Historic 18s provide wonderful contrast

by Lisa Ratcliff, Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta on 7 Mar 2010 Australian entrepreneur and rugby league patron Mark Foy introduced to the historic 18 foot skiff class, racing on Sydney Harbour, the innovation of handicaps being applied at the beginning rather than at the end of the race.

Due to the league connection it was quite common in the 1930s to have players load up on the weighty skiffs during the summer, their off-season, and the skiff crews took to wearing the jerseys of different teams.

Yesterday a number of crews were sporting rugby jerseys for the second race of the class’s three-race Australian Championship, sailed in conjunction with Middle Harbour Yacht Club’s fifth staging of one of Australia’s largest keel boat regattas, Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta.

The crew of Ian Smith’s Britannia were well dressed in their orange and blue striped jerseys, the crew hiking out for the very wet upwind rides, which is typical of the class. In the class’ heyday the task of bailing out the salt water that tends to pour in over the gunwales usually fell to a child, often referred to as a ‘bailer boy’, and yesterday one of Britannia’s crew took on the never-ending task with gusto.

Following their start gun, the crew of Harold Cudmore’s historic 18 footer called Mistake smartly opted to stay out of the tide on the western shore of the harbour, some of the crew really testing their abdominal strength hiking out in the building nor’easter. However it didn’t prove the winning move they might have hoped and they had to settle for fifth place from a fleet of eight.

Cudmore is a famous British America’s Cup and Admiral’s Cup yachtsman who spends the northern hemisphere summer in Cowes and the southern hemisphere summer in Sydney.

Another famous skipper amongst the class is John Winning, who sails a replica historic skiff as well as the modern day lightweight version. He finished sixth with Australia IV while Dick Knotley’s skiff called Scot, which somewhat bucks the more classical names such as Britannia and Tangalooma, finished first.

While the ultra modern IRC boats sailed past to their finish line, with their brightly coloured carbon fibre booms and enormous coloured wheels, the timber built skiffs, with their huge sail areas and mass of bodies needed for ballast, provided a wonderful contrast on the harbour on day one of Audi Sydney Harbour Regatta for 2010.