Advertising via sail numbers? 55

Well what a response.  First off Tgruitt, I have represented clients for copyright infringement in the music industry, so I can understand your frustration and thank you for your response.  The photo was not used in malice.  It was one of the best Fireball photos I could find to capture the spirit of the amazing class they are.  It was suggested that I should offer to remove the photo.  I am happy to do this if you require it.  

To iGRF, I believe I should divulge some reasons for calling you a fool, although after these recent posts you seem to be living up to the description rather well.

I have read this forum for sometime but never contributed.  You and some others constantly deride older, popular classes and I do wonder if any of you who do this are actually in touch with the reality of dinghy sailing around UK clubs and open meeting circuits currently.  After seeing some of the utter drivel you wrote about the Fireball, I decided it was time to comment, although I have to say I don't know why I bothered.

I have not been sent here by the UKFA, I have not owned a Fireball since 1993.  My crew and I used to sail them at club and national level with some moderate success over 8 years. I sold mine to buy into the new and amazing classes that were coming out at the time.  New Classes Good, Old Classes Bad. 

After a couple of seasons we then followed the herd into the Laser 4000, not really out of choice I hasten to add.  The Iso had suddenly became a very expensive boat to own, despite the boat show offer that attracted us in the first place.  Had I have just upgraded to a good secondhand 505 rather than buy a new Iso, then it would have been far cheaper sailing.  

We had some excellent racing in the Laser, toured some big European venues and soon found our club membership redundant.  My crew and I sailed under the class association and RYA burgee for three years. I even bought an Audi on a special deal through the sponsorship arrangements, it was the glory days of sailing; or so we thought at the time.  

When it became clear that we/I would need to upgrade yet again, this time to the RS800, I decided enough was enough, besides I did not want to trapeze myself.  We held onto the Laser and watched the circuit gradually disappear, the sponsor go and the residual values yet again plummet.  There was no club racing to go back to so we simply sailed less and less.  Eventually my crew of some 14 years moved on to an RS800, I don't blame him, but it was awkward at the time.  I sold the boat for peanuts with the intention to buy something else, but in the end found a 10 year hiatus occupied by mountain biking.

I have returned to sailing 3 years ago, now sailing a Supernova at my local club.  It has reminded me how much I have missed the sport.  We do still have a small Fireball fleet.  It remains loyal, but it is a shadow of its former self, however there are plenty of (now) old asymmetric dinghies gathering moss in the dinghy yard worth nothing in love or real terms to their owners.  

A flick through Yachts and Yachting and it seems the names I remember winning opens and nationals have all moved back to older classes.  Merlins, Solos, Phantoms, GP14s, I even saw an ex-4000 hotshot won the Mirror nationals recently.  So it seems to me, 'new classes good, old classes better' is the reality of today's dinghy sailing whether you like that or not.

What you and others who knock them fail to grasp is that older classes are owned by the owners.  They have a pace of change in keeping with what the owners actually want.  A 505 and Finn have always developed quicker and costed more to campaign than the Fireball and Laser.  But today's new Fireball is certainly different from my last boat.  This whole debate is surely testament to that?  No fellow Fireballer protested the winner did they?  A manufacturer owned class is at best a snapshot of time.   Sometimes this works, the Laser and RS200 are obvious examples, but most of the newer manufacturer owned classes have not offered the longevity of their owner-owned alternatives. 

What is not good for sailing is to constantly undermine those older, popular and significantly cheaper classes with the new and the best thing, especially when that new boat fails to offer better sailing.  In our case, the Iso and certainly the Laser 4000 severely restricted our sailing to the circuit only.  I am no luddite and applaud sailing development, but I have always admired it in the classes that suit it best; classes like N12s, Cherubs, Moths and International 14s.  With respect, not many of their owners would claim they are mainstream, general club racing dinghies.  Their owners demand a faster pace of change than the rest of us and are usually more than happy to do the work themselves.         

I wouldn't say you are so much stuck in the dark ages as I stand accused, but you seem reminiscent of a 1990s sailor with an obsession for asymmetric sailing and manufacturer led 'marketed' boats.  I'm not knocking asymmetric dinghies by the way, but I do fail to see where the appeal is for general sailboat racing, especially at sailing clubs.  

Your constant drivel and venom towards older classes is doing sailing no favours and for that I stand by my comment, 'fool'; maybe a fool who knows no better, but a fool regardless.  I see you sail a Laser EPS even, stuck in the 90's clearly, when the majority appear to have moved on, or back, depending on your point of view.