International – Australia

Fairey exported a single hull to Australia, and by the 1960’s Port Melbourne Yacht Club had a full fleet of nearly 50 boats. The fleet persisted into the 70s, but unfortunately had shrunk to 7 in the 80’s. The fleet was resurrected through the 90s with the club regularly putting over 20 boats on the water and at times building 3 to 4 new foam sandwich boats a year. More recently building has been slower. 2008 was their 50th anniversary of their main event – the Ashes.

The Australians always sailed theirs 3 up with one on the wire giving the middle man the main sheet. The boat in Australia has been developed from the original design and has a different sail plan and some construction differences.

As far as we are aware these lines in the plans below were taken from Fairey Gesture – the only Fairey boat to get out to Melbourne, so they should be accurate.

Ozzie JB18 Plans: