Dans les forum de 18footer.org, une reponse de Greg Paterson au sujet de la comparaison B18 / Murray ... plus qu'interessant je trouve
Hey Skiffies,
I have been watching this topic with great interest for some time now and its great to see an issue like this get out and peoples responses and ideas to such a one sided argument as Emmett has dragged up here,I first found this story on the 49er web site(which I commented to at length and created a bit of a shit fight on a web site that has nothing to do with18s)where Emmett was trying to brain wash 49er people that have little or no contact with 18s into buying one of his boats.
What struck me was that the whole story was based around comparing the "Grand Prix fleet" to 1995 League/ Murray, at that time the Murray was in its very early stages of evolution(ie;survival of the fastest) in fact the design was only 1 season old and had not been altered form the original design form Iain Murray( I think the League is at about Mk 5 or Mk6 in 2003), also at that time (1995) Grand prix was probably at its strongest as well as being in a position where they had developed and evolved a skiff design(bethwaite) over 5-6 seasons with nearly unlimited funds(Aus$300,000 per skiff a season)and resources as well as doing more than 100 races per season with some of the best crews ever to sail on 18s( Rob Brown, Phil Barnett, Chris Nicolson, Dave Witt just to name a few)
Indeed the B18 in 1995 was an awesome machine but was probably at its 8th or 9th evolution of the original b18 designed in the late 80s by Julian at the League, in fact many of the early Grand Prix skiffs(1990) were Murray designs of different configerations.
This whole comparison thing is such a crock of shit its very funny unless you know the complete time line of the evolution of both designs, basically poor Emmett is a bit deluded if he thinks he can bad mouth a design just so he can sell some really really old boats.
It comes down to 2 completely different philosophies
League:
design a skiff that is a reasonable cost(original cost in 1994 Aus$35,000) and the design is strictly controlled by the League so no one team has an advantage with some graduall evolution and change( which is what has happened over the last 7-8 years) and which continues to sail today with a current International numbers of over 80 registered boats.
Grand Prix:
Run races for TV and try and make millions for Grand Prix, while leaving all designing and building up to the individual sailors to chop and change as they thought- great for evolving fast skiffs but not good for the long term of 18s, hence the bankruptcy of Grand Prix in the late 90s with over Aus$3 million in debt!
Today I think both designs are very even(as can be seen in many SPT results over the last few years where both designs have raced together) and due to the continual evolution of the Murray18 and because of the huge amount of new boats being built each new year.
The 18 Foot Skiff as we all know today is vastly different from the huge, old ,very heavy with nearly 20 crew, boats that graced Sydney Harbour nearly 100 years ago, but indeed without these early days the 18s would not have evolved in to the speed machines that we enjoy today- either b18 or Murray.
Last but not least I find very interesting is that Emmett is actually working for a company in Sydney at the moment designing and testing a new carbon rig for the Murray 18-- funny considering he cant handle seeing them drive down the freeway without falling into deep sleep.
Like most experienced skiff sailors say today( and probably Emmett too) is that hull shapes have evolved over the last 100 years to a point where they cant really improve( hence the Leagues decision to commission 7 times World champ Iain Murray to design a skiff in 1994) and all the evolving is now in rigs and sail designing.
Cheers skiffies
Greg Paterson
Le jour ou l'homme a decouvert le lait, que cherchait-il exactement a faire a la vache ?
