Competing under sail number AUS-1 (obviously) Sean Langman races December’s Solas Big Boat Challenge on Sydney Harbour, the inshore warm-up before the Hobart Race. Langman bought his McConaghy-built Reichel/Pugh design four years ago, quickly putting her in the yard to stretch her from 65 to 69ft. Langman typically crews his yacht with a mix of relative newcomers to ocean racing plus an inevitable bunch of trusty mates from the 18s… with emigré pom Whitbread skipper Matt Humphries on the ‘which-way’ desk
SH:Multihulls race around the world – fully crewed and singlehanded, across the Atlantic, plus the Royal Western Yacht Club has a new race up and around Iceland in 2023, for monos and multihulls both short handed and fully crewed. So it remains the great puzzle why the CYC refuses multihulls in the Sydney Hobart Race. SL: It was put to me very straight some years ago when Bob Oatley was still alive and Syd Fischer was still actively racing: that between Bob and Syd, they had, and still were, contributing so much to Aus- tralian sailing that there was no way they were going to be put offside; and so to have some upstart come along and steal their thunder… that was not going to happen. So I became an enemy of the establish-
ment. There are times when people do things for what they perceive is the greater good – and I don’t think it is such a bad thing. Today I’m seeing it from the other side, though… trying to expand Noakes with our Nimby neighbours! Then again I think if someone doesn’t make a stand they can lose something for ever. Perhaps some things are more important than multihull campaigns and stored power… Sport and business are different things –
44 SEAHORSE
business is business, about livelihoods, and sport is supposed to be about fun, and some people can make money out of their fun… more power to them. SH: Some people live very conservatively and wouldn’t go near anything you have said or done, an easy path to regular success. SL: I think you have to have some admira- tion for yourself, but you can’t set out to wil- fully want to destroy something either. And you have to be careful that your motivation is not just about you. I bought that Orma 60 not to sail it as a multihull, I was going to turn it into a canting-deck monohull! The deal with the French was I would
sail it for just one day before I ran the saw through it… Well, I sailed it for one minute and realised I was never going to cut that boat up! SH: It wasn’t a new boat either, but it was fun! Speaking of fun, how did the huge ‘interest’ in the 18ft skiffs first develop? SL: Actually through an opportunity in one of those periods when the class was split up and fragmented. In the late 1980s the class was pretty stuffed, and the two clubs approached some ‘conventional’ sailors and said they had a pile of boats and we will give you some maintenance
money to run them. I was given a boat called Corinthian
Doors and went out to the factory to pick it up. None of our crew had ever trapezed before, but we sailed the boat and it was great fun… and also a great diversion from all our other sailing. I remember my name getting called out
one Sunday over at the 18 Foot League… I thought I was in trouble, like being sum- moned by headmaster again. Then I was handed a brown paper bag with my ‘finish’ money in it. I asked what on earth it was and they said that we had accumulated some start money but felt they would only give it to us when we eventually finished a race. And then I wasn’t sure I could take it as I wanted to go to the Olympics, so we gave the money to the bar! SH:Making lots of friends that way… SL: We did! And then I went to the Aus- tralian Yachting Federation and asked, and their response was that anything that we get goes to the AYF. So that is how we did it. Then over the
years all that changed and I tell you it was a revelation, something I had never experi- enced, someone giving you money to go sailing! Really amazing.
ACTION SPORTS/ALAMY
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