One of the best videos,i remember being flung into the side stay,like a cheese cutter.

Bloody good

18ft Sailing Superbly filmed! ❤🎉🙏thanks for sharing this! 🙏 I remember (1978-81) how thrilling, exhilarating and sometimes terrifying a ride on the wire can be! What a rush! And to think that all this FUN started on Sydney Harbour when Julian Bethwaite designed and built the golden yellow, Bradmill Stubbies 18 footer! How iconically Aussie! 🇦🇺👍🎉 With an open transom, a first (I believe) for this skiff class and an over-rotation wing mast it all emerged from late night dreams, heated design debates and a tiresome creative process of hand building the skiff, with restarts and makeovers and re-dos at a time of fierce competition amongst sailors and designers. I’d sailed as a kid on Sydney Harbour in Sabot, Laser and Tasers usually just as ballast, bailer or sheethand crew🤣 it was a world of fun but the way onto the water was paid for by long hours of sanding and varnishing the old plywood Sabot, learning to tie knots, mend sails, work with wire rigging and polish SS fittings 🤪👍absolutely worth it! Much later my nights were spent doing graphic arts and I’d just completed a lettering/ sign writing module when I was invited by JB to try my hand with the sail and name logo, Bradmill Stubbies. So does anyone remember the old thick Sticky Back vinyl, it was yuck to work into curves! At this stage I was drowning under templates and discarded attempts as the SB was so thick and using it on both sides, was bound to cause distortions of the sail. These giant templates were in parts a meter wide and difficult to manage alone. The hardest thing was getting the placement of the big ‘B’ right so that when the sail filled out into a curve the ‘B’ would stand up straight 🤪😅 The pressure was on now with the hull completed to get mast, rigging, the sails and spinnaker sorted to clinch the company sponsorship deal. The company had asked for Bradmill but I took a risk out of frustration and a joint decision was made to do the giant ‘B’ shapes and use Stubbies 😊😅 Well I was very pleased with my input and effort as when fully rigged on the water what an impact her sail made! Even if one ‘B’ was technically backwards! EVERYONE knew it was the Bradmill logo! And Stubbies could be read from any angle! No shadows of lettering on opposite sides of the sail made their logo more legible and impactful out on the harbour! It’s placement almost perfect 😂 With a small tight knit team of fellow sailors we did the hull signage amidst challenges to boat length measurements and rules changing in dynamic times. All of which, after the heavy wooden 18footers with up to 15 crewmen of the last century, really opened up boat designers to incorporating new boat building materials and equipment mechanisation, we now take for granted. As with any new boat venture, once christened in Sydney Harbour with a big sponsor Bradmill’s big ‘B’ took many a dive down wind, but she screamed past the then big monohull ferries and loved a race with the hydrofoils too😂 oh the broken experimental masts, the wings and trampolines oh so many things and crew all tried and tested to limits unknown! What a hoot😅 In a stiff Nor’easter from behind, at 10feet wide, she skipped like a golden saucer or stone across white crested waves until her bowsprit dug a little too deep into the oncoming rolling swell of the heads then that sudden inertia of going into the drink! The “Stubbies” big ‘B’ may not be considered by many in sailing echelons as a great success but for me, I saw how manifesting a big idea and sharing it with those close to you, who share your passion, can make what seems impossible a reality. The experience it lent to JB and his teams of supporters on huge and various learning curves during the process, all gained true grit and were inspired with greater more innovative ideas for boat building and envisioned the expansion of sailing as a multidisciplinary global team sport, which we all enjoy today! 🎉 🙏Thanks for the reminisce 😊

Just "popping a wheelie" all the time is just showboating. Just like the old days when Hobies were shown flying a hull at like 50- 60 degrees. Not how the boat was designed and not how it goes the best- not to mention- how long is your rig and everything going to last crashing back down every few seconds?...

not a single helmet to be seen. Idiots.

Parkdale Yacht Club - plywood and love

Oh, wow. This looks so cool!

Used to sail a cherub back in 87, webb2 extream sailing machines, loved it. We used to make out we tuned it with a violin tuning fork. Most exhilarating thing I've done in my life, especially when we used the large spinnaker, flying. ❤

Would have been so much better if there wasn't as much slow-mo

I love it, I just wish I could watch more discreetly. The interview to music volume levels are too skewed so I keep getting caught watching this and not working on my own edits haha

Wonderful. I raced Cherubs in the 1970s and loved them.

F18 rulez

If you have never sailed a skiff you have missed out.

Need beeps starting at 8 on the intro countdown, and lose the beeps on 2, 1. Nice Video, beautiful sailing 🤙

What is the name of the maker of that sailboat?🤔

Nearly bought an Sydney Habour18ft Skiff many years ago just couldn't get a regular third crewman. Sailing on the edge

Anyone ever seriously hurt themselves on those pointy spreaders? The first lad wrenches his head and neck away from them at the last second, leaving him with only that little nick. I know there's inherent risk to everything, but maybe a head-height prong pointed at the sailor isn't the best possible design approach on a boat prone to catapulting the sailor forward.

Loved the vid!

Probably the fastest 12ft dinghy after the 12ft skiff!

Hi

I just stumbled across this movie while looking for something completely unrelated. I am a lifelong sailor of both keelboats and dinghies. I've never sailed a skiff, and I'm not sure my wrecked-up body could handle it anymore, but I wish I could one day. I haven't been able to sail for several years now due some personal stuff, but I am looking forward to being able to get out on the water again someday. There is a magic to sailing that only sailors can understand and this video so perfectly captures it the way mere words cannot. Beautifully done, and thank you for the motivation to keep after my dream of being on the water again.

The 18ft skiff would have to be the fastest (non-foiling) sailing dinghy?

Perfect boat for the Columbia Gorge Oregon

Had an Ian Murray designed & built one (so I was told) waaay back in the seventies . Nothing like these ! Still loved that boat & as a kid , I worked 2 part time jobs to support it. Used to sail it one up in big westerlies on the Clarence River with mates in other boats. Great times. Even sailed out to Solitary Island from Coffs.

Wow! Is there a faster (non-foiling) dinghy than and 18ft skiff?

Brillant video

Love to know who edits some of these youtube vids and turns the backing music up far to load. So shity when you have to turn the talking up and the inbetween music down soooo far.

Watch a guy in similar foil dinghy struggle for the whole session. He could not get foiling for long and because the buoyant part is minimal it was consistently capsizing and requiring major effort to right it. Which would lead to it flipping the other way, and on it went. I wing foil and there is major benefit to having a board that will float with full body weight on board. These boat designers could learn a thing of two by creating bouyant better designed hulls.

Awesome

This just goes to show what a good design John Spencer came up with in the first place.

Well in my day we thought sinker sailboards were fast ! Waterstart anyone/

Magnífico video, what a fabulous and excelent video with ultraslow motion in hd. Story is about a band of brothers n sisters. Congratulations Best regards

Had to have a chuckle hearing how cooperative and good willed the crews were to each other given the history of the class where the occasional punch-up was not unknown. The class developed as a way of keeping rugby league players fit in the off-season and the early 18 foot skiffs would often have crews of 12 or more and it wasn't unknown that if a close competitor looked like beating you to the windward mark then deft use of a spinnaker pole could persuade them otherwise. It also wasn't unknown that if the wind dropped off several of the crew would be thrown overboard (near a shipping buoy of course) knowing that one of the ferry boats that followed the fleet would pick them up. The skiff fleets developed outside of the regular yachting fraternity and clubs but today are really mainstream. Fantastic filming by the way and very deft use of the drone.

Laborious

how to compare this with a 29er?

that is new SPORT.

I really had never Seen anything like it. This was amazing to watch.

Awesome vid guys.

So Beautiful lovely.

El Toro's are such fun boats to sail.

Awesome video. Want to sail 18's sooner than later. Not getting any younger. This looks just like Squamish and Howe Sound. Big winds, in flow, out flow. Have a Hobie 18. Generally sail by myself. Had some fun on 505's and 49er's. This just looks like so much dangerous fun.

All those anchors at the front are not doing a very good job at keeping the nose down...

Just another example of why sailing in Sydney has been without peer in so many ways. Flying across the harbour or Pittwater watching the deep blue water and glistening white foam racing past underneath me at 12 years old was something of a formative experience for me. It is better than memories as one can still live it and be inspired by it in everything one does.

Un video stupendo. Una barca bella ed impossibile. Una musica di sottofondo fantastica. Buon vento...

this is so sick! i just bought a laser5000! i cant wait to get into skiff sailing

I've watched the 18-footers on Sydney Harbour more times than I can remember, and sailed smaller trapeze Skiffs in my younger days. They are truly the most beautiful and impressive vessels. Thanks you for the amazing footage, you really did these incredible boats, and their crews, justice :)

I live on the east coast of the US, I remember watching the 18’s on the Speedvision network......Rob Mundle was the announcer, these are the coolest skiffs ever, and the sailors that sail them have the highest skills of any sailors I have seen......so awesome. Remember Skilled, Nokia, Ella Bashe?, Tic Tac......etc. etc. Such an awesome circuit.....thanks to all the Aussie 18 sailors.....cheers

Awesome video ! Great pictures ! Seems really fun !

Lake Garda. Sailing heaven. I hope to be back at Campione some day soon. Missed it last year and probably this July too. Bummer.

I don't think I've seen a bowsprit that long, looks like something from the 17-1800s.