Sydney Hobart One Design.

No one has to question the CYCA's motives, since they are doing just what many other sporting bodies do, and running events just for one type of equipment.

Do you claim that the Shorthanded Sailing Association is "churlish" and has questionable motives because it bans fully-crewed boats?

Do you claim that the Palm Beach Sailing Club is "churlish" and has questionable motives because they run races just for cats?

Do you claim that Motorcycling Australia is "churlish" and has questionable motives just because it runs events only for motorcycles?

Do you claim that the Palm Beach Longboarders surfing club is "churlish" and has questionable motives just because it runs events only for long surfboards?

Do you claim that the other thousands of sporting and social clubs that also run events just for particular types of equipment, from baroque string instruments to Linux software to car shows just for old American cars, are also "churlish" and have questionable motives? Or do you reckon that there are special rules for mono sailors and that they alone must cop insults because they want to run specialised events?

The hypocrisy of your criticism is shown by the fact that you do not criticise multi-only clubs. The ridiculousness of your claims of bias is demonstrated by the fact that you claim bias when Team Oz's tracker went on the blink, which is something that happens quite often. Do you also claim that it was bias that caused the trackers of several monos in the Launceston-Hobart to go off air?

Oh, and what is the probable reason Team Oz's tracker went off the air? Because the mast fell down!

The Hobart is the CYCA's race and it is only doing what thousands of other sporting groups do in limiting the equipment that can compete, so why criticise it for that decision? Just because of jealousy because it happens to run a bigger and better event?

PS the friction between multi and mono sailors from Pittwater is clearly shown by the fact that you insult clubs that want to just race fully-crewed monos, but don't insult clubs that want to race just multis. It was also seen in the multi skipper who walked down a pier calling every mono a "shitter" that should be burned, just because it was a mono. And that was after being welcomed into a mainly mono event! And to anyone who looks at the insults you have been flinging at mono sailors for years (for heaven's sake, you call major IT figures like the owners of Comanche and Ran 'luddites' despite their vast success in developing new technology!) it's pretty obvious that you don't respect them yourself.

 

Chris.
The only people I call "Luddites" are the ones that would like to see the AC go back to racing 12 metre yachts.
Some people can't grasp the fact that evolution only goes Forward , not Back.
Like it or not, Multihulls rule.
Every ocean racing record is now held by a multihull.
Big Catamarans are now the preferred vessels for cruising families.
The round the world non stop surface record is held by a sailing Trimaran,which knocked 15 days off the record previously held by a nuclear submarine.
Well designed multihulls may capsize, but they don't sink.
Monos just sink like a stone, many of them without trace, courtesy of the ugly lump of lead in the keel.
Who wants to walk on the inside wall of the hull in a strong wind.
Who wants to be the "Railmeat" hanging over the weather side in a race.
Who wants the incessant rolling in a light downwind sail, or the smashing wetness of a windward beat in a choppy sea.
How about the need for gimbels on the cooking stove, or cup holders in the cockpit to stop your drinks sliding off the table.
I could go on, but I would only become boring.

 

Yes, that's for sure.....

I think multihulls have a lot going for them and certainly racing speed is high up there. They just don't do anything for me and as we're talking pleasure craft, what more is there to say....

And the comment about the big monohulls that have to run engines to use their sails, winches et al is that those boats, too, should be in their own class just as multihulls are. Not that they should be banned or whatever, just recognise reality - they are not competing on the same playing field as purely muscle-powered boats are.

I frankly don't care what the CYCA says about anything. It's got like the Transat - originally a bunch of sailors having fun and heading for somewhere far away being overtaken by commercial hype and advertising to the point where the race is very far removed from its roots. Who cares. We went & looked at the boats down at the docks, wandered about, decided that they were nearly all drop dead boring & went back to the Taste for a few more plates of food & local wines.

PDW

 

Hey Oldsailor, have you ever considered that most people don't do challenging sports for the comfort?

For many sailors, worrying about heeling and gimbals in an ocean race is like worrying about getting your hair wet when surfing, hanging onto rock when climbing, having to run when playing footy, or getting tired legs in a cycle race. These things are actually part of the joy of the sport. They are part of the adventure. They are some of the things that takes us back to basics, that takes us into a new arena, and that underline the difference between racing and normal life.

Many sportspeople LIKE to lean over and get out of balance - there's a term (ilinx) that sports philosophers use for the pleasure of being out of balance when at play or during sport. The reason that most ocean racers sail boats that heel and chuck spray around is that it's part of the fun of the sport. The fact that leaning is part of the pleasure of sport can be shown in many ways - look at motorcycle riders, gymnasts, surfers, windsurfers. Look at small cat racers - most people love flying hulls and doing the wild thing, not sailing flat.

All that you have proven is that you don't understand what most people enjoy about sailing, and that you don't respect those who do the sport enough to assume that they have chosen the best way for them to have fun. Why not just respect the taste of your fellow sailors?

 

At least the top IRC boats had some relevance to 'normal' sailing this year. But I agree, this year I couldn't even be bothered to go down to look at the fleet at the CYCA before the start.

Actually I was much more interested in the Launceston-Hobart, which is a race that your typical owner can actually afford to do!

 

I think Shakespeare really got it right.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

 

These sorts of generalisations are repeated ad nauseum in multihull marketing hype but they are simply misleading.

Multihulls and monohulls can both sink from breached hulls unless they have inbuilt floatation . Sailing Multihulls are more prone to hull damage as they have two or more hulls and are lightly built.

Catamarans in particular when inverted in heavy weather have been shown to be very dangerous and have lead to the loss of entire crews who would have been perfectly safe in a small self righting monohull.

 

The reality is there isn't enough multihulls equipped to Cat 1 standard in Australia and willing to go to Hobart for it to be an issue. There are perhaps 3 or 4 cruiser/racer multihulls that have expressed interest in doing the race ie not enough to justify the work required to set up an event. There are no mysterious conspiracies at work here. The vast majority of racing type multihulls larger than beach cats are of the trailerable variety these days. Most big cats are set up just for cruising and express little interest in racing.

If there was enough interest and sufficient entries we could set up our own event rather than railing at CYCA to allow us a division in theirs but the truth is there just isn't enough interest to make it happen which is a pity but there you go.

I doubt there would be much interest from international multihull teams. It's too far from their sponsorship base and a relatively short course for the logistics required to get the boats here to race.

I'm as much of a multihull enthusiast as anyone but the multis argument in the Sydney to Hobart is just flogging a dead horse. Leave that poor dead horse be and work towards building sufficient interest in racing multihulls offshore in Australia is a more helpful and progressive approach.

The ORCV has welcomed multihulls into their events assuming they meet the correct safety standards and the MYCV commodore Charles Meredith competed in the recent Melbourne to Devenport event on his Chris White 46' catamaran Peccadillo. Things are moving on a local level and guys like Sean Langman who have campaigned on the multihulls behalf have been a great help.

 

Back on this, and branching from a thread on SA, do you know what the details were around the death of the super 30 classes in the hobart? was it the changes in construction and stability post '98?

A little off topic, but figure we've gone left of center already

 

Translation: I've just been handed my head and now I'm going to sulk in the corner and not make a substantive rebuttal.....

PDW

 

Paddy, you got it exactly right.

 

Thanks Doug.
At least I have one supporter.
PDW.
I do not need to make "A substantive rebuttal".
If you click on my pseudonym you can see where my interests lay.

 

More like, you *can't* make a substantive rebuttal.

Funny thing is, you're the flip side of those monohull bigots who put down multihulls all the time yet you don't see it in yourself. That, or you're trolling and simply a waste of time reading. I haven't decided yet and frankly my care factor is too low to bother much.....

One point though on your claims that cruising families are going to multihulls. It's a funny thing but I live on the waterfront here in Tasmania. There's a mooring field out the front of my place. The big Kettering marina complex is 10 minutes away, also with a big mooring field. Now perhaps I'm so biased that I don't notice cruising cats when I see them, but I have to say that the monohull to catamaran ratio around here is something like 20 to 1 at it's most generous estimate to cats. Possibly 40:1 or even higher.

So methinks it is *you* who protests too much....

And before you come back with the usual personal attack that I dislike multihulls so you can avoid the point above, let me say that I actually don't. I wouldn't build one or want to own one but I recognise what they can do well and what they can't. Just like monohulls...... which suit my personal balance of tradeoffs better at this point in life.

PDW

 

G'day Spoonie. It's an interesting question.

I'd assume that the post '98 changes in construction and stability were not the sole or major effect, since there were several Super 30 style boats that did Hobart after that time, namely Urban Gorilla (Hick IMS 30), Toecutter (Hick IRC 30), Tow Truck (Farr Mumm 30), Krakatoa (custom Greg Young 30), Prion (MG 30) and maybe some others. If a Farr Mumm 30 can go to Hobart then the rules aren't too strict! Chris Tillet, who has a worlds dinghy win and a Mumm nationals to his credit, said that he wouldn't even do a coastal race on a Mumm if there was a gale warning out. On the other hand Geoff Stagg from Farr once told me that he'd rather do a Fastnet on a Mumm 30 than on an IOR One Tonner, but I think he's coming from the angle of a pro who expects to be on the rail all the time, and most of us aren't like that!

Most of the Super 30 types would be extremely uncomfortable on such a long race; by comparison some of the light halves like the Dubois boats were like palaces down below, and arguably had a better motion. It seems significant that almost none of the 30 footers with 'inshore style' decks and interiors has ever had a really good Hobart place overall in many years of trying, and there have been some spectacularly bad performances by them which IMHO must get down to crew exhaustion and the simple difficulty of handling these boats down that track.

There's a fair bit of evidence that the 30 footers now struggle on corrected time. Robert Hick told me that a modern 30 couldn't win on IRC or IMS. Even the old halves seem to be treated 1-2% more harshly under IRC than they were under IOR, when they were competitive.

I've checked the UK and French races and I note they haven't got a fleet of Super 30 equivalents. Instead they have slightly larger, slightly less extreme production boats like the JPK 1010 and Sunfast 3200, which are proven winners under IRC, and they have good fleets of them. There were 17 boats like JPK1010s and Sunfast 3200s in the last Fastnet, and just one "Super 30" type. And of course that's ignoring the very popular half and quarter ton classes that do shorter races.

It seems interesting that you can now pick up a used Archambault A31 for very close to the same cost, inflation adjusted, that the first half tonner to win the Hobart cost back in 1979. That was shortly before the Hobart reached its peak of popularity, largely because of the popularity of the smaller boats. There's also the opportunity to pick up some really cheap suitable boats, like the Hick 30 which I think used to be Toecutter, or Bull 9000s.

So the problem isn't purchase costs; maintenance costs have probably skyrocketed, though, and it's probably a lot harder to get really good crew onboard on a budget these days now that big-boat owners are willing to throw so much at them.

I tend to think that the real problem is that owners feel discouraged by the clubs. Certainly last time I raced offshore that was the very real perception of the owners of a large proportion of the small boats. The CYCA has gone from having its own JOG and Half Ton classes, to banning all boats from under 30' even in day races. The RPA allegedly shut down the radio skeds in the Coffs while a couple of little old boats were still out racing, years back. Some JOG officials made jokes at presentations about the fact that everyone had to wait for the little old boats - sure enough soon those boats stopped racing so then someone else became the butt of the same jokes and then they stopped racing in turn.

Even when the Sydney-Batemans Bay regatta was held partly for small boats, there was an explicit statement that it was merely a "stepping stone" to the "real" racing which was bigger boats in longer races. It wasn't like the old JOG scene, which was seen as a serious racing challenge in itself.

Years ago it was recognised that small boats were important and valid. These days it seems that everyone is trying to get into bigger stuff. Even my new club down at Batemans has now switched to bigger boats and the fleet size is dropping. The former Commodore of Cronulla said that they have the same issue.

It may be significant that WA and Tassy still have reasonable small-yacht fleets and they have, per capita, the strongest fleets in Oz. I'm hoping to get my boat back up to scratch and do the Launceston-Devonport race in a couple of seasons since that race still gets a few halves.

There may also be a cultural issue in that sailors these days are tougher in some ways (like the time they spend on the rail) but softer in other ways, like not cutting the budget by sleeping on board, even in conditions that are quite comfortable. Last time I did a JOG series I was one of only about two guys who slept aboard, despite the fact that half the boats were comfortable, clean and dry Young 88s etc in a comfortable marina.

The Brits and French show that the under 34 footer scene can still thrive offshore. We could get it happening if a few people were prepared to run with it, but when I've tried to get half tonners going no one else was interested.

Sorry about the long rant but this is (IMHO) an important issue. If you're interested in trying to get some small-boat offshore kickstarted I'd be into helping to organise it. We could just pick one or two existing events to support (maybe at small clubs that would treat small boats well, such as Manly and Gosford) and then start contacting potential owners and putting the word out for all boats under approx 32' who want to race under AMS and arbitrary.

 

Well said. The strange thing is that some bigots can't understand that different people have different preferences and tradeoffs; like the fact that some people hate heeling and some people don't.

It really baffles me because I love my cat and also my dinghies, keelboat and boards. They just all have different strengths and weaknesses.