Sailors who have made radio contact with the Eden branch of the Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol during the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race or on their return passage will be saddened to learn of the death last Friday of Jean Whiter after a brief illness, at the age of 88.

Jean was founder of the Eden RVCP, firstly from her home in Eden and then from the branch's well-equipped station. Her calm voice over several decades gave reassurance to those experiencing difficulties at sea, aboard yachts, pleasure boats or fishing trawlers.

She was awarded a Life Membership of the Patrol and an OAM for ongoing services to the safety of life at sea.

Jean was instrumental in the RVCP monitoring the Sydney Hobart fleet from the strategic port of Eden each year and over many decades took an active part in offering assistance to boats and crews who sailed into Twofold Bay, either after retiring or returning from Hobart.

Her prompt and decisive action in co-ordinating search and rescue operations played a significant role in many incidents off the South Coast of New South Wales and in Bass Strait.

Her daughter Jenny Drenkhahn (on duty today at the RVCP, Eden) thought her Mother's first involvement in the yacht race was taking a rich fruit cake down to the crew of Kurrewa IV after that yacht retired from the 1958 Sydney Hobart.

"She became interested in radio when my younger brother Peter, then 12 and a bit of a 'tech head', started fiddling with radios," Jenny recalled. "They got their radio operator's licence together."

Jenny said the radio operation and the Patrol was very much a family affair in the early days - and still is. "Mum's brother John Helmore, Dad and the four o f us kids, Robert, Ian, Peter and myself, were all involved at various stages.

"Ian and I are still on the Patrol roster as radio operators and Dad, who is 88 and also a Life Member, is down here at the station today.

"Even when Mum retired from active duty she set up an auxiliary station at home and she monitored the fleet sailing to Hobart right up to and including last year's race."

Jean Whiter lived almost all her life at Eden. Her father was the first agent in Eden for Illawarra Steamship and the family moved there in 1929 when she was just nine years old.

A memorial service will be held in Eden at the Star of the Sea Church this coming Thursday, 16 October at 2pm.

by Peter Campbell

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