18ft Skiffs: 90th anniversary of the League
by Frank Quealey 26 Jan 05:04 GMT
1 February 2025
When the Sydney Flying Squadron had a dispute with boat owners in its 18 footer fleet during the early 1930s, Mr. James J. Giltinan guided the owners into the formation of a new 18 footer club in Sydney to cater for the new type of boat from Brisbane, Queensland, named Aberdare.
The new club, which was originally named NSW 18 Footers League and is now known as the Australian 18 Footers League, staged its first race on Sydney Harbour on Sunday, 3 February, 1935.
To commemorate the 90th Anniversary of that day, the present club administrators have organised a big weekend of "sailing and celebration"
On Saturday 1 February, the club will host the 'Skiff Sydney Harbour Marathon' where all skiff classes are invited to compete in this historic event, and is also "putting on live music, food and drinks for everyone to enjoy in Steyne Park either side of the racing!" On Sunday 2 February, the club will stage the traditional Queen of the Harbour, when the current League fleet will all compete with their chosen 'Queen' in the boat to see who will win the 90 year Anniversary trophy.
All past, living Club Championship-winning skippers have been invited to join the celebration.
It's not surprising that the club wants to celebrate the milestone, the history of pro-active achievements by previous administrators is a proud one that is well worth celebrating and recalling here.
From the very beginning, Mr. Giltinan's entrepreneurial skills were evident when he arranged for each crew to carry a jockey in the boat, which attracted non-sailing punters onto the water and "more than 4000 people watched the race."
Smart marketing, plus the ability to follow an exciting sport each Sunday, was a winning formula and brought the added bonus of attracting horse racing followers who wanted to have a bet on Sunday.
The club claimed a total attendance of 58,469 people for its fifteen races in the first season.
In 1937, James Giltinan invited interested parties in England, USA, Hong Kong and New Zealand to compete in a series of races on Sydney Harbour, named the World's 18 footers Championship, to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of New South Wales in 1938. Due to world conditions at the time, only New Zealand accepted the invitation and sent a team of four boats to compete against the Australian boats from Queensland and the 'League' fleet.
It was hardly surprising that there was a big difference in the two types of boats competing at the championship as New Zealand only had only two classes of 18 footers racing at the time, the V-class and M-class. Practically the only thing the Australian and New Zealand boats had in common was the length of the hull.
The original World Championship regatta was a huge success, which the major Sydney newspaper described "The grip that 18 footer sailing has on the Sydney community was clearly demonstrated yesterday when a record crowd watched Taree win the first heat of the world championship on the harbour."
"The crowd at Circular Quay was so large that extra steamer accommodation had to be provided at the last moment, while craft of almost every conceivable description were in attendance. The foreshores, particularly Bradley's Head and Steel Point, were thronged with spectators."
By the beginning of the 1938-39 season, the League claimed, "In 1936-37 we felt proud of being able to record 150,000 patrons for the season; last season (1937-38) we were just under the 200,000 mark."
Those early administrators were outstanding and by 1936 had inaugurated a competition to raise funds for the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children. They staged an annual 'Queen of the Waves' competition with the proceeds "to build a school at the hospital to have crippled children transported from their homes to the hospital, receive treatment and education, and then taken back home each day."
Individuals and businesses helped to get the scheme off to a successful start. Candidates looking for the honour of being named the first 'Queen' raised more than $6,000 and plans were made to build the school at the hospital. Unfortunately, due to the world unrest at the time, agreement was later reached for the club's funds to be used to take over a ward at the hospital, have it renovated, and used for in-patients on nearly the same lines as the club had originally intended.
The incredible success of the competition was obvious according to the 1972 statement, "The total amount donated to the hospital from 1937 to the present (1972) has reached $58,434. Add to this, $6,560 raised from the Ladies' Committee from spectator ferry competitions and donated to the hospital, make the grand total of $64,994."
The League's first race on Sunday 2 February, 2025 will honour this achievement.
Despite the successes over the years, the League remained 'homeless' but in the late-1950s, the committee saw an opportunity to purchase the Ireland's Boat Shed, which was located on the site of the present clubhouse.
When they realised that the club didn't have enough money to secure the purchase all seemed lost until one of the skippers in the club's fleet, Alf Beashel, made an incredible gesture which changed the situation and enabled the League to secure the site for its future clubhouse.
Mr. Beashel decided to retire prematurely and put his superannuation money into securing the purchase on the League's behalf, and the clubhouse became operational from 1961. Alf became the Secretary and actively promoted the 18ft Skiffs to both the United Kingdom, USA and interested European countries in the late-1960s- early 1970s, prior to his death in 1978.
18ft skiff racing at the League had always been strong throughout the 1940s, 1950s and under Mr. Beashel's guidance became even stronger by the late 1960s.
The 1970s went beyond anything previously seen in the class and produced some wonderful racing by some of the greatest sailing talent Australia and New Zealand have produced. The decade also saw rapid development in design and construction and was truly 'The Golden Era' of 18 footers.
David Porter was 'King of Sydney Harbour' for most of the 1970s in his gold-coloured KB hulls, and recalls, "By 1970, 80 percent of the fleet was sailing three handers, and sailors began to realise how exciting they were to sail, and be successful. As well as having a good boat and sails, you needed great boat handling skills, and be fit and agile, as all three hands were sailing from trapeze off the gunwale."
"1972 saw the start of the Bruce Farr design domination, with World wins in 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975. These boats had three complete rigs, designed around the total weight of the crew. The hulls were hard chine, constructed from light plywood and covered with a layer of Kevlar cloth."
"In 1976, Stephen Kulmar won the Worlds with a boat that was designed and built by the family in their garage, then in 1978 we saw a change in the preferred hull construction materials from timber to foam sandwich. It initially started with a solid core of foam, sandwiched between a layer of fibreglass or Kevlar, but soon changed to superior materials, such as a honeycomb core sandwiched between layers of carbon fibre cloth on each side."
"By the end of the decade, the three handed boats were vastly superior in speed and performance than they were in the early 1970s"
League administrators produced another outstanding success in January 1985, when they celebrated the club's 50th Anniversary by staging a unique event which included possibly the most spectacular 18ft Skiff race in the sport's history.
The regatta was the 'Gold Cup', conducted over two weekends. The seven-race event had its first six races sailed over specially designed courses on Sydney Harbour; the grand finale was 'The Ocean Challenge' which was the highlight of the series.
With $2,000 prizemoney up-for-grabs in the race, 19 boats lined up for the Le Mans-style start on the Pittwater side of Palm Beach. Skippers had to run to their boats, which were being held ready by the other two crew members, sail around the Palm Beach headland, go to sea, then head south along the shoreline to the 'Heads' at the opening to Sydney Harbour.
Once inside the harbour, the 18s raced to the finish line, which was positioned east of the Sydney Opera House. It was the first ocean-going 18ft Skiff race ever staged in Sydney and came with all the fanfare expected from such a unique contest.
Sponsored by the NSW Government's State Bank, the start followed a spectacular air display over the waters at Palm Beach. Local television covered the festivities with pre-race interviews, then helicopter coverage as the skiffs raced down the coast, over the 26-mile course, and down Sydney Harbour to the finish line. Remarkably, after 1hr43m15s and 26 miles of top speed racing down the coast, Chesty Bond's crew grabbed the honours by just 1sec from the reigning world champion, Tia Maria.
When the clubhouse was beginning to show its age by the late 1980s, club Directors began a rebuild program, which produced the current premises by 1991.
Around the same time, fleet numbers were under pressure from the rising costs, but once again pro-active administration took the initiative and introduced a set of rules which reduced costs, and expanded the iconic 18s to the world, producing results James J. Giltinan could have only dreamed about in the 1930s.
Only seven New Zealand teams won the 42 Giltinan world championship regattas to 1993 and just seven countries had competed to that time. Since the change in 1993, there have been another seven non-Australian winners (two from UK, two from USA and three from New Zealand) and the number of challenging countries has risen to twenty-one.
The most recent innovation by the League is the introduction and incredible development of the video coverage of the club's racing.
Club President, John 'Woody' Winning, and the late Bob 'Killo' Killick, originally had the vision of presenting 18ft Skiff Racing on Sydney Harbour to the world in the early 2000s. Now, in 2025 there is a livestream video broadcast, with commentary directly from the race course, of every 18 footer race on Sydney Harbour each summer.
It's a very proud 90-year history for a small club located on the harbour foreshore in Double Bay.