The JJ Giltinan International Trophy is considered the world's premier 18ft Skiff open championship, the eponymous brainchild of noted Australian sports entrepreneur J. J. Giltinan.
Early days – 1930s and 1940s
In the early 20th century 18-foot skiff racing had gained ground as a spectator sport. The radical innovations introduced by Aberdare in 1933 (a narrow beam, reduced sail area, reduced crew, and flat bottom) made it significantly faster than contemporary designs, leading Aberdare to win four consecutive Australian championships. The Sydney Flying Squadron, at that time the leading organizer of 18-foot skiff racing, promptly banned Aberdares innovations, fearing the impact of these innovations on the established class.
The desire to race these faster skiffs using Aberdares innovations led J. J. Giltinan to found the New South Wales 18-Footers League in 1935 as a rival club to the Flying Squadron. With the success of the new league Giltinan planned a world championship event for 18-foot skiffs on Sydney Harbour to coincide with Sydney's 150th anniversary in 1938. The inaugural edition of the eponymously named contest was held in Sydney Harbor in 1938, won by Taree skippered by Bert Swinbourne (AUS), while Aberdare took third.
Advertisements were placed in major newspapers throughout the world with positive replies being received from England, the US, Hong Kong and New Zealand. Unfortunately, due to unsettled conditions in Europe at the time, only the New Zealanders were able to compete, sending three boats to the inaugural regatta in 1938, which produced a total fleet of 20 boats.
The carnival was a great success. A local newspaper reported on the day following the first race: "The crowd at Circular Quay (ferry wharf) 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 were also thronged with spectators." The total crowd was estimated at more than 10,000 people.
Bert Swinbourne's Taree took the first championship with two wins and one second placing from the three-race regatta. Australia filled all three placings with Victor (Vic Lucas) in second place and Aberdare (Vic Vaughan) third while New Zealand's best performer was Irina, which finished in fifth place.
The success of the 1938 regatta led to a second championship being staged at Auckland in 1939 when three Australian 18 footers took on the Kiwi fleet of 21 boats. Unlike the original, this contest proved to be one of the most bitterly contested in the history of the championship. While the crowds on the foreshore were estimated at 25,000 people, it was marred by several protests, the latter of which saw the defending champion and provisional 1939 winner, Taree, being disqualified. Gordon Chamberlain's Manu was then declared the winner.
Tarees skipper Bert Swinbourne lodged an appeal against the decision, but when the appeal wasn't heard before the Australian team returned home, Swinbourne decided to hang on to the trophy. The Australian Board of Control later upheld the New Zealand decision in the best interests of keeping good will, but Swinbourne didn't agree and refused to hand over the trophy. He was expelled by the Australian League and for the next four years the Giltinan trophy remained hidden in Swinbourne's possession.
Swinbourne later apologized for his actions and returned the trophy to the League. It was then handed over to New Zealand and presented to the Manu owners.
A third contest took place at Auckland in 1948. Due to the bad feelings which had resulted from the 1939 regatta, the League was determined to send the strongest team possible and recruited the great Billo Hayward to sail its top boat Crows Nest.
This regatta was a triumph for the Australians as the huge sail carriers totally dominated the smaller New Zealand 18s to finish first, second and fourth overall. Hayward took the title with two wins and a fifth placing from the three races.
Drama and conflict seemed to be a fact of life in the history of the 18 footer class and the late 1940s were no exception. Queensland was suffering from rising costs and went to 6 ft beam boats with a further reduced number of crewmen; the League sailors refused to agree to the change and wouldn't allow the new boats to be registered in their events.
The New Zealand governing body of the time tried to incorporate these new boats into the Giltinan Championship, a move which angered the League and resulted in the New Zealand body withdrawing its support of the championship. Several New Zealand sailors contacted the League, offering to take a private team of 18 footers to the 1949 championship in Sydney. The League agreed and even assisted the kiwis with their shipping costs.
The kiwis put up a good showing with their top boat Takiri finishing third overall behind Marjorie Too (Tony Russell) and Top Weight (Bish Bolton) of Australia. New Zealand's Jack Logan believed he would never beat the Australians in his boat, so began to browse through old plans of his late father, who was a master designer and builder. On a piece of 50-year-old parchment paper he saw a design which gave him an idea. He drew it out, chopped off the bow and gave her a transom in place of a pointed stern. The public called her a skimmer; Logan called her a frying pan, complete with handle.
1950s and 1960s
Logan rigged her with the latest Bermudan rig, polished her hull to a mirror-finish and christened her Komutu, the Maori word for "surprise". When the Australians went to Auckland in 1950 they were unable to match the phenomenal speed of this most unusual boat and were convincingly defeated in the three race championship. The 1950 contest was significant for the introduction of a third competing country when Fiji was represented by O'vuka, skippered by Alex Bentley.
After Australia's Bill Barnett totally dominated the 1951 series in Myra Too, the 1952 contest was hosted for the first time at a venue other than Australia and New Zealand - the Royal Suva Yacht Club in Fiji. After a closely fought series Peter Mander's Intrigue won the title back for New Zealand. This contest was also memorable for the fact that Intrigues crew introduced the use of trapeze.
Peter Mander then became the first skipper to win two Giltinan Championships when he again skippered Intrigue to victory in the 1954 regatta at Auckland. New Zealand's domination resulted from the team's use of new cold-moulded hulls with two and three skins of diagonally laid planking and the fact that they carried three of the five crew on the trapeze wire.
New Zealand designers and sailors were becoming great innovators in the class during the 1950s. Not surprisingly, these moves immediately changed the style of 18 footers in Australia. It was back to Australia (Waterloo Bay, Brisbane) for the 1956 series and for the first time the regatta was sailed over five races and included the use of a discard. Queensland's Norm Wright used local knowledge to his advantage to win with Jenny VI.
Once again locals dominated the championship when the 1958 regatta was sailed on Sydney Harbour. Len Heffernan (Jantzen Girl) and Bill Barnett (SMV) dominated the racing as each skipper scored two wins in the five-race regatta. Only another local, Cliff Monkhouse (Toogara), was able to record a race win.
In the end the overall result was determined by an error from Barnett in the first race. SMV was leading by two minutes when Barnett failed to round the correct mark, allowing Heffernan through to take the win and title in Jantzen Girl.
Although only six boats contested the 1960 contest at Auckland the regatta was anything but uninteresting. As one leading New Zealand yachting journal said: "The 18s are still the glamour boats with the general public. Even the weekday races saw the waterfront road and headlands thick with spectators and the starting wharf completely packed".
There were great dramas even before the racing began when Bob Miller (later famously known as Ben Lexcen) arrived with his radically designed Taipan, which was the biggest break in tradition since the skimmer. She was a three-man boat, hard chine, plywood construction, reverse sheer, half-decked, heavily flared topsides and narrow (4 ft 3in) beam on the chine. She also had a smaller rig (similar to a Flying Dutchman), a big genoa and bending spars and was referred to by Miller as a supercharged FD.
Taipan had, however, far too much decking for the time and Miller was forced to do a major reconstruction job prior to the start of the regatta, reducing her deck by around fifty per cent, which made her very vulnerable in choppy conditions.
Bernie Skinner's Surprise won the title back for the kiwis with five good placings while the Australians couldn't match this consistency and suffered the consequences. Unfortunately for the New Zealanders, Skinner's victory was their only one during the 1960s.
Despite the problems experienced by Miller at Auckland, there was little doubt about Taipans design, and the follow-up Venom proved this emphatically by dominating the 1961 contest on the Brisbane River.
At the 1963 contest in Auckland, the 1958 champion Len Heffernan played an unusual role when he was responsible for the design and construction of Ken Beashel's winning skiff, Schemer. Heffernan had built two skiffs for the Australian season and elected to sail the Taipan-Venom type boat while handing over the more conventional four-man boat to Beashel.
Beashel and his crew recorded three wins and a second placing over the five races; their record could have been even greater but for an unfortunate incident in race three when she was hit by a Royal New Zealand Air Force launch, which was carrying a TV cameraman.
In the 1964 contest on Sydney Harbour, the overall consistency of Toogara proved the winning formula for Cliff Monkhouse and his crew.
In the 1965 regatta at Auckland, Australian skipper Bob Holmes won the championship in Travelodge, which was the same boat Ken Beashel had sailed as Schemer to win the 1963 title - also at Auckland.
Holmes successfully defended his title with Travelodge in 1966 (to become the first Australian two-time winner), but his attempt to win a third consecutive championship was thwarted in 1967 at Sydney when Don Barnett narrowly and dramatically took the championship in Associated Motor Club. Barnett and team's consistency and good seamanship in very testing conditions won a hard-fought regatta against Holmes and Len Heffernan.
Auckland was the venue in 1968 and again three Australian boats dominated this series. There was, apparently, little harmony in the Australian team, as two protests were lodged against fellow team members.
Bob Holmes' Travelodge won each of the first two races only to be disqualified from the second following a protest by Ken Beashel in Daily Telegraph for a breach by Holmes against another Australian boat. Daily Telegraph then won races three and four, but had to survive a protest by Holmes in race three, before Beashel could regain the title he first won in 1963.
The 1969 series on the Brisbane River produced the championship's first tie which required a sail-off between two Australian boats Travelodge (Bob Holmes) and Rod Zemanek's Willie B. Again. A protest had a major effect on the overall result when Willie B. was disqualified for a breach of the port and starboard rule against Guinness Lady, after winning race three.
The special match race sail-off between Travelodge and Willie B. was a gripping race as the two skiffs were separated by just a few seconds around the entire course and the lead changed many times. Travelodge finally took line honours by just 26s which gave Holmes his third Giltinan title – the only skipper to do that at the time.