User:Jmcperth/sandbox

Windrush Yachts Was established in 1971 by brothers Richard and Jay Macfarlane in 1971 in Perth Western Australia. Born on the banks of the River Windrush in Oxfordshire, they decided to move to the warm climes of Australia to establish a yacht building business based upon the sailing hobby of their childhood. Initially they produced a small cruising yacht the Tankard 23, based on a British design and not entirely suited to Australian conditions. 15 of these yachts were built whilst a true Australian yacht was developed. The vibrant beaches of Western Australia were devoid of sailing boats, Small yachts were highly developed but home built and fragile. They were sailed in smooth water, mainly from clubs. Richard built a prototype surfcat from plywood, and developed rugged systems to allow it to sail out thru breaking surf. The hulls were fastened to a square welded aluminium pipe frame, sourced from scaffold, with a trampoline between. A high aspect ratio fully battened sail was set on an aluminium mast, the rudders had particular design problems and a dozen different designs were tried before a simple fixed shallow system was proven. The 'Yellow Peril' prototype provided so much fun that volume production in fibreglass was undertaken. The Surfcat 12 was released in 1973 with a production volume of 5 boats a week. For the first time in Austalia customers could walk into a shop and buy a complete sailboat with a warranty. The sailboats were easy enough to be single handed from the cartop to the water, yet capable of performance sailing with two. The Surfat 12 was quickly accepted by the new beach sailors of Perth, and within six months sales commenced interstate with Queensland leading the pack. Within a year production was running at 20 boats a week and demand started to exceed build space. In 1975 an association was formed with John Simpson of Brookvale NSW, whereby he would manufacture the fibre glass hulls and complete the boat from kits supplied from Perth. He would then market the product thru the Eastern States of Australia. A similar system then evolved New Zealand with John Bullock. Altogether some 4,000 12 ft Surfcats were built by Windrush in the mid 70s, many of them still sailing 40 years later. Just as big is the compliment of some 10,000 similar beach catamarans, built to Richards original concept of a square welded frame and shallow rudders, by competing manufacturers in Australia and overseas.