About Sykes Racing (Australia)    
       
  Jeff Sykes started his career as an elite sculler in the 1960s, and he continues to compete on the masters scene both on the water and on the ergo.

Jeff's boat-design and building business started in 1966 when he designed and built his own single scull, a boat in which he won the Australian sculling title that year.

Jeff Sykes and Assc. (aka Sykes Racing) became Australia's largest boatbuilder in the 1980s and 1990s, and today produces more boats of all classes (singles through eights) than all other Australian builders combined. (There are about a half-dozen Australian boatbuilders at the end of 2007.)

    
     
     
 
 
 
 
         
       
    Jeff Sykes with his Australian Scull Title    
         
  Jeff Sykes retired after the 2000 Olympic Games, after which Jeff Lawrence became the managing director with Stuart Wilson continuing to manage the production side.

By then, about 75% of all Australian elite medals were coming in Sykes boats, and crews from Canada and the US had won elite medals in Sykes hulls.

    
The factory staff with a couple of the 2004 Olympic boats.        
    Performance History    
   

The discussion of performance history in boatbuilding must always come with the caveat, as obvious as it might seem, that the medals belong to the athletes and not to the equipment they use. While the equipment may not be a large part of gold-medal-winning performances, the choice of equipment is significant to the athletes. Most elite athletes are looking for a combination of low-drag hull shapes, stiffness and responsiveness, and comfort in ergonomic effectiveness. For that reason we're proud that some of the worlds best rowers have chosen Sykes to race.

The vast majority of athletes that have raced Sykes at the Worlds and Olympics have been Australians. It may seem that Australia's relative isolation would be the cause -- that perhaps Australians don't have many other choices -- but since Australia has been a strong competitor on the international scene for decades, Australians have had access to elite boatbuilders from Europe and North America for decades.

Take, for example, the decision of James Tomkins and Drew Ginn to race a Sykes pair in the 2003 Worlds. They were one of the few crews that actually did side-by-side comparisons of several elite builders from around the world. They chose Sykes largely for how easily the boat runs at high speeds and the comfort afforded by the boat's ergonomics. They went on to win the 2003 Worlds and the the 2004 Olympics.

Sykes pairs and doubles have been the mainstay of elite rowers in Australia for decades. Indeed, since Peter Antonie and Stephen Hawkins won the Olympic M2x in 1992 in Barcelona, there has been a steady stream of elite medals in our pairs and doubles. They have not been limited to Australians, though, as the USA pair of Missy Schwenn (now Ryan) and Karen Kraft won a silver in Atlanta in 1996. They were bested by the Australian women's pair, who were also rowing a Sykes.

    
 
 
 
 
         
       
    Lined up to start at the Australian national team finals for the M2-, all crews are racing Sykes mould 13H (aka mould 23).    
         
   

Other international crews to win in Sykes include the Canadian LW4- in 1991. In fact, prior to the stream on champions racing in pairs and doubles in the 1990s and 2000s, our fours and quads were those most commonly chosen by championship crews.

This dates back to the 1974 World Championship when the Melbourne University Boat Club raced a Sykes in the LM4-. They recall being the only lightweight crew at the regatta racing a boat specifically built for a crew of their size and believe that had a good deal to do with their gold-medal performance.

It isn't surprising that Sykes would be at the forefront of crew-weight specific boats, since Jeff Sykes himself was a lightweight competing against open weight scullers in the 1960s and 1970s. His first single was built specifically for his lighter weight and skills as a sculler -- it had one of the most aggressive shapes for boats of its time.

The most recent lightweight win in a Sykes was the LW2x in the 2003 World Championship. This after the same crew of Amber Halliday and Sallie Crosby came in second in their Sykes in 2002.