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Beaujolais Nuveau ..... Drink it now! Don't wait or you'll never forgive yourself!

You know what ... some of you need to have sailed all these boats. 

It is great to speculate, and it is the stuff of forums of course.  Half an hour on the water is however worth any amount of keyboard time and banter.  Don't stop the banter... but maybe take up a few offers to try and have a go as well.  

Do the offers need to be repeated ? (and Yes I will have a go in GRF's creation as well if offered the chance!) 

Mike L.

PS - It is never OUR  handicap that is the issue ... it is YOUR sailing.... and if YOU beat ME it is because YOUR boat has a bandit handicap.  But if I beat YOU however it is only because YOU lot are c*ap at racing as OUR handicap is very very reasonable.  .. and of course the handicap WE have is because WE are of course a much stronger fleet (even if half the results in the PN  'mix' come from club raced hulls that are several decades off the current pace - well maybe ) 

Don't you just love it  ...    

Icon hull weight is at least 20kgs less than a Merlin. Just sayin'. An Icon with an asso kite would be embarrassing if it WASN'T at least 950. But none of this is relevant to what Ecosse was asking. I think you may be second guessing how handicaps are arrived at as well, nothing to stop clubs from giving new Winder Merlins a higher handicap if they see fit, ditto any other class. If you don't like handicap racing, sail a OD.    

Ecosse the best thing to do is get in touch with Martin (Scotsfinn) on this forum and go sailing with him. I don't know what his plans are for the Largs Winter Series but you could possibly crew for him and I'm sure he'll help you make the right decision. Anything else is just opinion! I think his is the only Icon in Scotland so if you want class racing you'll have to start organising it yourself. It's not such a bind, I'm doing it for the Merlin Rockets and I'm enjoying it, and the numbers there are creeping up.

You would need to do things like set some dates (open meetings with handicap classes until you have critical mass, which is usually 5 boats at every event), get a mailing list going, get a good boat available for demo sailing, then do as much publicity as you can. That's just for starters! All fun though, if you are of a mind. The only other class options in Scotland for 2 handed hikers are RS200/400 (not my cup of tea), Albacore (still surprisingly fast and good handicap), Merlin Rocket - only 2 events so far but 7 scheduled for next year, 2 new boats coming and 7 boats at the last event, 5 boats based in Bardowie next year), Enterprise (mostly St Mary's Loch I think) and GP14 (mostly South West Scotland). If you wanted a trap boat then a few of us are organising a 'Scottish Symmetrics' series for all the orphan boats to race handicap - 505, FD, Fireball, Osprey etc (although the Osprey's are possibly going to have a 4 event North England series). That's pretty much it I think.

The next problem you are faced with is getting people into the class, and with the limited number of people dinghy sailing you will either have to find newbies or plunder existing classes, the latter of which leads to forum nonsense and people getting pretty protective.

Dinghy sailing in the UK is pretty mature now, so the days of instant new classes are gone (unless you are RS and have marketing clout and brand loyalty). If you want a class up here, you need to have the passion and patience to do what Keith Bedborough did for the RS400's, but his was an easier sell as there were lots of secondhand boats already. It can be done, but more in a slow burner fashion. Not trying to put you off, just consider your options, and get yourself a test sail!  

Edited by Hector - 06 Nov 13 at 1:07am