Returning to the 18s

Andy Budgen is back in the 18ft Skiff class

Recently a well know name has been reappearing on the scoresheet of some 18ft Skiff regattas in the UK: Andy Budgen.

As many will know Andy Budgen, along with his pro-sailor brother Ian, were early adopters of the high performance skiff in the UK, sailing Laser 5000s – one of the first one-design twin wire high performance boats to hit the UK market. A number of years of success in this boat saw the brothers move on to the 18ft skiff in the late 90s before heading back to two man sailing again to do a full on 49er Olympic campaign.

Since this time Andy Budgen has spent more and more time keelboat sailing, but has also been involved in some coaching. Specifically he has spent the last year helping the Irish 49er Olympic hopefuls, Matt and Russell McGovern. “I have been out in Sydney over the last year coaching them. Previously I was out there picking up a Volvo 60,” Budgen explained to TheDailySail. “I quite like Sydney really and these lads that I coached just missed out on Games qualification so I said to them, 'well, why don’t we get an 18.'”

The JJ Giltinan took place this January in its spiritual home of Sydney harbour while Budgen was still out in Australia and it was at the end of this event he acquired his new-to-him 18 footer. “I picked this boat up some time near the end of January,” Budgen continues. “I only paid four grand for the boat which is fairly old - it was built around 2000. Since then though it has had a full refurbish and we have bought it a new rig and some new sails and it has just been totally re-built virtually.”



Before speaking to Budgen we had assumed his re-found interest in the 18ft skiff may have been jump-started by the announcement earlier this year that the next JJ Giltinan Championships – the class’ effective worlds – would be held in Europe in 2009. In fact this is a long way from the truth. “To be honest I would have liked the JJ to be in Sydney as I wanted to sail it there, but coming back to Europe is not such a big deal,” Budgen says, adding “I am so spoiled with racing these days that I like going to hot countries and doing it as much as possible there. I will probably do the worlds though. I will come back after our six months in Aus, do a few weekends and then do the worlds I would have thought. It seems stupid not to really.”

As Budgen says he is planning to go away to Australia for six months and his 18ft skiff will be going with him. In fact his next trip down under will be for a six month break, but he will be sailing the boat fairly regularly out there. We get the distinct impression that this six months away from work may well see Budgen out on the water very regularly -after all with the whole Australian summer to kill, Sydney Harbour glistening tantalisingly and a fully prepped 18ft Skiff just standing around ready to be sailed, it would be hard to imagine anyone sailor finding time to do much else.

With Budgen having sailed 18s back in the late 90s and then making a return to the class now, he is in a particularly good position to look at the differences between the boats back then, following what many would think of as the boom period for the 18, compared to now. “I guess things have changed a little over the years,” he comments. “Back when I was sailing them in the UK there were people like Laurie Smith, Ian Southworth, Dave Hall and some of the people that then went on to do Olympic stuff like Zeb Elliot and Tim Robinson. There is a whole group of them that went into the Olympic classes. Those sort of guys do not seem to be around so much anymore.” Part of the reason Budgen thinks these types of sailor are not in the class any longer is the logistical side of 18 racing. “It is bad enough trying to do a campaign in a two man boat with two people. Adding a third makes it that much harder. Also, venue-wise there are only so many places you can really sail them, as they have to be tipped over and it is a major rigmarole to go sailing in one. To be honest to get anywhere in it you kind of have to be doing it semi-fulltime really, or at least you need someone that is willing to put a lot of time into it.”


Above: The competition, current JJ Giltinan Champions

A second reason Budgen thinks there are few Olympic sailors kicking around in the class at the moment are the costs involved in an 18ft Skiff campaign. “Back when I first came to the class in the late 90s you could put a boat on the water for around £20,000 or less, whereas now you can’t really do it for much less than £45,000. Olympic sailors tend to be quite poor, so for them to come into 18s they have to have some way of funding it. There has not been that much in the way of TV coverage in recent years making sponsorship hard, so that is probably what has kept a lot of them out of it.”

In terms of how he finds his new boat to sail, Budgen seems to think the biggest change over the years has been him rather than the class. “Back when I first started sailing the 18s I was mainly sailing Laser 5000s. To go from one of those to the skiff was a really big thing and I actually found it quite hard to sail,” he explains. “Having done a whole campaign in 49ers I found the boat is not that hard to sail and in some respects is easier than the 49er.” Because the 18 is a significantly bigger and heavier boat than the 49er it is inherently more stable. While the 49er is very prone to pitchpoling and can feel quite twitchy for the helm, the 18 is a smoother ride altogether. “The difficulty with [the 18ft Skiff] mostly comes from organising three people through maneouvres and so on,” he concludes.

This lack of top Olympic sailors in the class, particularly in the UK, is one of the reasons Budgen has decided to head out to Sydney for six months to sail with his 18ft Skiff team. “They get 25 boats in Sydney on a Sunday and that is really by far the best 18 racing in the world and they are definitely ahead of the Brits. Perhaps Rob [Greenhalgh] is the exception to that, but he has not even got his new boat on the water yet and he is doing all kinds of other things. I think he will still be very good, I just can’t see how he will find the time to be mega-competitive.”

In spite of his going to Australia to find better skiff racing competition Budgen is not unrealistic about how many of those 25 boats are likely to be top class teams. “I have heard there are about four or five teams at the top that have the good equipment and then there is quite a drop off from them.”


Above: Fiat showing of their new rig

Of course with Budgen taking a lot of time out of his life to head to Australia and go 18 sailing, he obviously wants to be competitive when he gets there. One of the big areas where the fleet has advanced over just the last year or so has been in rig design, switching to stiffer, high modulus carbon masts and extreme square top mains. Not one to be left behind, Budgen has a rig development program underway, though he is remaining tight lipped about many of the finer details. “One of the things with 18s is if you have not got the right gear, you are just going to get blown off the water,” he says. “I have got a couple of new rigs from a location I would prefer not to name and then I have another couple of masts being built at another location that I would prefer not to name. Currently I have some brand new North Australia sails I am planning on using. I do have some people interested in sail making in the UK but I just have not had the time. I could quite easily do 18s as a full time occupation. If I had the time I would have gone into sail development with someone in the UK.”

Budgen’s boat is due to go into a container in July so it is unlikely we will see him at any other UK 18ft Skiff events this season. In October he and his team will head out to Sydney to begin their sailing in earnest, before heading back to the UK in 2009. It will be interesting to watch how this team get on during the many 18ft skiff events that take place throughout the Australian summer in 2008/9, but we get the sense the real interest will be this time next year when the team return, gearing up for the JJ in Europe.