30 years of taipan Excellence
Greg Goodall and Jim Boyer
Interview with Greg Goodall and Jim Boyer at the 30th Anniversary Dinner, Taipan Nationals Portland December 2018
NB. Thanks to Mary Tulip for taking the time to transcribe this interview. When reading, you will notice that the dialogue jumps around a little.This is largely due to the footage stopping and starting again as Mary tries different camera angles, therefore meaning that Mary didn’t have access to some parts of the interview. But you get the general gist and it’s a great read! - Ant Richards.
Jim Boyer: Yeah, today, it’s a long time since I’ve seen a race.
Ant Richards: Thanks Jim. 30 Years. Did you think we were going to get to 30 years or how do you think it’s come along
Greg Goodall: When we started the whole concept, originally it was promoted as a Mosquito Mark 3, with the Mosquito Association so we put it to them, playing around with different ideas, bigger rigs, so the idea was we could build a better Mosquito, basically. The Mosquito Association was semi interested, but in the end we started the Taipan Association. Jim’s the one that probably needs the most credit because he pushed the boat pretty hard for the first couple of years ...
It came about because we had people wanting to play around with different rig ideas, taller rigs, I think some people even got around to putting some taller rigs on Mosquitos and that very quickly brought home that the Mosquito hulls were just not buoyant enough, powerful enough in their buoyancy to carry a bigger rig, it just drove the Mosquito bows down and made it into a worse boat –it just didn’t work actually.
So, that’s where the original ideas came from,we just wanted something more than the standard Mosquito, so the idea was, from our experience with Tornados and A Class and having sailed Mosquitos –A Class was probably the biggest influence though –that and with a bit of Tornado knowledge back inthe day came up with the concept of what the whole boat should be, the configuration, the rig configuration, and after that it went from there.
Jim at the time was building A Class and was also building Tornados, so we had a pretty good background of what would work pretty well.
Jim: I was reminded by Helen, Greg’s wife, a few weeks ago, we actually came up with a concept from America in 1986 when we flew back from the world titles, when we started discussing the possibilities of doing something a bit better than what was already there. And Mosquito was the obvious one because the design was good, but it wasn’t world class at all. We kept discussing ideas and looking for better ideas.
[break in recording]
And then half way through the first race we just started passing boats everywhere, I thought, God what have we created, it was a damn good boat right out of the box.
Greg: While he was out sailing it I was repairing the jib and the next sail we went out with the sloop rig and yeah, straight out of the box the thing was just faster than anything else around, I think there was a couple of QB2s floating around at that regatta, I remember there was definitely some Hobie 18s, and basically the Taipan 4.9 cat or sloop could beat every other boat that was 16 foot or 18 foot long, around the course, so just immediately it was just a very, very fast boat.
Ant: Tell us about the actual putting it together the building of the actual, how long .... The boat itself, the hull...
Jim: The hulls itself we had two goes –this question’s been asked a lot in the past few days –I’ve got 001 and it was successful first up but we realised a couple of changes had to be made. We shifted the centreboards back, which essentially ended up in the centre board... dragline, even in the day... to have the centreboards so far back, for some reason on that particular hull works. And the other change –we added a bit more buoyancy in the transomand a bit more height in the gunnel on the rear beam ‘cos we found the original one just slapping the rear beam on the water – but other than that the boat was pretty much as it was, very few changes.
Greg: Barry Marmion anyway launched an A class with a sweet hop mainsail with a deck sweeper... interesting thing about it was went out in the nationals that year,cleaned up in the invitation race but then after that, didn’t sail very well, some say the weather wasn’t conducive – but the thing we got out of that was that everyone looked at the square top and thought that was something that was unique, and that was probably where the advantage was coming from and in the last five years also probably realised it was also in the deck sweeper... but that was too hard to deal with, too hard to sail with so it never really got the people’s support it probably should have received. But anyway, 30 odd years later and the rest of the world caught on and it got the sweethops and things.... but, going back, the square top sail plan came along with Barry Marmion and the next year the front third of the A class fleet all had square tops and at that time I was also sailing an A class and when it came to do the rig plan for the Taipan 4.9 –square tops were still pretty radical, they’d only been around for a couple of years, so, I suppose we started planning, the sail plan in ’87, and um drew it all up and put it on an A class 1 section type mast and, really the rig was a small A class type rig with the option of then being able to super sloop as well.
So the rig development, really was that first reiteration and after that just simply developed it ...to get the depth of the sail right, ..... so the stuff that goes to making a better sail and.. so we haven’t really changed that sailplan until the square top, the bigger one came in and that’s were it started.
Jim: So there was a bit of crystal ball gazing in selecting a square top because it was like –we are designing a boat for the future – is the square top going to be used is a big question. Looking back on it, ‘course you would but at the time is it going to actually be sustainable for the long term and making a commitment to it.
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Greg: They’ve even proved in the A class that the deck sweeper format is a bad jib for a non-foiling boat, and we’ve seen that in the F18s as well, so look, that would really be something to look at future wise but you’ve really got to question, to ask is it going to be good for the class? Because it really makes sailing significantly more difficult –you’ve got to go around between the jib and the mast and on a Taipan 4.9 with overlapping jib, that’s not as easy as you think. You can certainly pass under where the deck sweeper and that’s what a lot of the F18s guys are now doing they’ve found that the pass under the sail, just a matter of pressing on the sail til the sail pops through that sort of like more opens up –it’s a bit like a cat or dog door on your house and over at the right moment –but like I say, it’s something the class could consider in years to come but not something that I’d highly promote just because of that added depth and level of complexity to the class and this is a class that wants to attract people into it as a step up from sailing a Mosquito, or maybe you know, it maybe their first boat, second or third boat and if they want to get into something beyond that like international racing, then that’s when they would be interested in F18s of Formula 16s or so.
Ant: It’s interesting you say that again for those who weren’t down in the park for the discussion on deck sweepers because that’s all the things you stipulated as what were the conversations we’d have to have, so good to have it out of the horses mouth.
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Jim: ... and of many of the glass materials that are stipulated for the Taipan, they are just not available any more, I’m sure Rohan would agree with that
(Rohan off camera “Yep, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to dig materials out from the list and I didn’t have a great deal of success. Over spec items..... carbon...”).
Jim: If we did allow carbon... reinforcing, perhaps later on we could step up a bit, I don’t think it’s going to do any harm to the class... I don’t see it being any huge advantage on the water but it would allow more possibility in the build.
Greg: That’s just again, keeping costs down when I was involved with it ... polyester construction, which is again, polyester, vynlester, epoxy -what’ve ya done? Vynlester. Well the other one the classmight want to consider that I don’t think is legal is epoxy hulls. You can do epoxy? Well again, its another thing the class might want to consider because the cost of epoxy, you know, 10 –15 years ago was horrific compared to what is was now, and um, with the Viper that’s what we went...with that, also gives you a stronger, long lasting product. And to keep the cost down we did stick away from we wanted to build in glass, but by adding carbon fibre to the really high stress areas you could really save on weight and the cost was insignificant. In the total cost of the boat –may be 50 –100 dollars to reinforce everything in carbon and... it does a pretty good job.
Greg: Ah, no. Just makes Rohan’s job a hell of a lot easier to get it down to minimum weight because he’s already probably informed everyone, building to the weights that we did years ago –that was where Jim was just a genius at being able to do that sort of stuff –to build boats that are still lasting sort of 20 years on, down at the minimum weight, that’s sort of just so difficult to do. Would it effect an old boat? Um, that’s superseding it you wont see any performance difference, it’s just that the boats will be achievable at the weights you want them build at. At a reasonable price.
Ant: Interesting discussion, really interesting discussion and Rohan and I have also had a chat about this over the build process so it’s certainly not falling on deaf ears.
Jim: The valid point in this is, and I’ve got no vested interest at all in pushing for going into carbon because we’re actually not involved, so, neither of us believe there is going to be any advantage to going to carbon, the boats will be a little bit better but I could not see that is going to make any difference out there. You know, we’ve had Kevlar boats vs glass boats vs timber boats for a long time and no one has ever picked a difference between the performance, like the performance in a collision of a Kevlar boat is very good but really, on the race course, you can’t pick it.
Greg: To be perfectly honest I think the last boat that was as fast if not faster, that actually won the nationals with it but for the life of me can’t remember if it was the Kevlar one or the glass one, but I didn’t ever pick a difference. In fact the same applies also for Mosquitos because Jim was building Mosquitos at the time and I think you could do the same – Kevlar at the time?
Ant: Alright, I’m going to ask you a dicey one. Sloop rigged versus cat rigged –preferred choice? And why?
Greg: Ahm. Yeah well. It depends what you want out of your sailing. As a sloop rigged boat, the Taipan 4.9 was a beautiful boat for sailing sloop. In fact, I’ve sailed a Mosquito cat rigged and a Mosquito sloop rigged and the same sort of thing applies. The performance on the boat and how the boat handles and behaves and everything else out there, they’ve got their own little niche, but it’s really about what you want to get out of sailing, whether you want the enjoyment of sharing the experience with your crew, like I get out sailing with Helen on both the Mosquito and the Taipan... and I also sail with my kids on that ah, I think Brett and Liam both crew for me at different times. And... the sloop side is, just that shared experience which is really good. The cat rigged thing comes from if you have an A class personality and you just want to go out there and, you know, be the blame for doing it all right or doing it all wrong. Honestly, I cannot tell you if I prefer one over the other
Ant: Oh come on
Greg: No, I spent too many years sailing A Class to say I don’t enjoy getting out there doing it on my own, but I also say sloop, yeah I could be in trouble. Sailed alone for a couple of years, sailed with kids, also sailed F18s .
Jim: That’s still the case. I love sailing by myself and I love taking the blame for all the bad decisions along the way, but it’s also nice to have a crew to blame (laughter). Really, I think the beauty is it is both and you don’t need to two sails, you don’t need two masts, you just simply pull the jib down and if you’re serious, tweak the diamonds and away you go.
Ant: Um. Moving forward. How’d the 5.7 come about?
Greg: One very big fat guy that ... I’ll let you tell the story ... um.... Steve Dan. Anyone here remember Steve Dan? (audience says yeah, couple of hands up). Six foot four and about 250 pound describe him? Or should I say about 150 kilograms? That’d be closer, wouldn’t it.
Jim: Yeah, Steve, yeah Steve. ..... and... can’t remember his name. Big guys have good personality. And it was also ambition. We had one boat and we wanted another boat, you know, the next size up. I’d like to say the 5.7 was as brilliant as the 4.9 but it’s not. The 4.9, there’s something about it really.... because the 5.7, it was a good boat, still is a good boat, could it have been better... I’ve sailed the 5.7 for a number of years promoting it and I’ve gotta say there were days that it frightened me. Like it was a big boat, it was fast, but it was also the sort of boat that if you weren’t in charge, it was. I can remember being down in the pier here in Geelong, down this way and also at Geelong in the boat and the days the thing’s just skipping on wave after wave and you’re just wondering what am I doing out here (laughs). But really, we tried a lot of things, we also tried the canting hulls on it, John Newman was the one who realised that was just a joke, a waste of time. There’s something we didn’t realise about it –when it’s going fast and it gets a bit of .. you know, you get the hull in the air a little bit, it actually skims along on the side of the hull and that is really fast. And I think that’s what you identified, was it John?
John (in audience): yeah, I had it with tacking, with the splayed hulls
Jim: Certainly ... every 5.7 that was ever canted has been changed back again.
Greg: I’ve had a bit of a history after we started building it, and I must apologise to the current, local 5.7 sailors because I notice they are a lot more trimmed athletes than they were in those initial couple (audience laughs lots). OK, look the 5.7 did have it moments and we did push it overseas there for a while and probably the one regatta that always springs to mind is we did round Kepsal with it, and that was… I’m trying to remember who was actually on it, was it ...... no we actually had, um, who’s the current coach, youth coach for Victoria?.... Yeah , Adrian Findlass, he was actually on it when we went round Kepsal because he brought that up in conversation about two years ago, so there was Adrian on it, there was Glen on it –I know Glen was also .......It was Dave Brewer, Adrian Finlass and Glen Ashby and they did round Kepsal on it and they did pretty well, about Top 10 at the time, managed not to destroy the boat, was good. Glenn also sailed it as an F18, because that was the other development we had with the Taipan 5.7. After we’d done a few tests with it, it created a bit of interest and people said Oh can you build an F18 version because in about 98 –2000F18’s sort of kicked off as a class. So Jim cut one down, I think 200mm of the bow, 200mm of the stern, something like that –they made it ..... it was more than that –it was 70kilos or something, some ridiculous weight....
audience question: I’ve often wondered how that weight got put it –poured resin in or something?
Greg: Yeah, we did that, we also built beams out of 6mm alloy tubing (laughter), Jim had a lot of problems trying to get his head around a 180 kilogram boat....laughter... But anyway, Glen took that boat to the F18 worlds, was actually England at the time, and um, he was running about 4th overall. About half way through the Regatta, he said he was a rocket ship up wind, he basically led to the top mark in most of the races, or there abouts, but then struggled a little bit downwind. That was way back in the early days, when we really didn’t understand spinnakers at all, and I don’t think Glen really knew how to sail on a spinnakered boat downwind either, but he was doing pretty well overall until someone T boned the boat and that broke off and so the regatta never really got very far for us with it so it sort of all fizzled as an F18 project but we came back and looked at that quite a few years later when did a Capricorn ... so the 5.7 sort of had a few iterations and a few experiences and the three up round Kepsal was sort of one of its highlights with some good sailors on it.
Audience: I was sailing my first A Class at Lake Boga. And I was going to windward in front of the club and I thought I was strapped in going hard and I looked over my shoulder and there was all this spray approaching and that was a 5.7 Taipan, 3 up, a maniac called G Ashby on the helm, and Jim was on the helm... can’t remember who the third person was but it smoked past me like I was standing still. Jim can actually tell you how that finished...
Jim: yeah we were smoking we had a great time. Yeah and I come to the end of the trapeze wire and its just like ....dumpt... dumpt... (action with hands) and ... we enjoyed that ...
Ant: any more questions out there... any more stories anyone would like to share?
Greg: .... Over the years, Jim and I often joked about people asking questions about how to make your boat go faster and what to do and we actually came up with a solution, it was just a wooden box right and we said the answer to your question is in the bottom of the box and so we handed them the box so they opened the box and there’s a mirror in the bottom of it (laughter)... so the answer is what was special about my older brother’s boat and the answer is my older brother.
Audience: how long did Greg sail with Helen for and did you have too many arguments?
Greg: The interesting thing is, I’m still sailing with Helen, although we have very different agendas when we are on the water. Even when we’ve gone cruising, we’ve actually got into the habit on the Sonata..... we go cruising. People who know me will know I’ve never been early to start lines, my claim to fame is arriving at the same time as the gun goes and last out on the water and the first back in was the theory I played with. The same is unfortunately happening in the cruising and we’re generally the last to leave the anchorage from where we’re leaving from and for some strange reason we end up being the first boat at the new location, and um, I just can’t help myself, I just have to keep fiddling with the sails and if the boat’s not going as fast as it possibly can there this little noise in my head that’s just not happy. So with Helen, we sailed for about 5 years, 2 or 3 years on Mossies, then at least a year or two on Taipan 4.9 –don’t know how much longer before Brett came along, he was the third person on the Mosquito. Brett at that stage was only about 3 or 4 but that was our first Taipan. But Helen and I sailed for about 8 years together, and then a big break, and we got the Sonato 7 and that was... Helen put up with me travelling around the world sailing F18s and A class and doing the whole thing until I sort of had enough of it and going to world titles sort of lost its shine, just seemed like a hell of a lot of hard work and I though ummm, think I’ve done enough and the body wasn’t keeping up with the 20 or 30 year olds anymore and I thought it might be time to do something different and we were talking to people who had spend their lives cruising and I thought we that’s something totally different, I’ve never done, then I ran into that guy with his hand in the air and that sort of changed things and Helen and I have been doing a bit of cruising, bit of Whitsundays stuff and keelboat sailing over the last six or seven years, its been good.
Mick: Yea....been great to catch up with Jim for the last day and a half and we’ve been having a conversation, ah last night too about, ah especially in those early days, the Taipan were [predominantly] an Australia boat and most of the Goodall boats have done well overseas ...why do you think the Taipan didn’t do so well maybe overseas but its been so successful here in Australia? Especially when it first came out it was probably ahead of its time? Yeah, such an amazing boat, just interesting to hear.
Jim: well this is my theory, don’t know if anyone agrees with it ...my theory is the boat was too good. I spent a lot of time in the United States promoting the Taipan but we find, we put people on the boat, they’d go out, and they wouldn’t be sailing it well and they’d come in and they’d scared the pants off themselves (haha) and um, and then their question was ‘how’s it any better than a Hobie 16?’ (laughter) Well, that sort of just explained all that ... which bit did I miss ... and after a while I realised they just had no concept of the level of racing that we did.
This one guy, took the dog out with him to test sail, and –that’s how he always sailed, he took the dog out with him. And they were the sort of people we were meeting. And the really really serious racers, like you get in Australian clubs, in the United States they didn’t seem to exist. They are there, but nowhere near in the rolling numbers that we get and I think that was part of it. It wasn’t the boat that they were seeking. They were just seeking something they could float around on. In Europe, I’m not so sure, it should of suited the European market but it just didn’t seem to. Greg might have more thoughts on that one.
Greg: Yeah, Jim’s highlighted it pretty well. The biggest problem in America, particularly in America is a good example of it, they’d just grown up on a diet of the sort of boat they had, the Nacra which were heavy, then they had the Hobie which was heavier and worse –worser –if that’s a word.Yeah, they just weren’t prepared for a boat which came along like the Taipan 4.9, which was light, high performance. There was a whole group of sailors in America that it did fit into but they were all off doing their own thing on A Class. And there was a few of them who were probably off sailing 18 squares at the time. But the bulk of catamaran sailors in America at the time were sailing Hobie 16s, 18s, Nacras, a few other weird things they had over there, but they were all incredibly heavy. They probably weighed three times what a 4.9 weighed, and the level of sailing expertise was incredibly low. The Hobie 16 guys were probably the cream of the crop in America at the time, they were all pretty good, but after that it fell away incredibly quickly, so, we just had a product that wasn’t suited to their market, it was as simple as that. Europe on the other hand, also had a pretty rich diet of overweight boats –which is why the F18 took off in America so well. The F18 in ’98 took off as a concept and that was brought about by a number of boat manufacturers and people getting together and dragging it forward based around what they already had, which was the Hobie 18 itself and there was a Nacra 5.5...5 point? 5? But anyway, there was a Nacra about the same size and there was a few other things that were similar and they were all around that... 180 –oh to be honest I think they were all around that 170 to 200 kilogram for a boat and again if you grew up on a diet of big heavy boats that’re like Mack Trucks to sail and light flyweight boat, 16 foot boat didn’t really - there was a core group of A Class sailors but they didn’t really have big enough numbers to want to make the transition across. Australia, on the opposite side of the coin – we had a whole group ... with things like Paper Tigers, Arrows, Mosquitos, Cobras, A Class sailing between Australia and ... was still very strong, QB2s, so there is quite a historic base in Australia for light weight high performance boats and a lot of it was build-your-own stuff, which was another thing that didn’t happen in America and Europe. They had grown up on a diet of just go a buy a boat, whereas in Australia we had a background of building them as well.
Ant: we just went sailing’
Greg: You were a unique group (laughter)
Jim: In the early days of the A Class we had a young chap called Paul McKenzie... and some of you may remember him – came to us and said I want to get an A Class to take to Europe and sail. Anyway, Paul’s idea was it was going to be free, anyone who knows Paul would understand that. Anyway, Paul took this free A Class he managed to convince us to give him, took to Europe and at the time what we were producing in Australia was just way ahead of anything they had in Europe and to say it was the most beautiful light weight wonderful thing they’d seen. Really the high end A Class springs from Australia to Europe, not the other way round. But the Taipan, you’d be in a different market, you’d never make that transition. There just wasn’t enough, wasn’t enough receptive people in Europe that were looking for something very refined that they could sail and really enjoy.... similar to America, just happy floating around in a boat.
Greg: Others that did have that sailing ability were probably already sailing A Class or sailing Formula 18 or something similar but not the general off-the-beach boats.
Ant: So I’m going to ask the question, how do you think we fit into Australia’s catamaran off-the-beach scenario now –we’re sort of in the process of remarketing ourselves now and I’m keen to hear your thoughts on it.
Greg: ah, OK, you’ve gotta, sort of thing, you’ve gotta do a SWOT analysis of where you’re at, what are your strengths, what are your weaknesses, so, what are your advantages, yeah, um, you need to look at your market that you’re really going to try and attract. Where does your market come from I suppose is what you look at. Very few people will buy a Taipan 4.9 as their first or maybe not even their second boat. But they’re certainly going to look at it as their third or fourth boat as they move up through the fleets. Assuming they are going to start at a club somewhere and jump on a Pacer or something similar and they’re going to think well that falls over pretty easy –these catamarans look pretty good, so what can I buy as a catamaran–the more adventurous ones will probably jump on a Taipan 4.9 and fall in love with it. Others might, you know, look at a Mosquito or something similar first, so yeah, pick your market, pick who you’reaiming at, there’s no set formula because everyone’s different in what they are looking for, but we’ve had people come along a buy a Taipan 4.9 as their second boat, basically they bought an old Hobie 16, seen the Viper wizzing past with the spinnaker up and though, yep that’s my next boat and bit off a lot more than they can chew but a couple of years down the track they’re comfortable with it.
Jim: It’s a really good question. One of the things I think is important is even look at who’s in the class now and why did they come into the class? I think that’s a really important question. Cos your target market –your target market is already here in all probability. To go out and chase a new market, like in any business, it takes a long time to get in a new market. The best market is the one you’ve already got. I think it’s just a case of if you can reinvigorate the market in some way, that will be where you get the numbers. Now how to do that –I wish I knew how to answer that question.