RS 600 where now?

We have a pretty active Facebook page going for the 600 these days with a lot of enthusiasm amongst owners.
Mostly, though, it's people fairly new to the boat that are still trying to develop the skills and trying to begin staying dry! (I'm a perfect example!).
Confidence is one of the issues - ie: It's still a fairly daunting task to think about taking my boat out on the race course with others around me whilst I'm still getting used to/learning the boat.
However, we have been toying with the idea of informal training/social events and, as I bought my boat specifically to take part in next years Birkett, we have that event targeted as a potential fleet race. I have some 15 signed up to that group(including 2 from Ireland) and, hopefully, we can get at least 10 to turn up.

The key is pretty much starting all over again with this newbie enthusiasm.
I love my boat, absolutely love it. My first proper time out on big water saw around 35 capsizes in 3 and a half straight hours. The short time I spent actually on the boat and blasting up, down and across Bala bought the biggest smiles to my face. Second time out? - just 5 capsizes in two hours and a massive massive sense of achievement.
It's a beast alright, a pretty uncompromising one at that, an incredible challenge to me. However, I'm not going to let it beat me.
I'm not sure the class will see a massive 'resurrection' as such, but I'm hoping that this kind of 'beginners bond' will see a few weekends at various venues/clubs next year.

The 600 rig is a moth rig from the previous era. The sail profile was contemporary ( a scaled-up Caws moth sail ) but the mast was from the previous era before stumps - bend low down at the gooseneck instead of bend in the middle or above the hounds. The luff round on the sail is excessive compared to mast bend = a bit too much fullness, but it makes it easy for the spar maker/sailmaker to have a bit of variation - the sail never goes creasy and too flat and wrinkly.

Fair enough.

Not really sure what you're going to gain to be quite honest. A faster rig on a 600 would tend to make it more difficult to sail rather than easier, because the standard rig is backed off a bit. Maybe a more modern rig could have a bit more and nicer gust response, with a square top, but rig development does get rather pricey because you need so many new sails and masts.

Basically though I'm sure what you'd end up with would be rather like a modern Moth rig, in the same way that the 600 rig is something of a detuned version of a Moth rig from its era.

> no Kite
Hmm, in last year's PY list the the Contender had 1977 races, the RS700 1218, the RS600 1020, and the Musto Skiff 1008. Its not immediately obvious that the lack of a kite is a problem for popularity in a trapeze singlehander. You could argue that popularity is roughly inversely proportional to difficulty though.