in Sydney, and at the end of training, we were sent to England, and I served onboard a corvette called Bluebell. Our job was to take convoys from Liverpool to Gibraltar and back again. We did 12 of those in 15 months.

"The Mersey was full of ships. It was one of the amazing things about Liverpool. Apparently, before shipping developed, it was a series of ponds with liver birds paddling in it (hence the name Liverpool), but as the merchant trade built up, it was quick to develop and they dredged the river and built the docks.

When the war broke out, Max was in the midst of studying engineering at UWA.

"I'd done three years when the evacuation of Dunkirk occurred and we all thought 'things aren't looking too good - we better get into this.' So we left university and after five months training in the navy, we were sent to Liverpool. As soon as we got there we were put to work."

Training took place at Flinders Naval Depot in Victoria for a month, then on the HMAS Rushcutter in Rushcutter's Bay, Sydney for four months, sometimes at sea.

"I joined as a sublieutenant on probation. I kept that rank for two and a half years, which is the normal time, and then I became a lieutenant. But by that time, anti-submarine work was finished for me. I responded to an admiralty call for volunteers specialising in hazardous service. I didn't really want to... but they had a very good sales technique!

"First of all, they published a confidential admiralty fleet order calling for volunteers, and they didn't get enough so they sent a signal to all senior officers, saying 'please draw this to the attention of your officers'.

"So the captain of Bluebell called me up to his cabin and said 'Shean, have you seen this?' I said 'yes' and he responded with 'I'm going to volunteer. I did a quick think and thought 'well, I had better.' I was going to be shifted in six months because every two years, they move everybody around. I thought 'I'd much rather go with this', although I did think what we had been doing was hazardous enough - protecting the Atlantic fleet."

More recently, while writing a book, Max spent a lot of time researching a day when his crew attacked and sunk a U-boat. He found German records in Britain and discovered that on that day, his Corvette had seven torpedoes fired at it.

"Obviously, they all missed. I knew they'd fired four because I could hear them running - you hear them on the sonar - and we manoeuvred to dodge them."

Hazardous service saw Max working in 30 tonne X-class submarines. "These were very small... 52 feet, but they carried four tonnes of explosives, two tonnes on each side. The Collins class submarines are 3,000 tonnes one hundred times bigger. The job was to enter an enemy harbour and go under the target ship, which is the battleship... load two mines on the seabed underneath, set the time and get out. We could set the timer up to six hours. We'd normally set it to four and that would give us enough time to get out of there without speed.

"You don't want to race around an enemy harbour because you'll make too much noise, so you go quietly. The subs were diesel but the dives were done with electric motors. You had a snorkel, but of course, you didn't use it in an enemy harbour because it could have given us away. If the water is calm and if you're going at a reasonable speed, the periscope leaves a wake. So you had to be very careful. The only advantage a submarine has is being able to hide in the deep water - we had no defence."

Max said the subs were always towed out most of the way from the north of Scotland to within striking distance of the target.

XE3 in Hervey Bay, 1945 on cable cutting trials

"After you've done your job, you had to rendezvous with the towing submarine, which was about 5-10 miles offshore... the other sub would shine an infrared beacon, and we had an infrared receiver, so if you were say, five miles west, we'd get to the coast on the same line of bearing and steer towards the other sub, searching for signs of him on the receiver.

"The only problem was, the Germans had this device as well. So long as they weren't suspecting anything, you were right.  This was very hazardous work because you could think you were rendezvousing with your comrades when you were actually closing in on an enemy sub."

Max did three 'sorties' like this. He recalled there was a long wait between each and said it wasn't as glamorous as the air force.

"I would have done four sorties if the war had gone on another week. We were all tooled up to go to Singapore and sink a Japanese cruiser when the two atomic bombs had been dropped and the Japanese gave in, so it was all over."

On these missions, crews comprised of only four or five men, close to the maximum capacity for the cramped X-class submarine. Understandably, he said the war had been stressful at all times. "From the time we joined (in England) and were told our target was the battle ship, Tirpitz, I think we were all stressed, frightened, because the odds were stacked against us. You're anxious all the time, but you get used to it. We had 42 people on our operation and nine of them died. A few went into prison camp - six, actually - and the rest came back.

Inside Ex4

"One of the subs was caught in the nets around Tirpitz when the charges went off and she was damaged - by her own charges. They managed to get through the nets into the other side of the fjord and surfaced there. Two of the crew got out and two didn't.

"Its about an 80 mile approach to Tirpitz. In fact, I didn't get there. We lost our submarine as soon as we got into the Arctic. She had two crews: an operational crew in the towing submarine and a passage crew in the X-class. When you'd get within ten miles of the entrance to the fjords, you'd suddenly stop, the crews would change over, and the operational crew would get in, do the job, and get out again."

"With us, while the sub was still under tow, as soon as we got to the Arctic Ocean, the two parted - we don't know why - and the submarine was never again seen."

"It was probably crushed because it was very deep water - several thousand fathoms. There were three men lost in that one. Having lost our submarine, we had to patrol, and we could only attack a capital ship if it came out. The secrecy was very high on this operation because if the Germans knew we were coming, it would be all up when we got there.

"But they didn't know, which is remarkable because we'd been training up for this operation for over a year and they didn't have a clue this attack was coming. As history shows, we sufficiently damaged to the Tirpitz to allow RAF Lancaster aircraft to sink her."

Max said Britain's security was pretty good, but not so in Ireland. "Coming back from Gibraltar in Bluebell, only once did we go through St George's Channel south of Ireland and we were bombed within half an hour because there were spies there working for Germany.

"So you had to keep well clear of Ireland."

At the end of the war, Max was operating in the Pacific. "We came back to Australia in April 1945, got to Queensland, and the first thing the Americans said was 'we don't want you so go back home'.

"But we hung around and after a while they said 'Can you cut some of the enemy's communication cables?' We'd never done it but we said yes.

"They wanted the communication cables cut between Singapore and Tokyo. The reason the Yanks wanted them cut was that they knew but we didn't - that they had the bomb. They wanted to know whether the Japanese were considering the terms of surrender that had been sent to them. Of course, they would find out from diplomatic channels eventually but couldn't wait that long."

"As long as the communication cables were there between Singapore and Tokyo, they wouldn't do it by radio. If the cable was cut, they would have to send everything by radio, which could then be intercepted and interpreted."

"So we did a lot of trials on the Whitsunday Islands with cables. We already had the facility for putting a diver out from our submarine, and that was a great thing. We worked out how to grapple the cable and altered hydraulic cutters to cut the cable."

Off they went to Saigon with two divers: Australian Ken Briggs and Scotsman Adam Burgess and cut two cables.

"We cut these cables on the 31st of July... and were going to sink two cruisers in Singapore that had already been damaged by torpedoes. Only one cruiser was attacked and we were going to go back to attack the second cruiser when the Japanese surrendered.

"We reckoned that after we cut the cables, the Yanks got all the Japanese communication traffic and knew they had no intention of accepting the terms, which they hadn't, so they dropped the atomic bombs on the 6th and 9th of August."

De-arming took place in Sydney, Max was sent back to Perth, and he immediately called UWA to ask for re-admittance to the engineering course. "They said yes, so one minute I was in the navy and the next, university, all on the same day!"

Max was just in time for third term. He had six terms left to complete his degree but managed to do it in four.

"That was a good thing because my wife was coming out from England and I had no money and no house, no job, no qualifications... so she came out here and had to knit socks for a year and a half while I studied."

Max had met his wife Mary in Scotland while still in the Corvette, Bluebell. "I asked her how would she like to become an Australian and she said 'how about being married?', he said chuckling.

"We were married in June 1944 and it was very hard to get accommodation for our honeymoon, so we booked in at Marlow on the Thames - a very pretty place.

"While we were at Marlow, I thought we'd better go sailing. Mary had never been sailing before so I called a boat shed in Henley and booked a 12-foot sailing dinghy. So we took the train there and I took her sailing up the Thames. The Thames is not wide and not very deep but deep enough. As it was narrow, and there was a lot of traffic on it, we had to keep sailing up the sides keeping out of the way of the barges and so forth.

                                                                                                                                    Dec '42 - Henty Creer and Max  in diving suits training at LSH

"There was a pretty brisk breeze this day and I rather enjoyed it, although the boat was pretty shoddy - some of the rigging was pretty weak. I don't think my bride was terribly impressed - but She survived...

"Mary can't swim. She put up with it (sailing) for 20 years and then told me I'd have to go out on my own. She had a bad spine by that time and it was pretty painful on the boat."

Max still sailed by himself up until late last year, when his doctor advised him to be accompanied in future. A number of friends now join him on sailing trips but it wouldn't be a surprise to see Max defying doctor's orders!

"It's good to be independent. Sailing with a one-man crew, you can go when you want to and stop when you want to. With a crew, you have to consider them. If you can stay fit, you can handle a boat.

"Once you get out past all the nasty reefs out here [points to Fremantle waters], there's plenty of water in the Indian Ocean, and you don't come to grief in deep water, so once you get clear, it's pretty safe sailing all the way to Busselton."

Fit as can be for someone approaching 86, he still cycles from his Claremont home to Fremantle Sailing Club when weather allows. "Mary knows it takes me between 45 and 50 minutes to ride home, so if I take 44 or 51 minutes, she says 'where have you been?', he said laughing. "I cycle to keep fit."

After the war, Max didn't do much sailing so that he could focus on his university studies. Also keeping him busy was his first baby Heather, born a week before he graduated in 1947. "We only sailed on Sundays, otherwise I was studying."

Eventually, his brother in law Eddy Nevard suggested they build a 12 foot boat together. Using shirt off-cuts from the clothing factory where his brother in law worked, they made slipper linings, which they sold to fund the boat.

"South Perth Yacht Club was starting up so I went to the inaugural meeting and became a foundation member", Max said. "We had to build a clubhouse, which was an old construction shed.

"We sailed that one for a few years... and it was 1966 - nearly 12 years later - when I got into sailing a cruiser again. I bought a second hand cruiser, which I had for six years and then bought a fibreglass yacht, which I named Bluebell, after the war-time Corvette. My nephews, who were sailing 14 footers, encouraged me to move away from the wooden boats and get into fibreglass. I rather like wood, there's something nice and old-world about it, but fibreglass is better. They don't leak.

"I bought one as an empty shell and then fitted it out, hatches, rudder... it took two years."

Max participated in two races in his beloved 34-foot Bluebell, most notably the prestigious Parmelia Yacht Race from England to Fremantle in August - November 1979, which he won.

"That was a fairly rough trip outward bound but once we got to the Suez Canal, it was calm and you can only move along at six knots, using the engine", he said. "We could have sailed through the canal but that was against the rules.

Bluebell Corvette

"There were about 30 boats in the open division... but they didn't all finish. The race took about 90 days."

Max said he never thought he would win the race when he entered it. "I wanted to have my boat in Britain to sail to the Hebrides", he said. "We did that, and I thought coming home would be a bit of a bore so when I heard about this race I thought it would be a fun way to come home!

"You didn't have to win it, but I thought, if you're going to sail all that distance, you may as well sail at your best speed."

In contrast to Max's casual approach, there were some keen competitors. A few had custom built boats for the occasion.

"They weren't too happy with a two-bob boat beating their million dollar efforts!"

"You had a half hour in which to finish anywhere in the half hour would do. But the winner was worked out on elapsed time and your correction factor, which was based on the design of the yacht. The hardest job was logging all this but we had a mathematician... who told us how we were placed all the way through the Atlantic."

The mathematician quickly determined that the team's closest rival was Jon Sanders' yacht Perie Banou. Max described Sanders as a "real racing champ".

"When we got to Cape Town, we met up and he said he'd broken his spinnaker. I said 'I'm not using my spinnaker - take mine'. He said 'I couldn't do that. It would be outside assistance. I'd be disqualified'."

Mary joined the WRNS
and was serving on HMS Ambrose at Dundee.

"Anyway, he made it on time..."

"If you were using a spinnaker coming down the Atlantic, you would sail like the windjammers do, over to the west side coming down the South American coast until you get in the Roaring Forties... Now, we weren't using a spinnaker. I don't like spinnakers - you have to be on the tiller all the time. When we got down to the Doldrums, to the equator... we sailed close-hauled to Cape Town.

"John was sailing away to the west and he was forging ahead of us, and he got through the Roaring Forties while we were still in the Variables. When you get down to our latitude, 32º or further south, you get variable weather, you get long calms. John passed our longitude a few of miles out of Cape Town, so we thought 'By God, he's got this one.' But we still beat him on handicap.

"In the Indian Ocean we were both up against it for a time. We had easterlies, headwinds..."

To deal with an extreme rough patch, Max's team took down the sails and drifted for 10 hours. At one point, they even radioed Fremantle to advise that they weren't going to make it on time. Of course, they did eventually make it with 15 hours to spare... with Sanders not far behind.

"We'd been racing each other all the way from England to finish up side by side in Gage Roads."

Max fondly recalls arriving at the south of Fremantle, seeing the North Wharf covered by cheering supporters holding 'welcome back' banners. He worked for the State Electricity Commission before setting off for England and many of the onlookers were work colleagues. Another supporter of the team was Ampol, who sponsored the race effort for the benefit of the charity, Legacy, at the rate of about $1 per hundred miles.

Max said he was always interested in sailing and boats. He still has Bluebell, on which he sailed down to Geographe Bay last Boxing Day with some friends. He says he always wears a harness when on Bluebell in heavy weather. "With sailing, you're always fighting your boat - it's always trying to throw you off! 34s are good boats. They're lively but won't tip on you."

Max at Bute

In all his time on the water, Max has never gone overboard from a yacht, but during the war, he came off his submarine at night while approaching Saigon. He had been looking out in search of a lighthouse.

Max describes it as the scariest moment of his life. Luckily, he swam after it and managed to catch up as it was going at a slow speed.

Nowadays, Max spends his days peacefully cycling to the club (the second love of his life) where he passes many and hour helping to maintain the cathodic protection systems.

So far he has managed not to fall in while checking the systems - once in a life time is more than enough!

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