Would the 18' skiff survive ? Options

[TeamFugu]

Its all about money for the AC. These are big boy toys for only the very rich. I think one thing that might help the 18's and dinghys in general would be to find some bad boy rocker that loves things a little wild and get them hooked on sailing. Most of us don't qualify but if you could find someone like a Becham or a Tony Hawk to get it started then you might be able to get more of a following. The boats alone won't do it. They are far too technical for the average Joe to understand but if you could get personalities going and do a little education on how sailboat racing works, you might be able to get some place.

I wish there were a way to get 18's more wide spread in the states but the cost is a huge barior. Maybe it could be the next reality TV show. The cost of an 18 campaign is minimal compared to some of the shows. You could have everyone with helmet cams and a lot of candid shots from the dinghy park while rigging when the guys are talking smack. Hell if they can make a show out of sticking 12 people in a house for a couple of weeks, why not.

[Doug Culnane]

Now we are getting somewhere. We need the reality show touch. Maybe a want to be pop star show touch too. As part of the media circus we can have "want to be"s failing miserably and nearly drowning as they try to "get on the team". Some pimp my ride extras on the boats, like fitted DVD players in the boom. We can have the Japanise game show touch for bow man recruitment where you throw bricks at them to see if the duck. The JackAss element where someone get their nuts smashed around a shroud every 3 minutes... ... I remember now why I do not have a TV.

[FoilerMothGuy]

A little history lesson: The 18 foot skiff Grand Prix.

The GP 18 circuit largely came about around '89 or '90 when Bethwaite introduced the Mk1 B18 (the first of which was Banana Republic driven by JB, which later became the first of the AAMI 18s), which was itself a development/mass production version of the last of his 'Prime Computer' 18s... Prime Computers was the first modern assymetric 18, had a self tacking jib and a deck stepped mast all in the name of saving weight... JB even raced it as a 2 hander for a while until the rule makers in the 18s set a minimum crew limit of 3 when racing. The B18 was a significantly cheaper and 'smaller' 18 than the $100k (1980's money) behemoths it raced against initally (there's a great photo around somewhere of one of the first b18s sitting in an old boats cradle... think of trying to fit a moth into a 29er cradle and you'll get some idea of what it looked like), and in many cases proved to be a lot faster with a rudimentary set and forget rig as opposed to the god-awful hydraulically tensioned rigs and 25+ foot wingspans that the big boats of the time were running towards the end of the 'wing wars'. The B14 was developed very soon afterwards, and not surprisingly very closely resembles a mk1 B18.

Basically the wing wars behemoths were too expensive and cumbersome to have decent racing in (as someone mentioned in another thread they were the ultimate 'bang the corner' boats, simply because tacking the suckers meant running a fair distance very quickly... plus with the huge wingspans if you dipped a wing you were a gonner). So, a lot of sponsors saw the nice cheap quick and more importantly tactical B18 (which had a far smaller wingspan, although it's still wider than the league boats run nowadays) as a good way of saving some serious dosh for the next season onwards and bought them to replace the wing wars generation boats, which were all stupidly expensive care of using materials developed by NASA for the space progam (like nomex/pre-preg carbon/kevlar in some cases, which had only been used for boat building for less than 10 years and as such was still prohibitively expensive and not fully developed at the time).

As everyone seemed to have the same boat at the same time at the SFS (all B18s) the GP idea was launched and it just seemed to work for the best part of 10 years (and 4 generations of B18s, ending in the Mk4 B18... which was still quite prone to nosedive but in some ways it's arguably a better boat than the league Murray design 18s), and really took off when the tv stations came on board and gave sailing some serious tv presence, which ultimately led to sailing in aus getting a fair bit of street cred (seemed to jump from channel 9 to 10 or vice versa at some stage during the procedings IIRC). Many of the original B18s from the very start of the GP period are still out and about, although some of the boats that came out of the Bethwaite shed were a bit iffy if they happened to be made during the pre-season rush period (understandably when you are given orders for 10 boats to be made in 6 weeks before the new season something had to give).

Then when the 49er came about, GP sailing thought that they could just do the same thing in the 49ers (yet again cheaper boats and also the whole 2000 sydeney olympics thing was starting to take over), and dropped the 18s much to many an 18 sailor's chagrin (Rob Brown had just had a brand new Prudential built and launched a couple of weeks before GPS pulled the plug and nicho was due to get a new Skilled Engineering too). Sadly, the Aus GP 49er circuit only lasted a year or two... there were only about a dozen races of it on TV and after a season it was cancelled in lieu of the bloody half-time cricket discussion panels (why, god... WHY!). It just wasn't the same as the 18s. From there GP sailing fell over and sailing in Aus hasn't quite been the same since.

The problem with re-establishing a Grand Prix in 18s is that there just isn't the money around for it any more... the GP guys were paid some serious cash to go race, and many of them did that it as their full time job. IIRC the major prize at the season was worth upwards of $100k (usually a car and a large cash prize split between the 3 crew), who also earnt race fees that weren't to be scoffed at. Pokie revenue just isn't enough to cover the bills of sending fleets of 18 footers and all their gear, support crews and the tv crews to weird and wonderful places, and there aren't many sponsors who'd be willing to foot the additional bills on top of sponsoring boats to do it either. I think that we can all face it... while it was great while it lasted, Grand Prix sailing is at least comatose if not completely dead. If the AC doesn't sort it's current shitefight out soon in all likelyhood it may die the death too (well... maybe).

The only boats that I could see having a GP series work would be the moths... $20k/boat, can be flown with the sailor from place to place as excess luggage, international fleets already exist in serious numbers, it's a boat that catches the imagination of a lot of people and a fair few sponsors, add to that the fact that moths are rapidly becoming the plaything of the rockstar sailor makes it almost the perfect boat for the job. And yet, when the foiler1 grand prix was proposed it seemed to fall flat on its face for lack of interest and sponsors. I think that is enough of a sign to say that sailing really is in a bad way... and something despirately needs to be done about it.

[Al.]

There will be people on here that know a heck of a lot more as to what happened to the Ultra 30s, but essentially I'd guess at a combination of high running costs and low viewing figures on TV (the highlights packages were bounced around BBC's "grandstand" sports programme on a Saturday or Sunday- unpredictable, little trailed and on when any right minded sailor was on the water) killed them off- sponsership money generally increases with potential exposure.


Maybe we need to get the Indians involved? thinking along cricket lines... the Aussies revolutionised cricket the first time (Packer), now the Indians are taking it a step further. Late 80s/early ninties Aussie Skiffs have had a big impact on the sailing world (look at all the modern OD classes in the UK, and influence is clear, even if they're not "skiffs")- but my comparison falls down as whilst cricket was already well embedded in India, sail racing isn't so.

[Sorta]

I LOVE these boats. Of all vintages. The are just fucking awesome. I have been very fortunate to sail GP boats and League boats in all crew spots including stick time in a race on Sydney Harbour. Now, as an ex-pat Brit and resident of Canada, that is right up there on my list of things to do before I die. I also now own the old Nokia boat referenced earlier in the Youtube videos. She is just simply breathtaking. I still watch the old Ronstan vids at least once a month, admittedly once the girlfriend is asleep. Anyway, I chatted to one of the Aus guys when I was on the Sydney Hobart race (yes, I do do some big boat stuff) and he was responsible for the promo on some of the old GP 18 stuff. He sent me the "How to" kit and really it boiled down to getting a couple of key local moeny some decent exposure for their stake. As with all these things, they had to start small, but once you get a little, others get interested and it really requires a local "spark-plug" to get it going and then build the momentum.

Nothing gathers a crowd like a crowd and the Ultra30's are a great example of that - the media company responsible just couldnt gather a non-sailing crowd. It failed. Of course every sailor on the planet knew about it with the boats and the rock stars, but that is not where the money comes from.

I started a skiff fleet up in frozen Canada about 5 years ago, when performance sailing was viewed as 15 year Alba-snores with new sails. Now we have some 18 boats, all raced and toured all over the place. We have our own event that has gained momentum with others (Ottawa Skiff GP), but can we get money in to it? Can we buggery. Still we rely on the same old sponsors within the sailing business that dont have much money to start with. Needs TV. The one year we had a 30 second snip on the local news channel, we got thousands the following year in goodies and support.

I cannot keep supporting my lovely Nokia now either, so if any of you have a new fleet to kick off, then let me know!

18's will go forever, just like the 14. There is enough in there regardless of external. But we all want that extra pizzaz. Be careful what you wish for as it usually makes it impossible for the rest of us to come close to even competing.

[TeamFugu]

Now we are getting somewhere. We need the reality show touch. Maybe a want to be pop star show touch too. As part of the media circus we can have "want to be"s failing miserably and nearly drowning as they try to "get on the team". Some pimp my ride extras on the boats, like fitted DVD players in the boom. We can have the Japanise game show touch for bow man recruitment where you throw bricks at them to see if the duck. The JackAss element where someone get their nuts smashed around a shroud every 3 minutes... ... I remember now why I do not have a TV.

I wasn't thinking quite that over the top. Just something to get more attention and maybe draw the younger crowd in. If you could start something that gets the sport out there and maybe draws people in, it might help with drawing advertizing dollars.

[Matt D]

I LOVE these boats. Of all vintages. The are just fucking awesome. I have been very fortunate to sail GP boats and League boats in all crew spots including stick time in a race on Sydney Harbour. Now, as an ex-pat Brit and resident of Canada, that is right up there on my list of things to do before I die. I also now own the old Nokia boat referenced earlier in the Youtube videos. She is just simply breathtaking. I still watch the old Ronstan vids at least once a month, admittedly once the girlfriend is asleep. Anyway, I chatted to one of the Aus guys when I was on the Sydney Hobart race (yes, I do do some big boat stuff) and he was responsible for the promo on some of the old GP 18 stuff. He sent me the "How to" kit and really it boiled down to getting a couple of key local moeny some decent exposure for their stake. As with all these things, they had to start small, but once you get a little, others get interested and it really requires a local "spark-plug" to get it going and then build the momentum.

Nothing gathers a crowd like a crowd and the Ultra30's are a great example of that - the media company responsible just couldnt gather a non-sailing crowd. It failed. Of course every sailor on the planet knew about it with the boats and the rock stars, but that is not where the money comes from.

I started a skiff fleet up in frozen Canada about 5 years ago, when performance sailing was viewed as 15 year Alba-snores with new sails. Now we have some 18 boats, all raced and toured all over the place. We have our own event that has gained momentum with others (Ottawa Skiff GP), but can we get money in to it? Can we buggery. Still we rely on the same old sponsors within the sailing business that dont have much money to start with. Needs TV. The one year we had a 30 second snip on the local news channel, we got thousands the following year in goodies and support.

I cannot keep supporting my lovely Nokia now either, so if any of you have a new fleet to kick off, then let me know!

18's will go forever, just like the 14. There is enough in there regardless of external. But we all want that extra pizzaz. Be careful what you wish for as it usually makes it impossible for the rest of us to come close to even competing.

Ahem, there were several people that started the fleet. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) And when did we get thousands in sponsorship?

I agree that the 18s will continue to exist regardless. So long as there is gambling money to be made, there will be an 18' fleet in Sydney. I bet if we went back 40 years to a skiff club, you would hear the same conversation going on. Part of the attraction to the class is their extreme nature, there will always be a small niche out there for fast, expensive boats, they fill that niche - don't try and be a laser.

[john.h]

A little history lesson: The 18 foot skiff Grand Prix.

The GP 18 circuit largely came about around '89 or '90 when Bethwaite introduced the Mk1 B18 (the first of which was Banana Republic driven by JB, which later became the first of the AAMI 18s), which was itself a development/mass production version of the last of his 'Prime Computer' 18s... Prime Computers was the first modern assymetric 18, had a self tacking jib and a deck stepped mast all in the name of saving weight... JB even raced it as a 2 hander for a while until the rule makers in the 18s set a minimum crew limit of 3 when racing. The B18 was a significantly cheaper and 'smaller' 18 than the $100k (1980's money) behemoths it raced against initally (there's a great photo around somewhere of one of the first b18s sitting in an old boats cradle... think of trying to fit a moth into a 29er cradle and you'll get some idea of what it looked like), and in many cases proved to be a lot faster with a rudimentary set and forget rig as opposed to the god-awful hydraulically tensioned rigs and 25+ foot wingspans that the big boats of the time were running towards the end of the 'wing wars'. The B14 was developed very soon afterwards, and not surprisingly very closely resembles a mk1 B18.

Basically the wing wars behemoths were too expensive and cumbersome to have decent racing in (as someone mentioned in another thread they were the ultimate 'bang the corner' boats, simply because tacking the suckers meant running a fair distance very quickly... plus with the huge wingspans if you dipped a wing you were a gonner). So, a lot of sponsors saw the nice cheap quick and more importantly tactical B18 (which had a far smaller wingspan, although it's still wider than the league boats run nowadays) as a good way of saving some serious dosh for the next season onwards and bought them to replace the wing wars generation boats, which were all stupidly expensive care of using materials developed by NASA for the space progam (like nomex/pre-preg carbon/kevlar in some cases, which had only been used for boat building for less than 10 years and as such was still prohibitively expensive and not fully developed at the time).

As everyone seemed to have the same boat at the same time at the SFS (all B18s) the GP idea was launched and it just seemed to work for the best part of 10 years (and 4 generations of B18s, ending in the Mk4 B18... which was still quite prone to nosedive but in some ways it's arguably a better boat than the league Murray design 18s), and really took off when the tv stations came on board and gave sailing some serious tv presence, which ultimately led to sailing in aus getting a fair bit of street cred (seemed to jump from channel 9 to 10 or vice versa at some stage during the procedings IIRC). Many of the original B18s from the very start of the GP period are still out and about, although some of the boats that came out of the Bethwaite shed were a bit iffy if they happened to be made during the pre-season rush period (understandably when you are given orders for 10 boats to be made in 6 weeks before the new season something had to give).

Then when the 49er came about, GP sailing thought that they could just do the same thing in the 49ers (yet again cheaper boats and also the whole 2000 sydeney olympics thing was starting to take over), and dropped the 18s much to many an 18 sailor's chagrin (Rob Brown had just had a brand new Prudential built and launched a couple of weeks before GPS pulled the plug and nicho was due to get a new Skilled Engineering too). Sadly, the Aus GP 49er circuit only lasted a year or two... there were only about a dozen races of it on TV and after a season it was cancelled in lieu of the bloody half-time cricket discussion panels (why, god... WHY!). It just wasn't the same as the 18s. From there GP sailing fell over and sailing in Aus hasn't quite been the same since.

The problem with re-establishing a Grand Prix in 18s is that there just isn't the money around for it any more... the GP guys were paid some serious cash to go race, and many of them did that it as their full time job. IIRC the major prize at the season was worth upwards of $100k (usually a car and a large cash prize split between the 3 crew), who also earnt race fees that weren't to be scoffed at. Pokie revenue just isn't enough to cover the bills of sending fleets of 18 footers and all their gear, support crews and the tv crews to weird and wonderful places, and there aren't many sponsors who'd be willing to foot the additional bills on top of sponsoring boats to do it either. I think that we can all face it... while it was great while it lasted, Grand Prix sailing is at least comatose if not completely dead. If the AC doesn't sort it's current shitefight out soon in all likelyhood it may die the death too (well... maybe).

The only boats that I could see having a GP series work would be the moths... $20k/boat, can be flown with the sailor from place to place as excess luggage, international fleets already exist in serious numbers, it's a boat that catches the imagination of a lot of people and a fair few sponsors, add to that the fact that moths are rapidly becoming the plaything of the rockstar sailor makes it almost the perfect boat for the job. And yet, when the foiler1 grand prix was proposed it seemed to fall flat on its face for lack of interest and sponsors. I think that is enough of a sign to say that sailing really is in a bad way... and something despirately needs to be done about it.

Grand Prix Sailing started with nearly all Murray boats so I think unlike the assymetric spinnaker Bethwaite cannot take credit for inventing Grand Prix Sailing.

[nick125]

maybe people could get something happening with i14s instead? the worlds are going to be in sydney next year, there are already a lot of boats racing in different states of aust and over seas....

[Bill E Goat]

Grand Prix Sailing started with nearly all Murray boats so I think unlike the assymetric spinnaker Bethwaite cannot take credit for inventing Grand Prix Sailing.

He can't even claim credit for that. The Mk1 boats were rubbish, remember watching two of them sailing along in a westerly , both got hit by the same gust and both broke their masts at the same time in the same spot. Ask anyone who sailed on one how often the deck would split open at the gunwhale. Nice concept poorly executed, sounds familiar

[john.h]

He can't even claim credit for that. The Mk1 boats were rubbish, remember watching two of them sailing along in a westerly , both got hit by the same gust and both broke their masts at the same time in the same spot. Ask anyone who sailed on one how often the deck would split open at the gunwhale. Nice concept poorly executed, sounds familiar

Sarcasm does not work well on a screen.
Joking about the assy invention.

[Bill E Goat]

Point taken, problem is there are way to many people here that swallow the Breathwaster gospel hook line and sinker

[ljf67]

A little history lesson: The 18 foot skiff Grand Prix.

The GP 18 circuit largely came about around '89 or '90 when Bethwaite introduced the Mk1 B18 (the first of which was Banana Republic driven by JB, which later became the first of the AAMI 18s), which was itself a development/mass production version of the last of his 'Prime Computer' 18s... Prime Computers was the first modern assymetric 18, had a self tacking jib and a deck stepped mast all in the name of saving weight... JB even raced it as a 2 hander for a while until the rule makers in the 18s set a minimum crew limit of 3 when racing. The B18 was a significantly cheaper and 'smaller' 18 than the $100k (1980's money) behemoths it raced against initally (there's a great photo around somewhere of one of the first b18s sitting in an old boats cradle... think of trying to fit a moth into a 29er cradle and you'll get some idea of what it looked like), and in many cases proved to be a lot faster with a rudimentary set and forget rig as opposed to the god-awful hydraulically tensioned rigs and 25+ foot wingspans that the big boats of the time were running towards the end of the 'wing wars'. The B14 was developed very soon afterwards, and not surprisingly very closely resembles a mk1 B18.

Basically the wing wars behemoths were too expensive and cumbersome to have decent racing in (as someone mentioned in another thread they were the ultimate 'bang the corner' boats, simply because tacking the suckers meant running a fair distance very quickly... plus with the huge wingspans if you dipped a wing you were a gonner). So, a lot of sponsors saw the nice cheap quick and more importantly tactical B18 (which had a far smaller wingspan, although it's still wider than the league boats run nowadays) as a good way of saving some serious dosh for the next season onwards and bought them to replace the wing wars generation boats, which were all stupidly expensive care of using materials developed by NASA for the space progam (like nomex/pre-preg carbon/kevlar in some cases, which had only been used for boat building for less than 10 years and as such was still prohibitively expensive and not fully developed at the time).

As everyone seemed to have the same boat at the same time at the SFS (all B18s) the GP idea was launched and it just seemed to work for the best part of 10 years (and 4 generations of B18s, ending in the Mk4 B18... which was still quite prone to nosedive but in some ways it's arguably a better boat than the league Murray design 18s), and really took off when the tv stations came on board and gave sailing some serious tv presence, which ultimately led to sailing in aus getting a fair bit of street cred (seemed to jump from channel 9 to 10 or vice versa at some stage during the procedings IIRC). Many of the original B18s from the very start of the GP period are still out and about, although some of the boats that came out of the Bethwaite shed were a bit iffy if they happened to be made during the pre-season rush period (understandably when you are given orders for 10 boats to be made in 6 weeks before the new season something had to give).

Then when the 49er came about, GP sailing thought that they could just do the same thing in the 49ers (yet again cheaper boats and also the whole 2000 sydeney olympics thing was starting to take over), and dropped the 18s much to many an 18 sailor's chagrin (Rob Brown had just had a brand new Prudential built and launched a couple of weeks before GPS pulled the plug and nicho was due to get a new Skilled Engineering too). Sadly, the Aus GP 49er circuit only lasted a year or two... there were only about a dozen races of it on TV and after a season it was cancelled in lieu of the bloody half-time cricket discussion panels (why, god... WHY!). It just wasn't the same as the 18s. From there GP sailing fell over and sailing in Aus hasn't quite been the same since.

The problem with re-establishing a Grand Prix in 18s is that there just isn't the money around for it any more... the GP guys were paid some serious cash to go race, and many of them did that it as their full time job. IIRC the major prize at the season was worth upwards of $100k (usually a car and a large cash prize split between the 3 crew), who also earnt race fees that weren't to be scoffed at. Pokie revenue just isn't enough to cover the bills of sending fleets of 18 footers and all their gear, support crews and the tv crews to weird and wonderful places, and there aren't many sponsors who'd be willing to foot the additional bills on top of sponsoring boats to do it either. I think that we can all face it... while it was great while it lasted, Grand Prix sailing is at least comatose if not completely dead. If the AC doesn't sort it's current shitefight out soon in all likelyhood it may die the death too (well... maybe).

The only boats that I could see having a GP series work would be the moths... $20k/boat, can be flown with the sailor from place to place as excess luggage, international fleets already exist in serious numbers, it's a boat that catches the imagination of a lot of people and a fair few sponsors, add to that the fact that moths are rapidly becoming the plaything of the rockstar sailor makes it almost the perfect boat for the job. And yet, when the foiler1 grand prix was proposed it seemed to fall flat on its face for lack of interest and sponsors. I think that is enough of a sign to say that sailing really is in a bad way... and something despirately needs to be done about it.

Ah very nice history report but not quite exact on the time line

Ye GP started in the late 80s, but like John H. says, not by JB... if anyone has seen the first Ronstan video you will notice plenty of Murray 18s... Prudential for example with "flip flop" wings
JB designed the first B18 for the League... he was on the board of directors at the club at the time, as a vey cheap alternative to the GP boats. At the start of GP all the skiffs and sponsors were sailing at the League, the the famous "split" happened... and Bill Mc took all the skiffs that wanted GP to the SFS... this left the League with approx 4-6 skiffs in the fleet, and this is when JB first designed the B18 for the League! 2 years later and JB leaves the League and refines B18 design to end up at Mk4 B18 by 1995-96

That photo you talk of about the B18 sitiing in the old cradle was Michael Spies new b18 sitiing in his old cradle form a mid 80s massive beast, think it was in Aus Sailing mag... and the old "god-awful hydraulically tensioned rigs" were in fact very easy to get the boat thru different breeze ranges... with all the latest developement going on i wouldnt be surprised to see something similar again

Skip a few years of very successful GP... nearly 10 years, and the shit hit the wall, wether it was GP trying to do the 49ers or poor management, but GP went broke owing over $3million to creditors, Rob Brown and the like tried unsuccessfully to restart GP but didnt have the $$$ to buy the TV, as GP had done for many many years

So Patrick, do you want cheaper boats but faster? But add foils and that adds $25k to the allready $100k
When you compare this to something like Wild Oats or Alfa Romeo at around $10million each... I think its very good value for money

And I think everyones obsession with the League paying for skiffs thru gambling is a stretch of the truth, yes it certainly helps the cash flow... but I believe the "model" the League has been successfully using for the past 10 years goes something like... new skiff costs $100k... get a sponsor for 2-3 years at $25-$30k a year, then sell skiff after 3 years for approx $25-$30k and that equalls your up front cost... (as well as taking depreciation costs into the maths) it just takes 3 years of good managment and good sponsors/ racing/ crews to make it happen... thats the hard part!

So with some TV and sponsor activities, $25K a year should be within reach of most skiff teams... yes Europe is different, it doesnt have the "club" set up like in Oz, but it has way more people and way more money, just needs someone to work out a marketing plan, regatta circuit and TV and sponsors to get it all going just like in Oz... oh, and maybe a few spare million $$ to invest for 3 years before getting any return

Maybe this F1Sail is going to happen still... anyone got any news about this, it all sounded like the golden dream of skiff sailing... national teams, great venues, big TV, big prize money, big sponsors... sounds like GP on a super size scale...
And so much better than watching shite AC boats bobbing around

But great to see the 18s back on Ch 7 last week for JJ rap up, and interesting to see Bill Mc back doing commentary again... the wheel has turned full circle (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

[Bill E Goat]

But great to see the 18s back on Ch 7 last week for JJ rap up, and interesting to see Bill Mc back doing commentary again... the wheel has turned full circle (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

He certianly hasn't forgotton any of his cliche's

The good old "Ding Dong Battle"

[Lanson]

Viewers like to see people fucking up. That was a great thing about watching the GP 18's on TV, they get to the top mark and there's a good chance they'll be swimming, that makes for exciting viewing. They'd always be making the play of the day on the TV news, it was for hitting the piss rather than sailing perfectly, that kind of exposure is GOLD for sponsors.

The problem with sailing in general on TV is that swimming doesn't happen very often, particularly at the pointy end of the fleet.

A parade around the track makes for boring viewing, and that's me as a keen sailor speaking :|

I think the moths as they are now would make for quite good TV, that is until they get their control systems and sailors to a point where there is little likelyhood of swimming.

[Deacon Blues]

The 18's will survive - in some form or another - but not necessarily as the one you see now.

In the last 100 years or so they have come close to extinction many times, usually when a new breakthrough occurs or perhaps a rule change has thrown the skippers/owners into chaos, caused a faction to split away and the fleets drop away until some sort of status quo is reached that stabilises the class/breakaway faction and things can begin to move on again.

Seeing as sponsorship money is so important to an 18 these days, it can be regarded almost as if it was a "class rule". If you don't have it, you can't campaign an 18 in the currently accepted fashion.

If money becomes scarce, and stays that way, then the existing 18 will morph into something a bit less. It might not have the hoo-rah glamour imparted by the exorbitant sponsorship dollars, but it will be no less exciting to sail and it will still be fast.

Or you all bugger off and sail the historics at the SFS.

Speed isn't everything, outlandish 18-footer fun has to be a major component.

[XPAT]

in the perfect world every club/class would have a large benefactor/sponsor which helps provide boats and cover sailing costs, but in reality that just isnt going to happen.

If you want a nice car you have to pay for it, same as if you want a nice boat you have to pay for it. Which is why in the long run classes like the 18 will survive because people want a nice boats. The sponsorship/club money certainly does help and anything which can be done to raise the profile of dinghy sailing outside of the sailing community will help bring in extra cash.

[grs]

Or you all bugger off and sail the historics at the SFS.

dont worry, that fleet is subsidised heavily as well. wander over one saturday and ask each skipper if they own their boat. not many. not many new sails seem to be bought by the skippers either. if it weren't for a couple of very generous acts that fleet probably wouldn't exist either.

digress a tad, but the only fleets that seem to survive off their own bat (if you'll excuse the choice of words) are the 12s & 14s.

i tried to get the 18s going again at the squaddy but had to stop upon discovering the money wasn't there, and wasn't ever likely to be there. crass as it sounds, it was completely dependant upon someone else's money be it a sponsor or club revenue. neither were there so it farted, spluttered & faded out again.

I guess the question really is; what would happen to the 18s if the league & woody weren't around? me, i reckon the class would slowly fold. as far as one might point fingers at the guys there for the way the control matters and run the class, it has kept the 18s pretty active and vibrant in sydney.

imho the class is dependant upon third party funding, no matter whether its from the league's pokie and restaraunt revenue, or sponsors, or an alternate source. if the bucks aren't there the class will fold.

[Doug Culnane]

A very on topic article on The Daily Sail.

http://www.thedailysail.com/ISM/articles.n...0257434002E9EBA

[skiffs r us]

The first two years of grand prix all the boats were murray designs and a few jutson boats.The murray boats were so wide aft they were like a submarine on the bearaway and the jutson boats looked like a submarine .Both designs at the end of there usefull life went like a scolded cat with a 25hp outboard on the back.

[skiffs r us]

Oh and sorry back on topic.Look at the sponsors for the last 8 years this thread should be "Would the 18s survive without John Winning?"

[Deacon Blues]

Oh and sorry back on topic.Look at the sponsors for the last 8 years this thread should be "Would the 18s survive without John Winning?"

That can perhaps be expanded to read
"Would the 18s, both League Moderns and the SFS Historics, survive without John Winning?".

As I said in my earlier post, sponsorship, or "freely donated money", is now almost a class rule. Without it, you can barely even get out on the water, let alone be competitive.

There are privately owned and campaigned Historics but without Woody's 4 (or is it 5) boats, the SFS fleet would not appear so rosy. I think Woody's earlier Yandoo (before this last Ssanyong?) was the only non sponsored modern 18 at the time wasn't it??

The man's a legend.

[skiffs r us]

That can perhaps be expanded to read
"Would the 18s, both League Moderns and the SFS Historics, survive without John Winning?".

As I said in my earlier post, sponsorship, or "freely donated money", is now almost a class rule. Without it, you can barely even get out on the water, let alone be competitive.

There are privately owned and campaigned Historics but without Woody's 4 (or is it 5) boats, the SFS fleet would not appear so rosy. I think Woody's earlier Yandoo (before this last Ssanyong?) was the only non sponsored modern 18 at the time wasn't it??

The man's a legend.

My point exactly,i truly hope that history will state that Woody saved the 18s and dosnt mention those before him who nearly killed them with ego driven power struggles.

[kmsailor1]

They had better survive i just bought on wit a friend of mine!!

[SimonN]

They had better survive i just bought on wit a friend of mine!!

Good thing spelling isn't a pre-requisite of sailing 18's (or I'd be screwed as well!). Welcome to the fleet.