Bring Back the Blooper
I was chatting with Peter Kerr from Deagon Slipway on the Cabbage Tree Creek in Brisbane.
He mentioned to me that there could soon be up to five Tasman Seabirds sailing regularly on Morton Bay. (PAGAN, JOANNE BRODIE, REPRIEVE, CHERANA and KALEENA) This is the famous 36ft design that established Alan Payne as the leading Australian Naval Architect of the 1950’s and 60’s.
This is a story in itself, and we hope to post it on the website in coming months, but in the meantime something Peter said struck me as interesting.
PAGAN, Peter’s boat has always flown a blooper, the rather strange second spinnaker set to leeward and trimmed with the halyard. He reckons it gives them an extra half a knot in the right conditions.
I must admit I’m slightly fascinated by the blooper as we used to fly one on the first keelboat I ever crewed, an S&S Defiance, in the 1980’s. And the picture of KIALOA sailing down the east coast of Tasmania with two kites and the blooper up, is surely one of the great iconic yachting images.
So, one of the other seabird owners decided they also wanted one! In steps Gary Saxby from the UK Sailmakers in Brisbane. Despite having designed sails by computer for over 30 years there are no digital records of how to make one. So, using Peter’s old blooper as a template they construct a brand new one for REPRIEVE.
Surely this is the first new Blooper to be made in Australia in the last 30 years.
I’d love somebody to prove me wrong!
PAGAN at the start of the Gladstone Race
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EDITOR // Mark Chew