Tenacity In Spades

This sculpture at Bathers Beach, on the eastern side of the Bathers Beach House building near the Vasse Virgin olive oil shop, and just over Mews Road from the landmark Cicerello’s on Fishing Boat Harbour, seems to have popped up overnight. I’m sure it wasn’t there the other day when I cycled past on my way to the Fremantle Shipping News studio in Old Customs House. What’s the story? I wondered.

Credit Michael Barker

Then I noticed what struck me as very familiar nautical component of the sculpture, right on top, and immediately thought – ‘Tony Jones’.

Then I read the plaque at the base of the huge sculpture and had my hunch confirmed, but much more besides.

Credit Michael Barker

Then before I knew it, I received an email from fab Freo artist Jo Darbyshire confirming her part in the artistic endeavour and supplying me with all the missing pieces to the puzzle.

‘Tenacity’, the name of the sculpture, it transpires, was indeed installed recently, and ‘joyously’ Jo says, on this very spot, for the very first time, on 5 December 2025, just over a week ago. But the story doesn’t end there.

Jo explains that Tenacity’s journey to Bathers Beach has been a long one for the beautifully shaped rudder that you see in the sculpture. The rudder was rescued from a fishing boat called Tenacity, found abandoned in 2021, at the Department of Transport’s marine boat yard at Woodmans Point. Jo immediate asked to use the rudder and it was duly delivered to her by DoT when the rest of the old vessel went to landfill in 2022.

The rudder, and its wooden tiller, as fate would have it, was then displayed by Jo in an exhibition called Wam Wardanup/Strangers on the Shore, at Holmes a Court Gallery in West Perth in February 2022.

Wam Wardanup/Strangers on the Shore exhibition, Holmes a Court Gallery, 2022

It was there that East Freo master sculptor and official ‘Cultural Treasure’, Tony Jones, saw it. He asked Jo what she was going to do with it after the exhibition. What Jo didn’t then know but soon learned, was that Tony had been asked to make a sculpture on commission from Nick Unmack of Cicerello’s so the Unmack Family could appropriately honour their father and husband, Tony Unmack (a legend of Fishing Boat Harbour), who died in 2020.

So, Jo and Tony J took the rudder to Tony’s studio in O’Connor and, during 2022, worked together, along with fabricator Ryan de Groot, to design and make Tenacity, joining it, along the way, with a repurposed Marker Pole salvaged from Fremantle Harbour, as well as with one of Tony J’s famous wind vanes – the bit that sits on top and caught my eye!

Tony Jones (left) and Nick Unmack

Finally, an appropriate place was found by Nick Unmack to erect the sculpture and on 5 December it was installed. Here’s a great pic of Jo Darbyshire and Tony Jones embracing Tenacity after the sculpture was installed.

Tony Jones and Jo Darbyshire

The wind vane can move with the sea breeze, I’m told, something the sailors participating in the upcoming SailGP event at Bathers Beach on 17 and 18 January will appreciate – if they have a moment to glance up!

As you can imagine, this project has been orchestrated by a good number of folk, including, Jo tells me, the great people at Town Team Movement, namely, Emma Snow, Megan Humble the Place & Collaboration Enabler, and Rory Murray.

Not to mention Nick Unmack, Tony Jones and Jo Darbyshire, of course.

Given she was there at the very beginning of this amazing artistic journey, and also there at the very end, I think it’s appropriate to give Jo the final word about the sculpture. Jo says:

‘For me personally, the sculpture is a reminder of all the Tony’s who loved the sea: Tony Jones, Tony Unmack and my father Tony Darbyshire who died in 2018.’

One has to say, the sculpture also represents tenacity in spades!

* Words by Michael Barker, Editor, Fremantle Shipping News. Photographs except where indicated by Jo Darbyshire

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