Old speed sailing measuring devices equipment?

Not sure this is relevant but we formed the NSW Speed Sailing Assoc back in the mid to lste 80s. We had a 100 meter course. This consisted of a sectiob of cable with start and stop buttons at each end, a flag at each end so the sailor knew where the course was and that was about it. We enlisted wives and girlfriends to be the "pit crew" and call out and record each sailors name. It was great fun & we used to travel to new locations and make weekends of it. Very un-scientific but heaps of fun. Jetlag from Illawarra was part of it. Ah, the good old days

It was called a speed watch and had a little propeller that you attached to your fin. The watch velcroed to the tail of the board. Daffy had one

I did a speed event in about 1984, the organiser set up a couple of floating infra red sensor gates a few hundred metres apart at Woodmans Point. I came third and wind a stubbie holder.

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AusMoz said..

Any of the 80's-90's Sandy Point Speed sailors like to share?

Don't get me started. I could go on for a while......

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Agrid said..
I did a speed event in about 1984, the organiser set up a couple of floating infra red sensor gates a few hundred metres apart at Woodmans Point. I came third and wind a stubbie holder.

I remember that as well. I was using my "wave" board and I opened out the sail and lost all power like I was turning downwind on a wave on my first run and dropped of the plane. It wasn't a competition as such when we did it, I think he charged us each $5 and he had a large display or called out the speed as you went through. Borrowed a board of Kim Bullard and was sliding sideways down the run just hoping not to hit the star pickets at the end. Cant remember my numbers but I think my mate got just over 30 knots and was stoked.

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hardpole said..

Agrid said..
I did a speed event in about 1984, the organiser set up a couple of floating infra red sensor gates a few hundred metres apart at Woodmans Point. I came third and wind a stubbie holder.

I remember that as well. I was using my "wave" board and I opened out the sail and lost all power like I was turning downwind on a wave on my first run and dropped of the plane. It wasn't a competition as such when we did it, I think he charged us each $5 and he had a large display or called out the speed as you went through. Borrowed a board of Kim Bullard and was sliding sideways down the run just hoping not to hit the star pickets at the end. Cant remember my numbers but I think my mate got just over 30 knots and was stoked.

1984 top speed was probably more like 27.8 ish Knots by Pete Dans or maybe Paul White? can't recall think it was Pete. I was at that event as well, managed just over 25knots, still have a certificate somewhere :)

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25 said..
Excellent recollection David Green.
It was 28 November 1983 at the Penguin Island sandbar. The late great Jay MacFarlane from Windrush organised it.
I won with 27.09 over a measured 500m and Paul was second at 26.99. You were fifth with 25.04 on your GL waveboard if I recall! I'll dig around for a photo!

Ha nice to catch up PD! God knows why I still have this, it seems so slow now, while I sit back and watch Americas Cup cats get close to 50kts

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kato said..
It was called a speed watch and had a little propeller that you attached to your fin. The watch velcroed to the tail of the board. Daffy had one

I remember those, cost me around $200 - $300 I think in late eighties or early 90's. It wasn't even for me but a replacement for a borrowed one which dislodged from the board when I dragged the boom across it. A very expensive 22knts.

This is from a speed trial at Woodmans Point in about 1985. I came third at about 17 knots.

I can't remember the blue plastic one. Maybe a New toy?

I do remember a local guy down my way called Lindsey Mannix. Pretty sure he was one of the first to get the speed gate thing happening. In the 80's. May have sold it to Fred Haywood. It was used for events off Halls Head. Speed an speed gybing
Great days. Jero Andrews would have more info.

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jimbob SA said..

kato said..
It was called a speed watch and had a little propeller that you attached to your fin. The watch velcroed to the tail of the board. Daffy had one

I've still got one as well and it's still working ??
Also had an attachment to measure the wind as well as the tow behind propeller
Solar powered made in Switzerland way ahead in there day.
used it on my bic allegro .
Will take a pic soon.

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RichardG said..

Agrid said..
I can't remember the blue plastic one. Maybe a New toy?

By reference to viewing the position of the mast track I don't believe it is a New Toy. Since I owned and sailed two New Toys back in 1983 I believe that is not a Bombora New Toy but possibly a Bombora Antarctica. The Antarctica had two rear footstraps (New Toy did not) and you have your back foot in the forward rear strap as far as I can tell. Any thoughts ?

Bit thin around the mast for a New Toy, my second "professionally made" glass board was a new toy template from Aidan Nicholson. They were quite volumey around the mast track. The plastic ones were pretty good, but they didn't stand up very well to a day in the waves with Dans. :)

There was also another very similar device to the SpeedWatch. I think it was called a SpeedMate?

From memory it was sold by a USA company, but I think it was also made in Switzerland.

It used the same principle and was very similar in appearance, but, the big difference was that it could hold and display the top speed reached. At the time this was a huge attraction to me as I meant it could be used for speed sailing competitions.

The company offered a deal where a package of a number of the units could be hired for a speed sailing event. I enquired about it, but the cost and complexity of getting them to Australia and back and the time involved seemed to make it marginally viable.

I tried to order one for myself but the deal didn't go through. I can't remember exactly why....

I am trying to find a picture of it but no luck yet.

I did Weymouth for the first time in 1980 and I think they used radios and stopwatches to call the start and finish times of each 500m run. That basically meant that it was hard to have multiple craft on the course at the same time. Within a few years they switched to video timing, where video cameras were set up at the start and finish gates and a common time signal displayed on the two video feeds, this meant that it was possible to go through the tapes later and record the start and finish times for each run to within about 1/30 of a second. This method was still in use when I did my last speed trial in the Canaries in 1987.

Other than that, in those days there was no way of knowing how fast you were going. I don't recall any on-board devices for measuring speed at that time.