Header Photo: Aussie Historical 10-Footer - White Knuckes

The classic Aussie 10 footer is the only other class (other than the Classic Moth) to be featured more than once on the header photo. This photo embodies a facet of the sport that is a combination of crazy balls-to-the-wall, close-to-the-edge racing whilst sailing on a beautiful all-wood classic dinghy.

The lines to the Aussie 10 footer are also classic; a deep, roundish hull with enough flotation to accommodate three grown adults and a big rig in a ten foot dinghy.

For reference the waterlines are set at 60 mm, and the buttocks at 125mm. Stations are spaced at 305. 610, 1219, 1829, 2438, 3048 mm. At the transom, the 1/2 width is 689 mm and the max width (not on a station) is 816 mm.

Here is the dxf file if one is so inclined to use it in drafting or modeling software. All dimensions in meters. Use to pop-out icon on the top right for downloading this file.

Header Photo: Australian Historical 10-Foot Skiffs - To the Back of the Bus!

This is the second time I have featured the crazy Australian 10-foot Historical Skiffs in a header photo. To fit three grown adults in a 10 foot racing dinghy and pile on the sail area is bad-ass in the extreme. Here is a onboard video of one racing. Join me in marveling as the crew camps out in the back of this rolly-rolly bus downwind (sometimes you just have to sit on the transom). The action heats up at about 2 minutes into the video.

Australian Classic 10 Foot Skiffs; What about the other view?

Pete from the New South Wales 10 footer fleet emailed to say that he noticed that I only posted photos of the 10 footers going upwind. To rectify my omission, he supplied some photos of the 10 footers running offwind with their (ahem!) normal day-to-day spinnakers.

















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Australian Classic 10 foot skiffs; More photos

I get a kick out of this class. How they shoehorn three grown adults into a ten footer and then pile on scads of sail is my kind of crazy. Plus, class rules stipulate that all boats must be clear finished. I've posted before on this class (search over at this link ). From the class website, looks like they're launching two new hulls for their season so they must be attracting even more crazies. I've found more photos off the Internet (click on photo to enlarge).












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Seahorse Magazine waxing lyrical about Classic Dinghies; What's Up With That?

Seahorse magazine, that esteemed English "yotting" publication known for featuring breathless articles on the latest carbon fiber this, and carbon fiber that, or very serious, convoluted, colorful CFD analysis by some big, bad designer of current fame, had, of all things, a picture of of one of the reproduction Australian 18 foot skiffs in the February 2011 issue. The caption read as follows;

"There is now a thriving historic 18ft skiff scene in Australia with fierce competition and entries from several of the different Commonweatlth nations ............... In fact, historic small boat racing seems to be on a roll everywhere right now - there is only so much white plastic anyone can take."

I would like to say "No sh*t Sherlock" but let's be nice, and congratulate Seahorse magazine on finally spotting a trend that this blog has been on top of for a while. It may be the greying of dinghy racers that is driving this trend but there definitely is exploding fleet racing in everything from the our local historic classes, the Chesapeake 20 and Log Canoes, to the Salcombe Yawls in England, to the Rainbow keelers of Holland et al. I'll be starting a series soon featuring current gaffer and gunter classes that are still going strong.

And let's go to the videotape..........

Historic 18 foot racing...........


And here are some pictures of the certified "Loonies" of the Historical crowd; the Australian Historical 10 footer skiffs (yes, that's right 10 footers with three crew) that are raced in Brisbane and Sydney. (As always, click on the image for a higher resolution display,)





A YouTube video on the Aussie 10 footers can be found here.

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Directors Cut; YouTube - Aussie 10 foot skiffs

For my third YouTube video, I again did a slideshow, but this time I heisted all the pictures from the Internet. I suppose this could be seen as a copyright infringment. I was willing to take the YouTube down if someone complained. That hasn't happened yet.

This is a slideshow of the Australian Historical 10 foot skiffs. Most every sailor is aware of the modern Australian 18 skiffs with three men on a trapeze ... on wide racks ... going blistering fast ... on the edge of control and beyond. There is also a modern 12 foot skiff and 16 foot skiff with two men on trapeze.

In the early 1900's there were a myriad of skiff classes in Australia; a 6 footer, a 8 footer, a 10 footer, a 12 footer, a 14 footer, a 16 footer, a 18 footer class and some behemoths over 20' long. These were round bilged, open dinghies with acres of sail and as much crew as they could fit in the boat to keep these boats mast side up. These skiffs were very similar in concept to the American sandbaggers popular in the late 1800's.

Over the last 20 years, there has been a resurgence in the Historial Skiffs, particularly in the Historical 18's and the Historical 10. All of these skiffs have been built as reproductions.

The Historical 10 footer is a ride I want to experience when I get to Australia. 10 foot long .... three crew .... flying spinnakers from the number 2 rig of the Australian Historical 18's. I think this slideshow gives a feeling on how crazy these 10 foot skiffs are.

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