Doug Rawson-Harris

Doug has been sailing FDs since the late 1960’s, he has built many innovations into the FDs he has built over the years, none more long lasting or more widely used than his gold topped Goldspar mast he perfected in the late 1970’s. Doug has made an immeasurable contribution to the FD class through sailing, hull, mast and sail construction, much of this through necessity.  Like many of his contempories in the early days of the FD in Australia, if you did not build it yourself, you probably would not be sailing. From his early days fabricating fittings through to entire boats, his products have ranged from sailing masts of all kinds through to car roof racks, flag poles and telecom poles. He received an Australian Design award for car roof bars in 1989 and in 1989 an Australian Design award for his Sydney Smart Poles. Doug’s fabrication businesses have been part of Mona Vale’s manufacturing scene for over 40 years.   

Of course, it all started in very different circumstances. Doug began sailing in Sydney at Lane Cove Sailing Club.  In the mid-1950’s Doug’s father (himself a sailor) suggested if Doug wanted to sail, he could walk himself down to the sailing club and volunteer as a bailer boy on one the clubs 12 ft skiffs.  Doug, in for penny in for a pound, decided that sounded like a good idea and with that started a life of messing around with boats and meeting and sailing with and against some of the great names in Australian sailing as a young man.

By the early 1960’s after his time as a bailer boy, which is literally as it sounds, Doug started crewing and steering Gwen 12s. He moved into VJ’s and built a boat with Mike Chapman as crew in 1962. Doug built the first VJ with double planks to sail at Lane Cove.  Not finished with Gwen’s, Doug built a Gwen for the Perth Nationals which he and Glenn Smith sailed in the 1965 Nationals. To get it there, they literally hitch hiked it to Perth (well, scored a back load spot on a truck bound for Perth).

By the latter half of the 1960’s, Doug along with names like Carl Ryves, Bob Miller, Dick Sargeant and Sir James Hardy found themselves drawn to the FD which was to be an Olympic class for the third time at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. Doug sailed the Olympic trials in 1967/68 season with Peter Sorensen as crew on Botany Bay in Sydney. Ryves and Sargeant went onto sail in Mexico.

Doug then constructed a boat – Excalibur. Excalibur was built from the wreck of Ted Albert’s Mould Craft boat – which was dashed on the Sydney Airport runway extension. It went on to have an experimental titanium mast and mylar sails during the 1968/69 season on Sydney Harbour.  Doug felt the very low drag characteristic of Mylar was worth pursuing as was titanium for masts, but Mylar material was later ruled out in favour of woven material by the international class. In 1970 at the World’s in Adelaide at Largs Bay, the boat split along the Keel during a 45-knot breeze heading upwind. For Doug, this was a useful learning moment in boat construction.

In 1975 Doug completed a new FD; RH+, with this new FD, Doug introduced the self-tacking trapeze system and with crew Tony Wise sailed it at the Brisbane Nationals. While RH+ had several innovations, its paint was found to be lacking and water soaked through. To solve the paint issue, Doug removed the outer plywood and ‘cling’ wrapped it Mylar film. For the hull, the cockpit false floor was removed and ‘airbags’ were installed to counteract the water ingress along with venturis. The self-tacking trapeze system is now the mainstay trapeze system of FD’s the world over.  Australian crews used to favour the skiff style system up until the self-tacking system.

Ever the innovator, Doug designed a new FD in 1976 called Quick Silver, the hull was built by Chippy Barclay and finished by Doug.  The construction technique new for the time, involved longitudinal runners with few bulkheads, Quick Silver was campaigned at the Melbourne Nationals in 1976. 

While all that was going on, sailing was also pursued whenever possible and in 1976/1977 season he represented Australia in the 1977 Soling World’s in Hanko Norway along with Phil Susans and Karl Pedman. 

By 1979 Doug had established a mast building business in a garage in Basset St Mona Vale, the business was Goldspar and named after his soon to be famous alloy mast design with a gold top. The Gold top mast was designed and built by Doug using a new longitudinal tube spinning machine (designed by Doug) using cold drawing alloy tube which was heat treated.  Variations of the mast were used by FDs, 505s and others.  

While innovation was always on his mind, Doug built and sailed other classes such as the 505. Doug found time to build a 505 called ‘Night Shift” and with Bob Jones sailed in the 1982-83 World’s at Brighton Seacliff at Adelaide. The boat was called Night Shift due to it being built afterwork.

In the mid eightees, Doug designed a new FD ‘Flash Nick from Jinda Vick’ which was built early in the career of a now famous yacht and boat constructor, John McConaghy. Doug sailed with Warwick Downs at the Nationals on Sydney Harbour.

In the early 80’s Goldspar moved to larger premises nearby, followed by a move back to Basset St to even larger premises in 1989, where it remains today. This period also saw Doug build a series of FDs with continuing innovations; the boats were all named with a variation of the word ‘woosh’. They were built during 1981 and 2002, a period which included the roof rack innovation and Design award and the development of the pole and light pole innovations.

The new Woosh boats were an evolution of some earlier designs and had longitudinal stringers on the keel to deck with cross stringers to have no hard points along the hulls. On the sailing front during this period Doug moved to the front of the boat and he, with helm Norman Rydge, competed in various Australian and world championships which included 2 heat wins at Lake Garda – Torbole Worlds in 1995. 

In 2014 with Australia hosting the FD worlds in Sydney in January 2015, Doug decided to build 2 FD’s using the old Hasslegrove mould which he knew well, and the final Wooosh series FD was born. Both hulls were built from carbon and vinylester resin which was much stiffer than epoxy.  Doug sailed with helm Brett Bayer and they were fast, but the boat ‘Wooosh-Wooosh’, being so new had a few teething issues which proved difficult for the regatta.

As all things change, Doug’s last World Titles was in 2016 at Steinhude in Germany, Doug had a medical emergency (blown heart valve) on the boat during a heat, somewhat luckily, he was sailing with Dr Ian McCrossin and Doug eventually made a sound recovery.

Following the events at Steinhude, Doug wisely decided to retire from FD sailing, and among other things, remains very active in his Goldspar business and with the FD class in Australia.