Wife experience helm & Husband 95kg crew

It's like one of those horror movies watching what goes on here, like loads of arms coming up from the pits of hell trying to drag our heroes down , to ride the river styx in some hell craft.

Never mind the fact they've been sailing an assy, no let's recommend our symmetric crap with it's poles and its useless can't beat a balloon downwind kite..designed alongside Noah's creation.

Edited by iGRF - 14 Mar 16 at 7:47pm

I would have thought a 2000 would fit the bill very nicely.

Originally posted by craiggo If there is a good local fleet it doesn't matter if it's an old style of boat, what matters is that the racing is competitive and enjoyable.

Trouble is mate, that isn't true either, its just another myth people like to peddle. Usually people who are desperately struggling to keep a local fleet in being, which is often very hard indeed.

But you're right, we should have explored the overpowered in F5 thing a bit more. Because it doesn't matter what boat you sail (well within reason), you are going to be well overpowered in a F5 because that's the way the wind works.. Well unless you have tiny sails up. But with suitable sailing technique and boat setup its all manageable.

So (to the OP) we need to explore why you had trouble with the Xenon in a F5. I've sailed the Xenon a bit and I think it is a bit of a brute in breeze because it hasn't got the most dynamic of rigs. And I guess I'm guilty of assuming that was the issue.

So the first question, I suppose, is, have you sailed other boats in F5 and found them manageable. We need to find out whether it was the boat or technique that was making things difficult for you, or maybe a bit of both.

Then we need to know what sort of boat you two want to sail. The RS400 is kinda like a more sophisticated Xenon, and so that was my first thought, although I have grave doubts about the mainsheet loads. They do fit a forward hand your size though, I know because I is...

Now the Lark and the other older boats have pole kites. You don't want to buy a pole kite boat without being very sure that's what you want, based on decent experience sailing with them. They have vocal adherents on here but I wouldn't go back to sailing with one regularly, and I was brought up with them and very suspicious of the new sprit kites when they came out.

Similarly other suggestions are trapeze boats. Well, that may be fine, but again is it what you want to do. If it is that's fine, but again you want to be sure before you shell out the cash.

And a lot of this is going to depend on where you sail.

The real arguments for sailing a boat that's vaguely popular locally are two fold. The first is that the boat will probably be reasonably suited for the local conditions, so you don't get landed with a boat that will never be nice to sail where you are. The second is that you can, assuming they're a reasonably friendly bunch, get tips and tricks on how to handle the boat and maybe lessons from the class enthusiasts in technique and the like. And don't underestimate this: it can be very valuable. But it ain't going to compensate for not wanting to go sailing because the boat is a horrible lump that feels like navigating a brick, or conversely because its a mad flyer that catapults over the horizon without you being able to control it.

I think you are right about being a brute, we were great up wind no one could get near us with my weight hiking hard....just when that massive kite goes up we struggled with big wind shifts....and gybing in for F5-6 was touch and go.....

There used to be lots of top Albacores helmed by women with male crews with similar weights. The Simmonds at South Cerney for instance. Well worth a look.