I received today the UK Sailmakers newsletter and there is an article on using telltails
written Joop Sloof . The opening paragraph by UK introduces Sloof as the designer
of the winged keel on Australia 11. What! has this been proven ? As far as I am aware Sloof and his mate waited until Ben and two others in the know were dead then wrote a book to say 'It was I who designed the keel , Ben designed the hull". notwithstanding what was what I reckon UK is taking a bit of licence in proclaiming such as fact .
I think it we tend to honour those who embody our sense of small town heroes sticking it to the big end of town. Ben Lexcen was an excellent designer who produced some amazing boats, Apollo and Taipan are two but he did work with the Dutch team to produce the keel. So it makes sense that Peter Van Oossanen and his team, including Sloof made contributions, maybe major ones. The Dutch are overplaying their hand a bit - the Australia 2 crew could have probably won the cup in Challenge 12. Certainly in the warm ups before racing Jim Hardy could get her going awfully fast with a bang together crew. So the cup would probably have headed to Oz with a conventional Lexcen design.
If we want to get worried with the nationality thing, us Aussies can hold our heads high. Most of the US Oracle team in Bermuda was Australian, so I don't get too excited about claims about nationality. In the 83 AC another very important designer was probably as responsible for Australia 2s success as Benny, Tom Schackenberg - a good Kiwi, until a few changes made him an Aussie, was responsible for the amazing sails of A2, which were a generation ahead of Liberty's rags. Afterwards he became a Kiwi again.
I will always be a Benny fan. I used to deliver his Manly Daily newspaper. If it was raining, I would pop a paper in my shirt and deliver it to his doorstep, dry. Later on when I was training for the worlds in Lasers, I was out all the time in Middle Harbour. Benny was on his Eureka a fair bit and we got to nodding when we saw each other. One day in a snorting southerly I was coming back from a club race gybing down Middle Harbour and Benny was looking at me from the Eureka. I kept gybing, pulling off great gybes in the big blow. I was going to round up as I passed him and shout out about going sailing with him.
So I get to Clontarf on starboard and gybe to port, the boom comes across, I hit the new side and bang the gunwale and the helm to keep the bow down and then the bottom plastic gudgeon pintle breaks and the rudder breaks off the boat, I spiral round in the blow and end up in the drink. I see Benny look away. I never saw him much after that and I never got my sail and missed my chance to chat with the great man. Bloody gudgeon, and I can't remember how I made it home.
Thanks for that . I could visualize what happened. Actually I had the pleasure of being on the support boat for Challenge 12 in her trials on Port Phillip. I remember catching up with Col. Anderson then manager of Hood Sails Melb. at Royals after the last one and he was quite positive about her potential. Col did my sails for me and I think he was the trimmer on Challenge ,could be wrong though.
I was involved in a campaign that used a Peter Van Oossanen designed boat 
.
After that episode I have no doubt Benny was the design genius behind A2. 
