"Stubbies Marathon" Manly to Balmoral to Middle Harbour and back to Manly 1980 - 81.

AUS4 said...

"Stubbies Marathon" Manly to Balmoral to Middle Harbour and back to Manly 1980 - 81.

Great! I wasn't too far off...

1981 sounds impossible though: the 330,000 sails weren't out then. It must have been a yearly thing?

(And they were wearing Stubbies indeed!)

in summer they also get NW, W, and Easterly winds and southerlies can be light aswell, so i could have been coming from almost any direction..

one of those guys is wearing jeans without legs!

greenleader said...

one of those guys is wearing jeans without legs!

darn greenleader i thought i was the only one who noticed that..denim shorts..that'l be a fashion trend today

I grew up in the 80s, not in Sydney but on the mid north coast of NSW. I do remember summer westerlies and they were as hot as hell. Really unpleasant weather and often were associated with bushfires.

I had exactly the same pink coloured rip cirl chest harness as the guy in the foreground, my mum bought for the family together with a second hand one design circa 1983

Pierre, I reckon there woulkd be a few sailors of that vintage that would disagree with you. I can remember lots of good west/SW that you could do speed runs from Lugga's at Longy to DY point and back plus the westerly weirdos at Lake Dangerous. Today was a perfect example, light forecast of 15-20 max but blew its tits off all day. Hot, dry and salty, bloody good fun!!!!!!!!!!
You are right about the sea beeze days followed by a southerly buster (usually on a Sunday arvo that cleared the beach) then back to nor-easters for 3-4 days.
Sigh, bring back the "good old days"

Yep KA360, your recollections are probably spot on. Although the only time it's not light, flukey and/or all over the place in that neck of the woods is when it's a decent Southerly.

I'd guess it being probably ENE. The more Easterly in there the lighter it tends to get, although it rarely blows directly E. The start would have had the biggest wind shadow when the photo would likely have been taken.....

Back to the question: I buy the ENE, that makes sense looking at the flag on top of one of the masts. But isn't the sun coming from dead right, which makes it from the west, which means the race started real late arvo ??

And really 1981 with those sail numbers ???
Was it an open race, and if so, how come all windsurfer brand on picture? In the early 80s open races usually had mixed fleets, no separate starts...

also the rainbow coloured sails were never as fast as the ones with light blue in them.

It would have been early '80s Stubbies; probably '81-'83.

The Open Class went off a few minutes earlier, which is why none can be seen. I think there may have been a mark off Reef Beach, to keep us away from the ferry lane.

It can't be a reverse pic, because the starboard numbers are higher as they should be.

I can recall the Stubbies had maybe 10-15 knots from NNE, but in one or two of them the wind direction shifted radically to the north or NNW at the start line because of the land influence. The seeded sailors from the previous year had been given a special area on the theoretical upwind side, near the ferry wharf, which put us in a serious wind shadow, so we all just moved down the beach, rather to the annoyance of those who had grabbed the front-line spots there earlier. I think it was similar most years, so the apparently strange wind angle is just a very local thing.

If that was the year that Lach won the Open class/Overall event, it would be the year that a multiple Div 2 world champ from France, Robert Nagy, was second. Jessica Crisp and Rob Howard were 3rd and 4th (or 4th and 3rd) having got past the guy who had been in third most of the race, when they came past the Bombora to the finish and had to run the gauntlet of what was (at a conservative estimate) 150,000 Hi Fly 555s and Stip Holidays, all still on the first leg and all continually either falling, veering to port, veering to starboard, sinking or doing all of them at once - and not one of them knew the rules, or how to judge the speed of a Div 2 board railing and planing upwind in 10 knots of wind. It was like a battle of Britain dogfight as we lapped them all.

Not that it's a bitter memory, or anything, to remember Jess and Rob railing past as we went through that massed windshadow And of course, the fact that they were much better sailors had nothing to do with it!

Nagy was a nice guy, but incredibly hyped up and vocal on the water; I still remember hearing him screaming from a couple of hundred metres behind up that last leg.

PS - I can recall LOTS of hot westerlies in those days, and earlier.

PS - Hey, KA 360, are your initials AH?

Just love this CSI thing...

Open and Windsurfer: all makes sense now that there were different starts. That's what I reckoned.
Either NNW wor NNE, I still don't get it with the shadow though and the time of the day, but enough of that.

Reef Beach: yeah, sorta makes sense to keep away from ferries - also might explain the vintage point, high above the masts, which you couldn't get from Manly proper. Would be a nasty offshore roundabout with Grotto though.

Sail numbers and years: I still say 83, late 83 even. What do you say Chris, 330 I don't think were made before the winter of '83.

More or less as an aside, I still sailed my real old 330 Sydney sail just last September at a meet (there was no wind for the Goya). Same yellow-orange design as on the Manly picture, made only in Australia. I take it out once every 2 years, in the lightest possible winds. The real old board is signed by Stuart Gilbert from the '83 Worlds too.

They were made in Asia indeed.

Batches of numbers were allocated to different makers, hence to countries, in order to guarantee unique numbers. For instance I've never seen a 327xxx to 333 elsewhere but Oz (could be wrong). Australian sails were different too: unique colour combos, like the ones on the picture - never to be seen in North America.

The make for Aussie sails (under license Bambora P/L??) was also a bit different - not a true One Design. Mast sleeve a bit smaller, the window for the boom slightly different height. Anyhow, back then I raced in Florida couple of times my Aussie sails and all loved my very unique colours.

Back to number batches, roughly in both N.A. and Oz: 150-200 were 1981, 200-270 for 1982, etc. The Worlds Aug. 1983 had the first Mylar 400xxx, but Dacron 280+ sold from late 1982 to the end. I might be off by some months, but I doubt a 330 sold before 1983. And the pic couldn't be 1984, since there are no Mylar in it.

(wished I had given them a 6-pack'o stubbies now, rather than the book.)