Dinghy popularity

Originally posted by transient Crikey we even had a breakaway SC down this neck of the woods call Artisans SC.

The Mirror and the like (me thinks) had the dominant tag "Cheap and easy to build" or a "Boat for the lower classes". Some probably viewed them as beginners boats but the movement was driven by  a social revolution, those boats had the weight of an uprising behind them, nothing like that will happen soon......Crikey we even had a breakaway SC down this neck of the woods call Artisans SC. 

Originally posted by transient ....and as I said earlier, as soon as a boat gets the tag "Beginners Boat" no individual would touch it with a barge pole. ....can you imaging the derision it would receive either here or on SA.

Indeed,
perhaps what we need is aspirational boats, and a pathway toward them?

Or perhaps we are going about this the wrong way altogether?
Perhaps we need inspirational events, not equipment.

People talk about 'riding from London to Brighton' or 'doing the London Marathon' they don't talk about 'riding my raleigh' or 'running in my Nikes'.

In yachts, people clearly want to take part in the RTI, most of them don't appear too fussy about what in.

....and as I said earlier, as soon as a boat gets the tag "Beginners Boat" no individual would touch it with a barge pole.

Originally posted by yellowwelly The L2K could be on that list if it did the future proofing thing of knocking the weight right down

But is that really appropriate for an entry level/general purpose boat? Few people are more pro light weight than I am, and I have no problems with owning a boat that's going to dent like crazy if you handle it carelessly. But a boat for the entry level/general purpose family role needs to be able to put up with a good deal of casual handling. I've been very influenced by watching a couple (in both senses) of my ex trainees get into a major row about the first scratch on a new boat. I don't want to see people having disagreements like that... Boats like that also need to be relatively cheap.

So you've got to hit a delicate compromise between weight, durability and cost: the usual pick any two because you can't have all three... You could hit durability and weight with a Kevlar/medium density foam/carbon sandwich RS2000 or whatever its going to be called, but the cost would be horrendous.

I think we need another jump in materials for the entry level/family boats in order to permit lighter craft, but I don't know where its going to come from. Maybe some sort of multilayer sandwich rotomoulding process, but don't ask me how it could be done...