Skiffies' Mailbag- Reflecting on the Glory Daze

by Various on 14 Jul 2009 Got a story to tell about the good old daze of skiff sailing with the 50th Interdominion coming up? Let's hear it, and with photo's too, if you have them! Drop a line to nzeditor@sail-world.com

John Sharps writes:

Further to Cedric Allan’s comments on the Ada, I would like to add the following:

My father John Sharps designed and built the Ada. She was originally sailed two handed, more often than not, with John Lasher on the helm and my father as forward hand on the trapeze. My father believes the Ada was probably the first Q to have a trapeze. In certain points of sail i.e. reaching, she was very fast and could beat the International 14’s.

After I read the article, I phoned him to tell him about it and he gave me the following information on the Ada.

She was very lightly built even for now in that the hull was 2 skin (kahikatea on the inside and kaiwaka on the outside) to give a total thickness of ¼', on 3/8' square oregon stringers. The deck was the same material but only a total of 1/8' thick. The stringers were of kahikatea, 3/8' square but ripped down the middle to form a hollow stringer. In spite of the lightness she was very strong and the hull very fair.

Some basic dimensions were 14’ foot on the main, 14’ spinnaker pole, 9’ foot on the jib. He couldn’t remember the mast height.

I described the photo to him but he couldn’t remember if he was on board, but thought it could have been when his cousin Brian Kernot sailed her and in which case there would have been three crew.

She was sold to Ian McRobie who took her to Australia to sail in the Interdominion’s, using three crew, which my father felt was a mistake.

Regards
Steve Sharps

Cedric Allan represented New Zealand in 12ft skiffs and also raced 18fters, X class and Finns, plus a variety of keelboats. A former journalist with the Auckland Star, including being the Auckland evening daily's yachting reporter, he moved into public relations and is one of New Zealand's leading PR practitioners. Cedric provided this sample of images from the early days of 12ft skiff including three man skiffs and before the days of the skipper trapezing.

He writes:

'Q 2 is Ada, a three man boat which represented New Zealand in the first interdominion, racing off Glendowie. Just behind her in the water you can make out three blokes in the water, no doubt with their submerged Q just under the water, having capsized a little earlier.

'Q 50 is Ken Rushbrook’s Vague, one of the top New Zealand boats in the second interdominion, held in Auckland. How fast do your reckon she is going? (Ed: Probably about 12 kts, but it must have felt like 50kts! And, perception is reality, isn't it?)

'Q 6 is Voodoo, sailed here by Jock Jackson (skipper) and Ron Lusty of Milford in the 1961 interdominion in Auckland. One of the first hard chine boats, designed by Bill Herald, who also campaigned Fluff Q 35 in the second interdominion, won by Kitty, John Peet’s cat. i.e. Vague and Fluff represented New Zealand in the same event.

'Finally Q 1 is Tangent, an exquisite little clinker- ply design with a banana mast, sailed in the pic by Dave and Frank Donaghi, both of whom crewed for Bernie Skinner when he won the world 18-footer series in Auckland in 1960 in Surprise, another Marks design. (Tangent was not the original Q – the sail numbers mean nothing in terms of chronology. Ed: In fact in our memory the Q registration numbers were pretty free-form, you just picked a unique number and that was fine.)

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Noel Heerdegen writes:

Message: Hi 12ft golden oldies, i have just got this message from Bill Bollard Gosford Australia who I crewed for 3 years when i lived there in 1963-66.

I met Bill Bollard when i went in the team to Sydney in 61 with Russell Boterill. After that I teamed up with Bryce Lyons in Gimmick and sailed in the series that John Chapple won again.

I met and made lifelong friends from those races and still correspond with Bill Bollard, he designed and built a boat called Venom and when we did the trials in Australia in '64 there were 80 boats in the first start we finished 5th but with high winds we dropped back.

The last Trial we had to beat Chapple Soprinino to be 12th boat, we were just ahead going to the finishing line and broke our forestay and John sailed past and made 12th position.

John Chapple was impressed with Bill's boat it was clinker built and weighed 75lbs with plate and rudder on board. Later on we used a 500 sq ft spinnaker, the fastest I have ever been on a 12.

I had a lot of fun sailing in Aussie they are great blokes. Cheers Noel