FLYING FIFTEENS
Lillo with long time crew Ed Repsevicius. Together they have won 3 Flying Fifteen State Championships out of Lillo’s total of 13 State Championships.
I
t would be fair to say that Graeme Lillingston has forgotten more about sailing than most of us will ever know. Most people who have been sailing for nearly 70 years would fall into that category but few of them would boast a race record to rival Lillo’s over multiple classes including, more recently, Flying Fifteens. Gwen 12’s, VJ’s, Moths and Lasers occupied Graeme’s younger years with success in the Flying Fifteen class starting in the late 1970’s and leading to a World Championship win in 1984 having travelled to Ireland. Since then, multiple National and State and Club Championships have been added to his CV and, with tiller still in hand, is a threat to the front of any fleet. Lillo’s philosophy on sailing is that besides being boat on boat, it is more importantly man on man and how you can outsmart the other guy, but you must always respect your opponent. He also believes that, when he makes a mistake he must analyse the error and
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learn to perform better next time and don’t do it again. Boat handling is critical and time must be spent working with the crew to perfect every movement, as they say “practice makes perfect”. Graeme has seen many changes
SOUNDINGS | December 2020 ~ February 2021
to the Flying Fifteen and the general sailing landscape over the years and, while happy to relate stories of the good old days, is still up to date with all the modern theories of getting the best out of sailboats.
