I thought spelling was way down the list of what you want in a forehand. He might be a candidate.

There are sponsors for 12s around, it just takes a bit of looking and then looking after them.

seen the turnkey price of an FD, 5o5, Tornado, E-scow or I-14 lately

post those prices, and ask the question

Anyone seen any pics from the 18' Interdoms over the weekend?? We were there racing an old boat and I know there are some pictures around, but I haven't managed to find any...

Six 18s out with the fledgling 12ft fleet at Rutland in the UK over the weekened- good photos here. All boats reliant on private (ie not through a club) sponsership/personal funding, and no prize money as far as I know. No TV cameras either. A different world entirely to the Aussie model.

I spent a few hours with Woody yesterday and then some time speaking to various skippers which has led me to respond to this and, in particular, the bit highlighted. I am no longer sure that it is that different.

I had always believed that the club sorted out most of the sponsors and dished out the boats to the lucky crews. However, I now understand that while there are long standing sponsors, increasingly it is the crews who are sorting out sponsors. If you look at the front of the fleet, Fiat wasn't arranged by the club while Rag and Famish is personal to John Harris. Woody does help and has relationships with some of the sponsors. He was pleased that one long term sponsor whose skipper was stopping has been persuaded to keep going. However, Woody then told me that his sone, Herman, was hoping to get a new boat but had been told that he could only have one if he found a sponsor to pay the costs. When I asked how finding a sponsor was going, Woody said he didn't know as that was down to Herman.

In the same manner, I was speaking to an existing skipper about his plans for next year and he stated his biggest priority was to find a sponsor or else he would have no new gear. His gear is now 3 years old and it effectively means if he wants to stay competitive, he has to find a sponsor. I asked if teh club was helping and it was clear to me that it was totally down to the individual.

Woody also told me of a skipper who was "due" a new boat this year. the reason he was due a boat was that this skipper had a sponsor who constantly forked out and again, it was a sponsor personal to that skipper.

I have no idea how many sponsors are personal to the skippers and how many to the club. However, the position is changing and more and more of the sponsors are sorted by the skippers. I am lucky that I have managed to get a boat that already had some sponsorship, but I still had to find another sponsor who ended up paying 60% of the costs last year.

I accept that finding a sponsor in Australia might be easier than in Europe, but there isn't a line of sponsors waiting outside the League waiting for sailors to approach them! Even if you do have/find a sponsor, they aren't bottomless pits. For instance, last year I know of a number of boats whose crews paid for new masts as sponsors budgets were already fixed and allocated. In fact, I know of a number of people who make contributions to their own sailing, ranging from the highest I know, $15k, to some who paid around $5-7.5k. Again, I accept that Europeans pay a lot more, but it isn't the free ride everybody says it is.

Finally, the League doesn't sail for prize money either. I think there is some small amount for the JJ, but I know that one of the winning crew blew it on a good night out after the prize giving so it cannot have been that much!

All that said and done, I think everybody involved with sailing at the League knows how fortunate we are. Even if we are increasingly having to find money ourselves, without the infrastructure and teh history it would be so much harder. And, as has been said above, without Woody we would be on deep shit. The man is a true legend.

just a biased 5cents from a multi convert

as a noob with only 2 years sailing in a dingy i recently bought a very good condition, 17foot, 25 year old beach cat from a guy who was also selling a B14

the cat was a $1000 and the B14 $2000

i asked him which i should get considering i would sail solo 95% of the time and wanted to go fast

he said the cat.

his quote, "any fool can sail a cat fast, usually solo and then put 4 or 5 people when needed to go on a picnic tour. and at half the price you can't go wrong, not so the skiff

the recent videos of the 18foot skiffs, tornados and vx40 on sydney harbor are quite interesting. they show 3 crew working really hard on the super expensive skiffs struggling to keep up with the slightly more relaxed 2 man crews on the cheaper? tornados

sure the 18 foot skiffs look good in a blow and have a huge history but if they need sponsors to keep going and boats like the f18 cats need less crew, are as fast and cheaper then it's hard to see that the skiffs won't shrink somewhat unless they can control costs

tornados in auckland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjL64j5nit4

http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll184/e...02008/Mark%20G/

eric e, you should also keep in mind that the three person crew on an 18 is not required by the platform but has been a class rule for some time. There was a move to reduce the crew weight and size years ago and a rule was put in place to make the minimum crew size three.

I agree with the person you bought your cat from. If you want to go very fast, with a low learning curve, and once in a while take the family for a spin, one of the best platforms is a cat. However, if you love a challenge and a boat that will always keep you engaged and on your toes, a skiff is a good option. Different strokes for different folks. Niether is good nor bad, they all have their place.

We'll probably see a shrinking of the 18's for a bit while the global economy cools but I think the'll be around for years in one form or another. I just hope they stay on the extreme end of things because we need something pushing the envelope to show us how far we can go.

I second this. I have both (a mystère 5.0 cat and a 29er-solo). With the water at 10C today (the lake has been open for 8 days now), I took out the M5.0 this morning an whipped around without getting wet -- which is quite impossible when soloing the 29er. So the answer to the conundrum is to have one of each...

Robert B.

Actually, you need one of every type. So far, I'm short a foiler but then I rarely sail in winds that would allow a Moth to lift be free of the water.

Clearly you need to paint them all with flames... then sponsors would rush in from miles around...

Same here -- I expect that my vacuum beat yours :-) The big issue at my venue is that there is an infestation of eurasian milfoil so this would add an extra challenge to weave around the floating jetsam...

Robert B.

From what i know thats the way its been at the League for many years since the first Mk1 Murrays mid 90s, like most things in the sailing world, the "story" about "free skiffs" is much more interesting than the true hard work done to gain a skiff sponsorship... and keep it
Dont think you will find any 18 sailors over the last 15 years that have made a profit from sponsors, but maybe a few broke ones
I have some ideas for the euro 18 guys to find sponsors... get off your ass and do the hard yards to find one, last time I looked the population in Oz was 25million, slightly less than the entire population in Europe
If people can find over $100million for an Americas Cup campaign, surley its a lot easier to find $25K to help cover some costs of an 18
Or open your wallets like the rest of the sailing world

as for the cat comments, i can remeber seeing an old sign on a boat many years back "give up sailing, buy a catamaran"

It amuses me how those who enjoy cat bashing have little or no cat sailing experience, particularly HP Cats.

Quiet a few of my freinds and I have taken Skiff, mono Olympians and AC sailors for runs on our F18s and Tornadoes and every one off them have stepped off week kneed and very impressed with the experience.

One SA member who was an 18 skiff sailor, I introduced to my Capricorn and he is now spending a lot of time now racing cats.

Perhaps some people here need to shut their mouth and actually gain a bit off experience before shooting their mouths off.

While you are correct in what you say, you seem to have forgotten the main difference between the dedicated cat sailor and mono sailors. The cat sailor has had his sense of humour removed and takes it all to seriously. Cat sailors are so easy to wind up and that is what we see so regularly. For instance, if I say that 16'skiff sailors are all fishermen (obviously true ), they laugh and take the piss out of themselves. Tell a cat sailor he doesn't need tactical skills because the go so fast and you get a whole page of posting telling you why it isn't so.

Chill a little. Most people actually do know that a Tornado is exceptional etc. An dthose who don't understand probably aren't worth converting.

You are right Simon; however a large majority of mono sailors actually believe this crap. What they see or experience on multihulls tends to be from hire cats, light wind cursing or a blast on a mate's Hobie 16...... And this becomes their perception of Multies. You, like myself are fortunate to have experienced it from both sides and understand the level of skill and athleticism involved at the top level in each fleet.

As for the tactical skills argument, unfortunately many mono sailors strongly believe this crap also and Skiffies are also tared with the same brush. If it does fast, it cannot be tactical..... I have seen just as many Skiffies (and wannabe Skiffies) fry up on this topic.

At the end of the day I don't really give a F#$K, because I love what I am doing.

Anyway, how about that 18 / F18 grudge match...... Keen to show a bit of muscle and hit the water . Not 1 or 2 boats of each, but a fleet V's a fleet. Any interested takers at the League?

If none of the legue boats want to have a play, We could orginise somthing with the Brisbane 18's fleet. Would probably be easy pickings for the cats though

Geez, u wake up on the wrong side of the bed buddy?
Its this thing called a joke
And I thought this topic was about the 18s surviving in the future
Perhaps some people need to see the lighter side of life, before shooting their mouths off

Yeah, bad day and no sleep = no sense of humour.

And F@#K you for quoting me........ Now I can not go back and delete.

IT dosn't have to foil you have foiling on the Brain

I dont think the class will fold if the sponsors dry up. There will still be boats sailing.

For example, the Brisbane 18 footer fleet had all but dissapered by 1990. Some people within the Brisbane club came up with an idia. There were allot of older boats sitting under houses from the pre / early wing era but before the Wing Wars boats.

Thay set up a class called the Classic 18's. You could sail an older hull up to 1983 vintage or build a new hull to the rules as set down by the club. An older hull could be of exotics but a new one could only be of ply or glass.

These boats are still sailing at the Brisbane club (6 boats in the fleet). The club has since bought two boats form the legue (Avaya and Total Recall) to try and re build the modern 18's in Brisbane.

Read the question and the response again.

As long as there are pationate people the class will survive. In 1999 I went halves with a guy and bought a 18 for $10 000. I think it was the old AAMI. And it was in pretty good nick. 17 foot wings so I think it was an old GP boat. The guy that I went halves with was as pationate as I about sailing and we both just wanted to sail 18's. It was never about money it was about just getting out and having fun.
The partnership did not last to long as we both wanted to drive and he had more $$ than me and I wanted to get married so needed the money.
But if you want to sail 18's it can be done on a shoe string like any other class, you will not be at the front of the fleeet that is for sure but I promise after every kite ride down the Harbour or any part of the world it is impossible to wipe that smile from your face .

I remember watching skiff sailing back in the early 90s on the US Speedvision (now Speed TV) when they were just starting up and would take programming from anywhere. They had skiff racing on every Monday IIRC on their "boat" day in amongst the unlimited and F1 Hydroplane racing. More than anything else this and Whitbread racing got me into sailing...

Having watched Vx40s live I think that you need a boat of a certain size to be adequately visible but it would still be good to have a boat that's not too big so you could race right close to shore. The boat has to be powered up so it'll move in the lightest of breeze. I watched the Vx40s sail in not more than 8 knots of breeze average and the things still flew. It was highly impressive watching these boats trade tacks in Baltimore harbor in front of 10,000 plus ordinary people watching from shore who were highly amazed and impressed. You could not have sailed in a similar venue in a bigger boat and a more regularly powered boat could not have moved in the breeze. I think 18s would have been similarly exciting in that location and quite a bit cheaper than a 200,000 euro Vx40.

My guess is to get any sort of pro-league off the ground you need the cart and the cart IMO is TV. To do TV I think you need somebody to pony up to a worldwide/region- wide TV producer like Sky to have at the very least condensed versions of the races on some regularly programmed magazine TV show like Seamaster etc. If not worldwide then at least regional or national. The sponsor would pay for the show production and perhaps to run the regattas and maybe a few other subsidiary series sponsors. WIth this in hand you could then draw sponsors for teams because you could then promise x hours of TV in y markets etc to show off their brands. Then you probably want to be in places where the racing can be watched close to shore so that you can get large crowds to watch w/o having to pay to go on a boat and the sponsors can have cushy tents and displays to connect with the public and B2B partners right close to the action.

As for the boats I think they might need to be One-design or very close to it to help ensure close racing especially when the courses are short. You could devlop the OD very continuously as long as every team has access to the developments each season i.e. more a NASCAR model than an F1 model. that way the costs are kept in check (spread amongst all the teams) while havng a class that is still developing.

Totally agree with you about how many kids got into sailing because of 18s and Grand Prix sailing in the 90s
Yes its about getting big TV and making the events into massive beach parties, what sponsor wouldnt want to be at some glam location in the sun with warm water and a fleet of sexy looking full carbon 18s with wild graphics etc etc, sure sounds better than at some dirty car race track and having to put things in your ears cause its so damn noisy
A few years back it was looking like a reality, with some big names of yachting like Nevil Crighton, Lang Walker and Bob Oatley all chipping in with some bucks to get it up and running, yes I still think it could happen with the right money and sailors
The F1Sail concept of awsome locations like Hawaii, Sardinia, Great Barrier Reef in Oz and not sailing till they get 15knts of breeze as well as one design skiffs to keep everything equal had the potentioal to be the full pro deal, but i havnt heard anything about this for over 12 months, damn shame really as it had all the makings of great skiff action on TV like 10 years ago, but on a world stage instead of just Oz
So how do you get something like this started... big bucks to start then lots and lots of organising TV deals and perfect venues
Lets hope F1Sail is still a dream and will happen one day, i think sailing needs something new like this again
Anyone out there got any contacts with F1Sail or know someone with a shitload of spare cash to make it happen?

Dunno that you need the super-swank/tropical location unless it's in Europe because you need a place where people are already at. So if you in Europe you can do the same normal places: Hyeres, Southern England somewhere, Garda, Lake Balaton, Marseille etc the surfing WCT idea of increasingly holding events in remote areas (Indonesia offshore reefs) is a great idea if you want nobody to show up. Like you said as long as you a sweet party/festival on shore and hopefully a good way to watch from shore then that'll be a good location. Plus you need short courses. The VX40s ran 15-20 minutes races but 3-4 per day. In a downtown location meant people could come by and watch during lunch (some of the races were during the work week).

One reason that so many events are going to remote places is the high prices some areas are charging for access. A local, to me, resevoir used to be very cheep but now they want over $1000+ USD per week-end day to hold an event. Some clubs are also charging large fees and putting a lot of restrictions on the participants. This would be a non issue if the sposors were picking up the tab of course.

I still think adding an X-game event for skiffs sailed off St. Francis and Golden Gate park would be perfect for this. The water is rough enough there should be plenty spills and thrills as well.

It was a direct responce about Doug Lords comment that not foiling will be the end . And I belive that the question was will the boat survive now that the Casino dollars are gone . And I say NO and it dose not have to foil to stay alive .

no answer for this one 'eh

So can someone tell me why this plan for a fully-televised fully-sponsored series will be any more successful than the many earlier attempts that failed?

If at first you don't succeed, try again. If at the 11th attempt you don't succeed, give up before you turn even more sponsors off the sport.

Probably a lot of "It didn't work because they didn't do it right." thinking. "If they'd only done it this way, it would have worked." It just seems to me that if they can make golf a TV sport and devote whole channels to it, then surely someone should be able to do the same with sailing. I guess the big problem is that the masses don't understand sailing and a lot more people have at least tried some form of golfing. Even if it was only the local put-put. Don't get me wrong. I've been known to golf once in a while and I even enjoy it. But it bores me to tears to watch on TV.

A new Tornado will set you back about AUS$60k landed....... 30k each for 2 crew

An 18 Skiff is what.... AUS$90K........ 30k each for 3 crew

However, if the T does not make it back into the Olympics, I can not see Marstrom continuing to build these boats and sell them at this price.

The other boats. Have no clue about price.

From the Velociraptor Moth Website: http://www.velociraptor-moth.com/shop/page/4

"
...So we started to think about the production version, and who to get on board to help us build it. Well this was of course November 2007 we are talking about - and in November 2007, ISAF decided the Tornado would not appear at the Olympic Games in London... Why is that relevant? Read on!! Dave C... "The first person I rang when I heard about the ISAF decision was was Graham Eeles - mainly to just see how he was getting on. Graham was understandably not that pleased with the decision as he has been building Tornados for some time and has invested heavily in tooling for them... It suddenly occurred that the Velociraptor would be very easy for Graham to build - We arranged a meeting and showed him the project and discussed a way forward.


"


One Torndo builder has jumped ship or sailing boat...

Please don't mention jumping, foiling Moths, sail boats together on this forum! You never know who's watching!

Shame, Graham turner out a great boat and it would have been great to see Marstrom's reaction to a bit of market competition.

Graham Eeles Tornado attached. (From the SIRs regatta)

I am sure he would build a Tornado for you if you order one, but as I understand it his market disapeared thanks to ISAF's Olympic bath tub strategy.

thanks T-A. figgered the 18 was not actually expensive, esp given the buider and it's position in the world of O.T.Beach boats

crossed Tornado off the list

ANY OTHER TAKERS ? ?

turnkey price of a top-flight Flying Dutchmen, 5o5, Tornado, E-scow or I-14 , say from the manufacturer that has a number of boats in the top 5 of the classes (world?) championship
.
.

.

I14's are really difficult to price. It depends on who builds them, where and how custom they are. I have certainly heard of AU$60k, although I believe you can get a boat for as little as AU$38-40k.

I'd say 35-45K USD will get you a very top shelf boat (I-14). That's getting cheaper every day for everyone around the world not using USD!

Is one of the problems with Skiffs (18's, 16's, 14's) that the technology moves too fast, this in turn makes it mega expensive? Even F1 racing is regulated to keep the field closer together

A friend of mine recently purchased an i14 for a bottle of wine (it was a very good bottle of wine). It was 6-7 years old and simply was not competitive anymore! Because people don't buy skiffs as a family day sailor the value of outdated boats is next to nothing! I was talking to somebody over easter and they were saying that he and a few mates happened to be getting a sail repaired when Rob Brown was in ordering sails for his new 18... Rob asked the sailmaker if he knew anyone looking for a 2nd had 18... overhearing this convo he piped up and asked how much! The end result was Rob Brown sold them his recently retired skiff for 1k with 3 rigs and 6 sets of sails.

At Black Rock YC it is interesting to see Lindsay Irwin's boat next to another 14 that finished third in a world champs 10yrs ago! There is no comparison!

The term "one design racing" is thrown around a lot... Skiffs claim to be one design, but are not! Look at the success of the F-18 Catamarans and now F-16 cats growing fast, there is sail area and boat dimension limits, but you can play a bit with the hulls! The result is good fleet racing... Not the person with the most money for R&D winning!

This might upset some people BUT, there are thousands of people out there who love to sail lasers because the winner of the race is the person with the most skill... Thats just food for thought!

[quote name='cabsav' date='May 25 2008, 06:44 PM' post='1713344']
I was talking to somebody over easter and they were saying that he and a few mates happened to be getting a sail repaired when Rob Brown was in ordering sails for his new 18... Rob asked the sailmaker if he knew anyone looking for a 2nd had 18... overhearing this convo he piped up and asked how much! The end result was Rob Brown sold them his recently retired skiff for 1k with 3 rigs and 6 sets of sails.

Somebody,is full of shit!

Would never have happened. Going rate for a 1 year old boat through his GP era was $25,000- $40,000 AUD(less road trailer).
Good story though

I have to agree that this is bullshit! I know how much old 18's were sold for back then and $1k wouldn't have even bought a rig. Today, a secondhand rig is worth anywhere from $5-7.5K and there is more demand than supply. Today's 18 hulls aren't outdating the older ones for any other reason than normal aging as the hul is one design. I think the same is pretty much so with the 16's.

As for the 14's, yes, a 10 year old boat is no longer competitive but neither is a 10 year old 49er.

Finally, in many years of international sailing, I have never seen a development class championship won by somebody because they have better equipment than everybody else. In fact, it is very rare that the winner isn't clearly the best there and you cannot win unless you are equal or better than everybody else. Funily enough, the only classes where I have seen somebody win through vastly superior boatspeed have been Fireballs and 505's.

Yep, the usual bullshit from someone with no clue... The difference is that you can't win in a box rule class unless you can put a complete project together from boat design or commission right through to sailing it fastest. You can't just turn up, get lucky with the shifts and win. Its fair to say though, that whilst I've never seen boat speed win a champs I've sure seen lack of prep, tuning and boat speed lose a few...

And no one races a 2 year old Laser at top level either.
A ten YO Laser is a club hack or beach toy not a racing boat. Just like the development classes.
The same in all so called One Design classes.

A 10 year old Laser is still quite competitive, and it can beat more sailors than a 10 year old boat in most (or all) development classes. Yes, just about all top Laser sailors have new boats but that is because trade-in values are so high that you get a brand-new boat each year by spending about $1k, and you can just meet a dealer at a regatta and do the trade without hassle.

Yes, the world's best may use new boats but an Olympic class that has about 250 sailors in Sydney alone and big fleets around the world is not a good comparison with amateur classes that are 1/10th of the size locally and rare in other areas. If a 10 year old boat in some classes gets 3rd out of 30 it's used as an example to show how well they last. Really, it's no better than getting 10th out of 100 but not many people notice when an old boat does well in a big class.

To give examples of some OD classes;

In one (Tasar) a 30 year old boat is still fully on the pace (5th from a fleet of 48 including world champs and Olympians, despite a DNF due to a crew injury and using old dacron sails). The ex world champ finds very little difference between old and new boats.

In another class, a 20 year old boat was 6th from 50 and as quick as the former world champ in that division. Its skipper could find no difference between the old hull and a brand-new boat he had used to win the open title from 48 entries.

In a third class, one mid '80s hulls was fastest overall from 35 entries in one titles and another was 1st in the nationals against a former Olympian and world champ and the top current Olympic campaigner.

In our non-SMOD one design, boat 003 is still one of the best in Australia (4th of 27 nationally, 4th of 44 in the state traveller's series) despite the fact that another 323+ boats have been launched in the 20 years (approx.) since it hit the drink.

So those 20 year old ODs average 3rd in fleets averaging 40 boats....being inside the top 10% is not too slow.

Must admit I was skeptical about the cheap 18ft story aswell... just thought I would post it and see if there were any bites!

Also, an older i14 isn't just un-competitive, it is nowhere near the fleet, not even close!

For the record I would love to see Simon O'Donnel piss of and leave the lunchbreak during the cricket free for 18footers again!!! I have both the Ronstan DVD's and would be stoked if there was a resurgance!

I think you have this right. It takes the entire package to win. Your view likely applies not only in box rule classes, but all others as well.

It may be that low load (non trap) classes/boats suffer less from the speed-robbing fatigue that comes with age. I'd be the first to point to the Lindsay and Waterrat 505's as exceptions, however, these boats used extraordinary construction methods.

Bram

And this has what exactly to do with 18's????
All we need is for Tornado Alive to put up his picture of him sailing his way overheeled cat on Port Phillip Bay and we will have fullfilled all criteria for a great thread.
*Doug Lord - foiling dribble
*Chris 249 - slow boats rule/20 year old lasers are as good as brand new ones
*Irrelevent waffle about cats plus pic from TA
*Complete bullshit posted as fact by people who have no clue - eg i bought Rob Brown's 18 for $1k
Great stuff and good day to you all.