When John (Woody) Winning lines up as skipper of Yandoo for Race 1 of the 73rd JJ Giltinan World 18 footer Championship on Sydney Harbour on Saturday, March 4, it will be for the 36th time for the “70½-year-old” 18ft skiff legend.
Woody first contested the world’s biggest 18 footer championship in 1977 when, as a 25-year-old, he skippered his Bruce Farr-designed Travelodge into sixth place on Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour.
He had to wait until the year 2000 before he won the championship, in AMP Centrepoint, but it could have been so different had it not been for the famous Iain Murray-led Color 7 team’s run of five successive championship victories between 1978 and 1982.
Winning, skippering the Travelodge Hotels Group-sponsored Pacific Harbour Fiji (1980) then Yandoo (1981), had to be content with finishing as runner-up to Iain Murray and the Color 7 team.
Going into the 2023 regatta, Woody’s Yandoo team of Fang Warren and Josh Porebski are rated as one of the top five contenders for the title after some very impressive performances throughout the early championship races this season.
His biggest threat to victory will be the likely series favourite Andoo, skippered by John (Herman) Winning, son of Woody, who is the current NSW champion.
Herman and Woody, along with Herman’s Andoo crew, Seve Jarvin and Sam Newton, recently teamed together on AndooComanche to win line honours in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, but there will be no sign of mateship when the two teams go head-to-head in the JJs.
The Winning family’s presence at the 73rd JJ Giltinan World 18 footer Championship goes beyond the racing. The family’s company, The Winning Group is the event sponsor.
Woody’s longevity at the championship is put into perspective when we recall the major changes to the boats since that first regatta in 1977.
He recalls, “My first 18 was a plywood Farr-design hull, now all 18ft skiff hulls come from a single shape and are built from a Kevlar Nomex honeycomb paper, which is sandwiched between layers of pre-preg carbon fibre.”
The design is by Iain Murray and the hulls, built by Van Munster Boatbuilders, have a championship-winning longevity up to around 5-6 seasons, compared to a maximum of 2-3 seasons in the late 70s-early 1980s.
Soon after Woody came to the 18s, he introduced a small ‘fixed’ outrigger frame on each side of his hull to increase the leverage.
By 1980, Richard Court introduced a sliding frame to further increase leverage, and this system was immediately superseded by the ‘wings’ style which are still used on the hulls of today. During ‘crazy’ days in the mid-1980s, the tip-to-tip wing span reached an incredible 29ft at the 1985 Worlds on Moreton Bay, Brisbane.
In 1983, Andrew Buckland re-designed the rig on the 18s which eliminated spinnaker poles altogether. He replaced it and its weight, and complicated rigging, with a sliding (later fixed) bowsprit. An asymmetrical single-luff spinnaker was flown to replace the previous double-luff spinnaker.
A huge change came in 1993 when the Australian 18 Footers League introduced the single hull design for all future championship racing, then US champion Howie Hamlin introduced the square-topped mainsail on his West Marine skiff at the 2004 Giltinan Championship.
Aluminium masts and spars used in 1977 are now high modulus carbon.
Entries for the Winning Group 73rd JJ Giltinan World 18ft Skiff Championship are:
Andoo
Smeg
Yandoo
Rag & Famish Hotel
Big Pete
Lazarus
Shaw & Partners Financial Services Jim Colley, Max Paul, Tom Quigley
Finport Finance
Black Knight (Team Germany) Heinrich Bayern, Thomas Martin, Andy Martin
Fisher & Paykel
Balmain Slake
Big Foot Bags & Covers Dave Hayter, Ben Roxburgh, Elliott Mahar
Birkenhead Point Marina Kirk Mitchell, Andrew Stephenson, Daniel Barnett
Burrawang-Young Henrys Simon Nearn, Daniel Phillips, Cameron McDonald
The Oak Double Bay-4 Pines Alex Marinelli, Matt Doyle, Darcy McCracken
Noakes Youth
Marine Outlet
The Kitchen Maker-Caesarstone Lachlan Steel, Jerome Watts, Finn Rodowick
Noakes Blue
C-Tech
18 Footers Bar & Restaurant Pedro Vozone, Cam Walker, Paddy Bannon
Lazarus Youth
ASCC
Hoefle-Haus
Team Japan
The race dates for the Winning Group 73rd JJ Giltinan World 18 footer Championship are:
Saturday March 4 Race 1
Sunday March 5 Race 2
Tuesday March 7 Races 3 and 4
Wednesday March 8 Races 5 and 6
Thursday March 9 Race 7
Saturday March 11 Race 8
Sunday March 12 Race 9
An Australian 18 Footers League spectator ferry will follow the racing on each of the seven days, leaving from Double Bay Public Wharf, alongside the clubhouse, at 2pm.