18ft Skiffs: David Porter, King of Sydney Harbour in the 1970s
by Frank Quealey 20 Sep 17:50 PDT
Whether he was powering upwind into the NE chop on the way to the Beashel Buoy or flying downwind at high speed with the biggest possible spinnaker driving his skiff towards Clark Island, David Porter was the 18 footer 'King of Sydney Harbour' during the 1970s and is one of the greatest skippers ever to sail in the iconic Australian skiff class.
During a 10-year career in the 18s from 1970-71 to 1979-80, inclusive, Dave Porter won the 1975 World Championship, three Australian and five NSW (State) championships as well as numerous club championships at the NSW 18 Footers League and the Sydney Flying Squadron.
With just a little good fortune he could have added more to this impressive record as he was five times runner-up in the world championship.
And he did it all during one of the greatest eras in the 134-year history of the class and against some of the best sailing talent to sail the 18s.
During his career, among David's competition included Hugh Treharne, Bob Holmes, Iain Murray, John Winning, Stephen Kulmar, Rob Brown, Trevor Barnabas, Peter Sorensen, Denis Lehany and David Griffith, plus the McDell brothers, Don Lidgard and other great 18s sailors from New Zealand.
From the time he stepped into a VJ (Mistel) as an 8-year-old then moved into a Moth at the Lane Cove SC, Dave was always highly competitive and it was no surprise when he moved into the 12ft skiffs as a 15-year-old and set alight his championship-winning career in Australia's top skiff classes.
David was only 16-years-old when he teamed with another 16-year-old (Robert Olliffe) in a 12ft skiff, named Aussie, which was built by Roy Phillips, and won three club championships.
(The skiff was named Aussie in honour of his father (also named David) who also had a 12ft skiff named Aussie in the 1930s, which won the Greenwich Club Championship. Unfortunately, during the Depression of the 30s, David senior had to sell the skiff, but was a great supporter of his son. It also carried the same colour patch.)
Porter won the 1966 Interdominion 12ft skiff Championship at Auckland with Doug Matthews in the bow, then, after building a new Aussie 12, he successfully defended the title on Sydney Harbour in 1967, with Robert Olliffe back in the bow.
According to the Interdominion 12ft skiff History, New Zealand dominated the championship during the 1960s, with the exception of Dave Porter, in Aussie. It was an incredible performance by Porter as he was up against some of the greats of New Zealand skiff sailing. John Chapple had won the three previous regattas to Porter, while Don Lidgard, Russell Bowler and Bruce Farr won the three following Porter.
David then lost interest in sailing and went water skiing for the next three years before, as a 24-year-old, "I decided to get back into competitive sailing and decided on the 18s, which seemed to offer the hottest competition in Sydney racing."
With the decision made, Dave senior became the 'sponsor' and Ian Perdriau the builder of Porter's first 18 footer, named Aussie, in 1970.
David recalls, "Sailors started to realise how exciting and fun these new three handers were to sail, and to be successful, In the early part of the 70's there were many new designs being built, with the construction changing from the traditional moulded two to three layers of cedar veneers to plywood."
"The hull shapes were also changing from round bilge to hard chine, which made the hulls easier to build, quicker to construct and less expensive. You could now put a competitive boat, professionally built, in the water with two rigs and a reef in the second sail for heavy winds, for under $15,000."
Aussie was a round bilge hull designed by John Chapple and built from cedar veneer. She had a bare hull weight of 170lbs (77kg), including decks and buoyancy tanks. She had a very fine entry with full sections amidships and virtually no run aft; her stern sections were dish-shaped.
According to Dave Porter, "she had no runner stays, only side stays to support the rigs, and had her side deck extended out over the gunwales by 17.5 cm forming a wing to give the crew more righting moment. This initiative was the start of the future expanding development of the three handers."
Aussie had two rigs, a #1 mast of 9.75m (32ft) and #2 mast of 9.1m (30ft). She had four spinnakers, her largest measured 87.3 sq. metres (940 sq. ft), her smallest was a flat cut of 19.5 sq. metres (210 sq.ft).
From the beginning of the season, Aussie was 'unbeatable' and soon had one newspaper heading "FOUR IN A ROW FOR AUSSIE" leading into the first championship of the season. David recalls, "We won the State title in 1970, took the SFS club championship and were runner-up in the Australian Championship. We also finished fifth at the 1971 World Championship in Auckland."
Aussie won the single race Port Jackson Championship at the SFS and the Cock o' the Harbour at the League but when she got to Auckland she suffered at the hands of the then racing rules for the 18s which did not allow a boat to continue to race once she had capsized and been righted.
Despite being the only boat in the fleet to score two race wins at the 1971 worlds, Aussie capsized in two of the five races (winds in those races were 25knots in Race 1 and 30knots in Race 4) and was unable to match the less spectacular, but more consistent, performances of Travelodge NSW.
Rubbing salt into Porter's wounds, the rules were later changed to permit a boat to capsize, be righted and then continue to race to the finish. Had the rules been introduced prior to the regatta, the result may have been quite different.
If David Porter thought his luck may change in the new 1971-72 season he was about to get a very big, disappointing surprise.
He believed he could improve the team performance and with sponsorship of the family 'Porter Marine' business and decided to build an even lighter hull for the new season. Unfortunately, David's instruction to the builder was too ambitious and led to the hull being too light for a season of hard racing.
It happened on October 2 1971, when gale force westerly winds, reportedly gusting between 50-70knots (Dave Porter believes they were 60knots), hit the SFS fleet on the way to the proposed start line. During a violent capsize Porter Marine's for'ard hand, John Levee was thrown from the side of the hull, suffered a broken leg, and had to be rushed to St. Vincent's Hospital by famed Australian yachting coach Mike Fletcher, who was nearby at the time.
According to Fletcher, "She was travelling like a hydrofoil just before capsizing in the howling westerly. The only parts of the boat in the water were the fin and the rudder before it capsized."
Porter immediately built a replacement Porter Marine II, which was not quite so light, but was still much lighter than the average 18, and won his second State title before heading to Brisbane for the Australian and World championships.
David recalls, "It was a disaster, an absolute fiasco. We stuck on a mud bank and finished last in that race, then we capsized and our mast was stuck in the mud during another. It wasn't a good series. We actually didn't start in the final race of the worlds then sat out the rest of the year."
With the increasing cost to put a new boat in the water, plus costs to run it for the season, the Porter family business couldn't afford to continue financing a campaign and was forced to look for a sponsor for the next boat in the 1972-73 season.
They did a lot of work for Tooth and Co, which was the major brewer of beer in NSW at the time, so decided to approach them. Tooths agreed, and originally the new boat was going to be called Reschs, after one of the products. This was subsequently changed to another product, KB, and an amazing seven-year partnership was born.
The team saw the dominance of the Bruce Farr design in the 1972 worlds and elected to go with the design for the new KB.
According to Porter, "These boats had three complete rigs, with full dimension detailed drawing of every aspect of the boat, designed around the total weight of the crew. For a light weight crew the hull and sail plan were smaller than that for a heavier crew. The hulls were hard chine, constructed from light plywood and covered with a layer of Kevlar cloth. They were strong and very stiff."
"All Farr designs had extended deck wings, some had gybing centreboards, others had small skegs built into the keel aft to increase the water flow around the rudder surface and reduce cavitation under load. Most of the Farr-designed hulls were now being professionally built and the cost to race a competitive 18 was starting to rise."
Porter, with a new crew of Bob Tearne and Bob Ferris, had an excellent season with a win in the NSW title, and club championships in the Cock O' the Harbour and Port Jackson Championship, and won 19 races during the season. Unfortunately the team had to be satisfied with finishing as runner-up to Travelodge NSW in both the Australian and world championships.
KB won the first race of the worlds and moderate results in the following two races kept the team near the lead but the final two races were costly. Hull damage in Race 4 saw KB finish 15s behind Travelodge NSW (Bob Holmes) and meant that she would have to win Race 5 to take the title.
After leading for a good part of the race, the KB team was outsailed by Travelodge International (USA) over the concluding stages and despite beating Travelodge NSW for the third time in the five-race regatta, KB was defeated by a narrow point margin. (under the present point scoring system, KB would have won the title)
The success of KB during the 1972-73 season led to Porter being asked what he thought was the reason for so much success in the Farr-designed boat. He believed that "The top boats must always be overpowered all the time to get the best from them. The rig must suit the weight of the crew, sails must be perfect and the crew work in perfect harmony."
"KB was my first hard chine boat and it took a while to know her absolute limit. We were never satisfied and had to keep getting better all the time as the competition from the likes of Hughie Treharne and Bob Holmes was tough."
With the same Bruce Farr-designed boat as he sailed in 1972-73, and his first Australian 18 footer championship in his possession, David Porter and his KB team headed for Auckland as favourite to win his first worlds title. Unfortunately for Porter, Hugh Treharne, Bob Holmes and Michael Chapman, the NSW team was no match for the brilliant kiwi Travelodge New Zealand team, led by Terry McDell, which dominated the 1974 World Championship regatta with winning margins ranging from 1m 45s to 5m 2s in four of the five races.
Bob Tearne built a new Bruce Farr-designed boat, which was a little bit fuller and with not as much spring, for the 1974-75 season, and the result was a 'clean sweep' of major championships - NSW, Australian and World championships for the flying gold KB.
The 1975 worlds was sailed on the Brisbane River, which had previously given Porter so much trouble in 1972, and started poorly for the KB team which finished in 7th place after capsizing. It proved to be the only blemish on the team's overall performance, particularly on the long tacking downwind legs against the tidal current, which were big factors in the championship victory. The sail handling thrilled the large spectator following on the water and along the river banks.
According to Porter, "Preparation for the tricky river course helped. Three years earlier we hit sandbanks, we hit everything. For the 1975 worlds we went up to Brisbane a week earlier and plotted the whole river and made a map of where all the little islands were, which was a huge help."
"We had to make sure that we got out of the tide as best we could in all the nooks and inlets where the mud wasn't built up. Combined with having our third year together, our crew work was really good and the whole package was great for that year."
With the same boat, the team faced a very strong fleet at the 1976 World Championship regatta on Sydney Harbour.
Miles Furniture (Stephen Kulmar) had already won the Australian Championship on the Brisbane River and the scene was set for an epic contest between Miles Furniture, KB and Ansett Airlines (David Griffith) as well as Travelodge NZ (Terry McDell) and Travelodge Q'land (Neville Buckley).
The regatta, which was sailed in light winds on most days, started well for KB, with a 2mins win in Race 1, but Miles Furniture fought back with two wins from the next three races.
Going into the final race, Miles Furniture had to finish no worse than one placing behind KB to take the championship. Good wind attracted big crowds and they weren't disappointed as Miles Furniture and KB staged a great battle throughout, although Ansett Airlines narrowly took the race honours ahead of Miles Furniture. David Porter was runner-up for the third time.
After four seasons of competing with the Bruce Farr design, Porter elected to go with a Frank Bethwaite design for the 1976-77 season KB skiff. Bill Barnett was the builder and the crew were Will Morrison and John Levee.
Bethwaite claimed it had a "secret weapon" of lightness without frailty, which was "A skin of Kevlar cloth stretched tightly over the outside of the thin plywood hull. It's glued into its stretched position so that it holds there and tensions the hull to stiffness and toughness." He believed it added 50-75 per cent more in stiffness.
Porter's opinion, "It's quite different. The chine, the flare in the top section, the angles of the sides and the height of the boat are different. The boat is also a lot narrower, the beam from gunwale to gunwale, excluding wings, being only 1.8m (6'1") compared to last season's KB of 2m (6'8")."
KB was runner-up to David Griffith's Ansett Airlines in the NSW titles then won the Australian Championship on Sydney Harbour before the NSW team went to Auckland for the 1977 worlds. After finishing fifth to Porter in the Australian Championship, Iain Murray drastically altered his original Color 7 design before the boats were shipped to Auckland.
David Porter started the regatta as favourite to give him his second World championship victory but the early form of the New Zealand team surprised the Australians when Rank Xerox (Wayne Fleet) and Russell Bowler (Benson & Hedges) took out the first two races of the five-race series.
Recovering from the early setback, KB and Color 7 went into the decisive Race 5 level on 14 points, although KB held a two point advantage after each team discarded its worst performance in the four races of the regatta sailed to that point. If Color 7 won the final race, KB would need to finish second to become the 1977 champion.
To add to the drama, the race was sailed over a 22.5 kilometre (14 mile) course in a 25knot northerly and a strong ebb tide, which created a sea that many of the most experienced New Zealand skippers said was "the worst they had sailed in on the Auckland harbour."
Seas were so big on the reaches that only Ansett Airlines (temporarily) tried to fly a spinnaker and all boats elected to sail the same course on the windward-leeward course as they did on the triangle legs of the course.
When the boats still left on the course reached the last mark, the three leaders KB, Travelodge Queensland and Rank Xerox went off on a long reach again on port tack, but when Color 7 rounded the mark 5 half minutes later, Murray realised it was useless to follow the leading group and elected to gybe, set a small spinnaker and headed straight for the finish line.
With the leaders committed to their reach to the finish, they could do nothing but watch hopelessly as Color 7 crossed the finish line only secs. ahead of Travelodge Queensland, Rank Xerox and KB in fourth place.
The bold move gave Iain Murray the title, but for Porter it was a situation brought about by timing. Had he taken the risk of setting a spinnaker while holding a 5 half minute lead over his only series rival, he would have been criticised for such a reckless decision.
Commenting to Australian yachting journalist, the late Bob Ross, Porter explained, "We got to the top mark in 2nd or 3rd place; huge seas, absolutely massive. We thought OK, Iain was far enough behind not to worry about, so we just came around the mark, set a spinnaker and ran down the rhumb line."
"He came around the mark and did basically two really good angles, beat us across the line and that's what gave him the regatta."
Russell Bowler's Benson & Hedges finished in third place overall in the series with his small, light hull which pioneered a polystyrene core sandwiched by a very thin fiberglass laminate, with a structural frame. It was reportedly one-third lighter than the plywood NZ boats and sent a clear message to the Australians that ply hull construction was now 'a think of the past'.
All leading Australian teams followed the lead and most produced new Kevlar/Klegecell foam laminate hulls for the 1977-78 season. David Porter's new Bethwaite-designed hull similar, but unlike the others did not have an interior aluminium framework. The hull, with permanent fixed fitting, weighed 90kg (200lbs). The crew was Will Morrison and Ian Souter.
David recalls, "The 1978 season saw a change in the preferred construction materials of the hulls from timber to foam sandwich. It initially started with a solid core of foam, sandwiched between a layer of fibreglass or Kevlar, but this soon changed to superior materials, such as a honeycomb core sandwiched between layers of carbon fibre cloth on each side."
The 1978 World Championship on Waterloo Bay, Brisbane was reportedly controversial and exciting, and ultimately decided by a sail-off between defending champion Iain Murray (Color 7) and David Porter (KB).
KB took a strong grip on the series with wins in each of the first two races then Color 7 fought back with wins in two of the next three races, forcing the sail-off to determine the champion. Unfortunately for the KB team, their skiff had broken its mast in Race 5 and was forced to use a borrowed rig in the sail-off.
In the sail-off, KB led for seven of the eleven-leg course before Color 7's team introduced a half-ounce spinnaker for the first time, and in light breeze, Color 7 gained a winning lead on the square run. A wind shift turned the remaining windward-leeward legs into a soldier's course, giving KB no chance to catch Color 7.
Unprecedented pre-publicity on the event sponsor's TV channel, then television coverage from Channel 7's helicopter during the series, resulted in crowded ferries, harbour-side vantage points and a large fleet of spectator craft following all the action during the 1979 World Championship on Sydney Harbour.
The regatta began well with a 25s win for KB over Color 7, which replied with wins in Races 2 and 3, before KB levelled the points table with a second win in Race 4. Unfortunately for Porter, it was the last good news for the KB team and Dave Porter was runner-up for the fifth time.
After seven seasons of Tooths/KB sponsorship, David Porter secured sponsorship from the Channel 9 TV Network for a new boat, named 9 Sports, for the 1979-80 season and ordered one of the new Iain Murray-designed skiffs, which was to be outfitted and rigged by Iain Murray, Andrew Buckland (sails) and Don Buckley (rigging) as part of the 'package'.
David Porter finished 4th in the 1979-80 Australian Championship in Perth in 9 Sports and 5th in the 1980 World Championship at Auckland but obviously he was disillusioned when, at the end of the season, he said, "I have just had enough of the 18s."
It brought to the end, a decade of some of the most exciting speed sailing seen in the 18s by one of the greatest skippers ever to sail in the 134-year-old iconic Australian class.