Description
With every scrap aloft, carrying more sail than many larger keel yachts, and the crew driving her as fast as possible on the edge of control, no other yacht captures the attention quite like an 18-footer in full flight.
This is as true today as it was 100 years ago.
From its origins in the 1890s as an over-canvassed, over-crewed 18-foot dinghy to the 7-man skiff types of the 1930s, and from the trapeze-driven moulded vaneer creations of the 1950s, to the carbon fibre flying machines of today, the 18-footer has retained its appeal for both sailor and spectator.
Its evolution from one form to another was not always welcome. Friends and enemies were lost and created as the battle lines were drawn, either to protect the old or promote the new. On both sides of the Tasman breakaway clubs were formed and old alliances broken in the heat of arguments as clubs sought to maintain their visions of what a true 18-footer really was. Through it all, the 18-footer survived and evolved.
For the first time, this 18-footer back-story has been put into context with the State, Interstate and Inter-dominion racing that has made the class so famous.
Galloping Ghosts tells the full story, from the controversial origins of the Sydney Flying Squadron, the NSW 18-footer’s Sailing League and the Auckland Sailing Club, right up to Len Hefferman’s Aberdare of the mid-1960s. All the familiar names are there, Australian II, H.C.Press II, Aberdare, Taree, Intrigue, Myra Too, Envy, The Jantzen Girls, Taipan, Venom, Schemer, as well as the men who made them fly.
Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated, Galloping Ghosts is the history of the 18-footer as it has never been told before.
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