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Development of Lightweight Sharpies in NSW 1975 to 1985

By Rolf Lunsmann, May 2007

The ten year period from 1975 to 1985 saw rapid and dramatic technological development in the class. Known in 1975 as the Australian Lightweight Sharpie and firmly established as one of ’s most prominent and popular restricted development classes, the changed over that period from being exclusively plywood hulls with soft rigs to largely a fleet of full composite construction hulls with high tension, fully adjustable rigs, very similar to the boats that we see today. The many individual changes and developments that led to the transformation came from the strong, competitive fleets that were sailed in all the States and Territories of Australia. Many significant developments were Crescendo VII (N35) winning the Nationals for NSW for the generated in South Australia where Robin first time in 1966 in the hands of Robert Thompson, Ian Haselgrove, the most prolific boatbuilder in the Peden and Chris Buckingham. (Photo uncredited) class, worked with the local fleet on the progressive development of glass hulled timber decked boats and in Tasmania where many of new control systems emerged, but it was New South Wales that first saw much of the innovation and many of the breakthroughs in and spar development. The article attempts to chronicle some of those developments.

The predominant thinking among top Sharpie in NSW in the mid 1970s was heavily influenced by the success Mark Peelgrane had achieved in winning three consecutive National Championships between 1971 and 1973. Peelgrane had sailed a plywood Eleanor Rigby (N35). Eleanor Rigby had been built in 1966 and in its first season, sailing as Crescendo V11 and steered by Robert Thompson, with builder Ian Peden and Chris Buckingham as crew, had won the Nationals for NSW for the first time. These four major victories developed a near cult status for the boat and NSW Grant Simmer at the helm of of Fools in Perth 1977. (Photo Australian Sailing) sailors desperately sought out similar hulls. Despite development of the first practical fibreglass Sharpie in 1975 by Robin (Macka) Haselgrove in South Australia, in NSW, backyards and garages were being searched for old Peden hulls to be restored for racing.

A number of top skippers managed to find the prized Peden hulls and raced them with success. Edgar Roe won the Nationals in 1974 in Roeboat (N42) and in 1976 in Ostara (N35), Julian Golding finished second in 1976 in the University of NSW boat Mach 1 (N38) and then took on a remarkable dual 470/Sharpie campaign in Perth in 1977 in Upyz II (N39). Even into the late 1970s Peden hulls dominated the top end of the NSW fleet. Phil Durham acquired Tantivy (N37) from Sydney University, Graham Wallace with Geoff and Penny Dilworth purchased Mach 1 (N38) from University of NSW, Stuart Sommerville acquired Roeboat and renamed it Ophelia, Tony Love purchased Ralph House’s boat Houseboat (N50) and renamed it Hot Tip. In Canberra Ken Farrell was sailing Cheetah (N41) fast enough to win the NSW State Championship in 1980. The most successful of these Peden restorations was that of Grant Simmer who rebuilt N56 as Ship of Fools and sailed the boat to two National Championship victories in Perth in 1977 with Geoff Grover and Don Buckley and Sydney in 1979 with Geoff Grover and Greg Johns. Their were from Lee Sails, cut by sheethand Geoff Grover including the new, larger symmetric spinnakers that were introduced to the class in 1977.

By the time of the Sydney nationals in 1979 there were still many of these ply boats, now up to 13 year old, with the old double digit, state based numbers, sailing competitively along side new ply and new fibreglass hulls carrying the new national sail numbers by then up to over 580.

In 1978 Andrew Hun from Tasmania created technological breakthrough for the Sharpie class with his boat Dynamo Hum (T597) which won the Nationals held at Largs Bay in South Australia. Dynamo Hum was not only a fibreglass hull but also used the added stiffness of the hull construction to carry high rig tensions to tighten the forestay and reduce forestay sag. High rig tensions were not possible in the older ply boats. In response, two Sydney sailors Julian Golding and Geoff Comfort, working independently, each developed new fibreglass hulls that could take high rig tensions. Their boats for the 1978/79 season were documented by Bob Ross in his Australian Sailing article in 1 Andrew Hun’s Dynamo Hum represented a major November 1978. breakthrough when it won the Nationals at Largs Bay in 1978. (Photo Uncredited Australian Sailing) Golding’s boat, built with Mark Philips from Sports, featured a fibreglass foam sandwich hull, with an innovative single moulding for the centrecase, centrecase support and front bulkhead. On the original boat, Heart of Glass the hull was finished with ply decks but later boats that season featured the first foam sandwich fibreglass decks on Sharpies making them the first all fibreglass boats in the class’s history. The

1 Ross, B., Australian Sailing, Yaffa Publishing, Sydney, November 1978, p28 hull mould had been produced by the NSW Sharpie Association a few years earlier in an attempt to develop an early solid glass Sharpie.

Julian Golding’s first fibreglass hull featured a Julian Golding’s first fibreglass sharpie with single moulding for centrecase, frames and Needlespar and Seahorse sails in 1978. bulkhead. (Photo Bob Ross). (Photo Bob Ross).

Golding, who was campaigning both a 470 and the Sharpie, started importing Parker 470 hulls from the UK, along with, Needlespar masts and Seahorse sails. He found in the Needlespar range, a section that worked well as a very flexible Sharpie mast. The Needlespars featured a specially tapered separate top section, produced through a sink drawing process, which was then bonded into the main tube, a practice that was new to Australia. The main tubes were typically 60mm diameter with 1.8mm walls and 2.3mm walls in the tips. They proved to be fast and popular. The first Comfort fibreglass Sharpie had an Stuart Sommerville used one of the flexible infamous “crew killer” alloy space-. Needlespars on Ophelia when he finished second to (Photo Bob Ross). Grant Simmer in the Perth nationals of 1977 showing great windward speed in the process. He also managed to demonstrate the fragility of the spar bending one in one of the windier heats.

Comfort’s first boat, also built for the 1978/79 season was more radical. The hull was constructed in foam sandwich from the same NSW Association mould but the was aluminium and the boat featured distinctive “crew killer”, square section, aluminium framing to support the centrecase and rig loads. Christened Thirty Knuckle Shuffle (N607), it initially sported a very small section mast but this was soon replaced with a more conventional section.

Julian Golding at the helm of N691 Goldilocks and the Free Wares (Photo Bob Ross)

Neither of these two boats proved instant winners. Golding worked to progressively develop a full production all fibreglass boat with a number being built over the next couple of seasons, N621 for Sydney University and N623 for Gerry Clarke, Punk (N659) for Steve Gosling and Million Dollar Bill (N661) for Bill Haughton. A Night at the Opera (N693) was also built as a shell and centrecase for Ross Tilsed who finished the boat off with a ply deck of his own. There may have been others.

At the Hobart nationals in 1980 Golding’s own boat Rock (N660), showed outstanding speed but misadventure, breakages and misfortune left them well down the final placings. A year later, the last of the Golding Sharpies, Goldilocks and the Free Wares (N691), sailed by Golding with Steve Quigley and Will Finlay finished in the top ten at the Melbourne nationals in the highest nationals placing for one of these all glass hulls.

For the same nationals series Geoff Comfort’s boat had been fully rebuilt with the aluminium deck replaced with a more conventional foam sandwich glass deck and the boat fully re-fitted and re- rigged. The boat was re-named Forty Knuckle Shuffle to mark the added involvement of Phil Durham in its development. With Durham steering, Comfort on the sheet and Al Soars up front, the boat performed creditably at Port Melbourne without being truly competitive.

The Port Melbourne nationals in 1980-81 marked a turning point for the NSW Sharpie fleet. Apart from Golding the NSW Sharpie fleet performed dismally with the next highest place being Steve Gosling who placed in the 20s. In response a number of crews made a determined, collective decision to improve their performance. This involved new boats, a new sail development program and most radically, a change in sailing venue.

The long standing home of Sharpie sailing in Sydney had been Mosman Amateur Sailing Club but the Club’s racing area on Sydney Harbour had become progressively more crowded with , and 18ft skiffs on a Saturday afternoon. So much so that in the view of many of the Sharpie sailors it did not allow reasonable tight tactical racing and boat development. A group of crews within the fleet went searching for a new venue that could offer more open water, less disrupted breeze and less traffic. They settled on Sutherland Shire Sailing Club (SSSC) at Kurnell on the south-eastern corner of Botany Bay where they started a Sharpie division at the commencement of the 1981/82 season. It took SSSC some time to get used to the sailing culture of their new members. One of the initial conflicts was the Clubs reluctance to set large courses for the higher speed Sharpies. This was a source of tension the Club and its new members reached a compromise of multi lap races and multiple short races. This proved to be of benefit to the development program as it aided in developing crew work and closer tactical racing.

The boat development program lead to a number of Haselgrove hulls being purchased from interstate and a new generation of all glass boats being developed locally. Importantly Trevor Date purchased A Day at the Races (SA688) from South Australian Neil Harrison who had finished in a prominent place in Melbourne. Renamed A Date at the Races (N688) it was clearly a boat that was on the pace nationally. With its Haselgrove hull and competitive rig it provided a benchmark for the whole NSW fleet in subsequent seasons.

In the early 1980s Geoff Comfort had started his own boatbuilding enterprise in partnership with Taylor. Comfort and Taylor commenced by building fibreglass foam sandwich vacuum bagged OK . In 1981 he took over the The first Comfort and Taylor Sharpie N714 Far Canal from NSW Association hull mould and the deck Far Kurnell. (Photo Rolf Lunsmann) moulds from Julian Golding. At his factory in industrial Mascot, on the banks of the Alexandria Canal otherwise known as Shea’s Creek, he produced two new all glass boat for the 1981/82 season, Far Canal from Far Kurnell (N714) for Phil Durham and Arnold the Cunning Linguist (N716) for Tony Love. Both boats featured very high quality foam sandwich construction and innovative cockpit layouts. Both had false floors at the front of the cockpit in front of the centrecase to aid crew work and hide the control lines and a sloping panel to support the centrecase and stiffen the floor around the case. Both hulls were predominantly polyester resin with glass and some aramid reinforcing. Far Canal from Far Kurnell also featured structural support at deck level between the side deck and the mast that pushed the limit of the rules on the shape of the side-decks at the front bulkhead and an alloy “Loveday Loop”. The sail development program for both boats was led by Ian Brown and Dave Ross from Blue Peter One Design.

The second Comfort and Taylor boat was N716 Arnold the Cunning Linguist. (Photo Rolf Lunsmann)

Both of the new Comfort boats performed well in Yeppoon. Arnold the Cunning Linguist showed exceptional speed to windward but its final placing was limited by poor form downwind. The boat finished the Yeppoon nationals in 12th place with A Day at the Races 11th and Far Canal from Far Kurnell 15th, a significant improvement on the Port Melbourne performance. The new Comfort boats proved to be durable and competitive over a number of years. Arnold the Cunning Linguist raced competitively for several seasons and went on to win the NSW State Championship in 1985.

The NSW fleet now clearly had the boats to be competitive but not the boat handling and racing skills that came from the competitive local racing in South Australia and Western Australia. South Australia, who had not previously won a National Championship, had introduced a coaching program for their fleet in 1978 with Hayden Soulsby as coach. Their team performance at subsequent nationals had improved markedly to the point where, at Yeppoon in 1982, six of the top seven places had been taken by South Australians.

First of the “Round Bottom Sharpies” Flash and a , N750, had its first regatta at Belmont in October 1983. The rounded sections at the are clearly evident and were an affront to Sharpie traditionalists. (Photo Jane Durham)

Having successfully introduced the Needlespar masts to the class, Julian Golding, with partner Doug Rawson-Harris, began to research better methods of production for the tapered mast tips that were so critical to the performance of the spars. The research led to the development of their own “spin tapering” equipment to manufacture precisely engineered tapered tips with thinner tapered wall thicknesses down to 2mm for Sharpies and 1.3mm for Sabots and other small dinghies. These were the first Goldspar masts. Golding and Rawson-Harris formed Goldspar in August 1980, produced prototypes of their new masts in late 1981 and started production of spun tapered spars in mid 1982. Golding used one of the prototype spun tapered masts to win the 1981 NSW State Championship sailed at Toukley in Goldilocks and the Free Wares.

Mark Peelgrane had also moved into the spar business. Working from his factory in Tarren Point and, with Gary Butcher as Production Manager, he produced a variety of sections using tradition cut and weld . His GP4 section proved to be popular both in NSW and interstate.

Geoff Comfort produced a new hull for Phil Durham for the Bunbury nationals in 1982/83. Wriggly as a Maggot (N738) extended the previous ideas and added an Etchells style centre consol located between the skipper and sheethand to mount the cleats for all the control lines. The consol also helped to support the “Loveday Loop”. Western Australian Sailmaker Geoff Moore was one of the few interstate sailors to campaign a Comfort and Taylor boat, putting together Victory (WA724) for the Bunbury series.

The “Round Bottom Sharpies” proved to have an advantage in most sea condition. In the foreground is John Sanderson’s Maximum Penetration (N755) racing the conventionally shaped Arnold the Cunning Linguist. (Photo Rolf Lunsmann)

1983/84 proved to be a controversial year for the Sharpie class. The NSW Association mould was showing its age and Geoff Comfort needed to build a new one that would be capable of more accurate production. 1983 was also the year in which Ben Lexen had astounded the yachting world with his 12 metre design for Australia II . Innovation and cutting edge design were the fashion. Until this time all glass Sharpie hull moulds had been produced from existing plywood hull forms or plugs that mimicked ply construction. Rather than follow this convention, Comfort started from scratch, utilising both the plan lines for the Sharpie hull and the permissible tolerances at each measurement station to produce a precise and accurate shape aimed at minimising form drag on the hull. The resulting hull shape took advantage of the infinite shape flexibility of fibreglass to produce a pronounced rounding at the entry between the and the in the forward sections. The new shape appeared as radical to the traditional Sharpie sailors as Australia II had been to the New York Club.

Three boats were built from the new mould, Flash as a Rat (N750) for Phil Durham, Proud Aussie (N751) for Rick Shortridge and Maximum Penetration (N755) for John Sanderson. Another innovation in these boats was a foam sandwich panel used to support the inner coaming of the side- decks and stiffen the floor of the centrecase. These panels, while not watertight, gave the appearance of being side tanks, further confounding the traditionalist.

When Flash as a Rat arrived in Brighton and Seacliff Yacht Club in Adelaide for the Nationals the local measurers refused to measure the boat despite its compliance with all the written rules. Phil Durham, with the assistance of sheethand John Smidmore, who happened to be a lawyer, obtained a ruling from the South Australian Yacht Racing Association that would allow them to race, but the local organisers would not give ground and refused to finish the boat in any of its races. Strangely they allowed Proud Aussie and Maximum Penetration to complete the national series.

Eventually a compromise was reached, the rules changed to formally ban the boats but with a grandfather clause to legitimise the “Round Bottom Sharpies”. The rounded hull form proved to be highly successful and durable with Proud Aussie winning the nationals in Yeppoon in 1994. Several of the boats were still racing competitively more than 20 years after the original controversy. Remarkably Flash as a Rat finished a competitive 6th in the 1998/99 nationals and Proud Aussie finished 6th in the 2002/03 nationals, 19 years after it was first built. .

In 1984 after a falling out between Julian Golding and Doug Rawson-Harris at Goldspar, Golding left the firm and started his own new venture Spunspar, again using spin tapering technology. This provided a new source of masts for the Sharpie fleet.

Geoff Comfort returned to a more conventional shape the following season to produce his last Sharpie for Phil Durham, in partnership with John Sanderson and “Doc” Blower, Flying Pigs (N763). The boat won a heat of the nationals at Lake Macquarie. It also represented the end of Comfort’s production of Sharpies, ending an era of progressive development of the all glass Sharpie.