HOW ABERDARE CLEAN SWEPT
THE HISTORICAL 18S AUSTRALIAN
CHAMPIONSHIP, WORDS AND
PICTURES BY BOB ROSS.
THE GHOST
GALLOPED IN
69
THE GALLOPING GHOSTJOHN WINNING scored his second consecutive win
with Aberdare in the Historical 18ft Skiffs Australian
Championship after heading off a spirited challenge
from Yendys, skippered by Irishman Harold Cudmore,
one of four noted overseas sailors skippering replicas of
famous open boats of yesteryear in the Sydney Flying
Squadron’s 11-boat fleet.
The win was a popular one. Winning, who is
president of the Australian 18 Footers League and at
62 is still very competitive in the League’s modern
18ft skiff fleet, is the man who has done most to keep
the spirit of the “historicals” alive.
He founded the Australian Open Skiff Trust,
which raises funds towards maintaining the fleet of 11
replicas of big sail-carrying open 18s designed before
1950 and building new ones.
Each Saturday in the summer season he races a replica
with the Sydney Flying Squadron’s fleet with a well-
settled regular crew; currently on Aberdare, a replica of the
Fred Hart design that won the Australian championship
four years in a row from 1933 to 1937.
She was narrow for the time with a 7ft beam in a
fleet of predominantly eight-foot beamers and without
the “heel” (small keel running aft to the transom) and
shallow. She carried an enormous spread of sail and
after blistering downwind performances she became
the “The Galloping Ghost.”
The Australian Historical Sailing Skiff Association
calls the major prize for its Australian championship The
Galloping Ghost Trophy. First to finish is not necessarily
the winner.
The association corrects elapsed times to an
Authenticity Rating System that takes into account the
wide variations in the design and technology within the
fleet of replicas from the various eras between 1906 and
1950 (the cut-off date for replica designs).
Winning previously won the championship in 2007,
2010 and 2011 sailing a replica of Australia IV, originally
built by Bill Fisher and his sons Tom and Jimmy in 1943.
He rates her as probably the fastest replica he has sailed.
This year Aberdare won all three races on scratch and
ARS corrected times after some close battles at the headMAIN: Second was The
Mistake (Jeremy Sharp).
ABOVE: Newest boat, Myra
Too, skippered by Phil Barnett.