Dinghy hull weights

Think you would struggle to get a good one with 'sort-out' potential for much less than £ 1500 ... covers, trolley, combi, rig , goodish sail ... and 515 would have been 20 years old so it may have had a tough life.  But you can get lucky - however ALWAYS inspect very carefully ... all the bits soon add up !

Been said plenty of times before ... a good Mk1/2 is fully competitive.  Some classes that switch to vinyl-ester/epoxy from polyester end up with 2 sub-species of the craft.   Not as really true with the Blaze.  But I'm not so sure about Ian's comments regading the carbon mast though (but then he is not a really a 'heavy' )

We know several medium and  heavy guys who prefer the alloy mast.  One has recently ordered a new Hartley boat but has also quietly purchased a decent used Alloy mast as he is convinced, for him at least, it is superior ....  Recent years have also seen alloy mast equipped boats winning the Nationals AND good polyester boats beating all the newer epoxy ones at the Championships as well.  Not idle speculation this - the records are there.

Sure a new boat is more likely to be superior as it will arrive fully sorted  but its 'on-the-water' superiority is not always as certain....  against earlier hulls if they are well looked after and kept near/on minimum weight (with effort of course)   You can be very very competitive in an earlier Blaze (even though everyone would, as ever was the case, like a newer one !)         

Edited by Cirrus - 09 Sep 16 at 11:13am

The switch to epoxy happened a few years back and the first one was number '747'.   Hartleys have now taken on the Blaze and to kick things off made an attractive introductory offer - this produced 20 paid up deposits, with more promised and in the pipeline, many coming  from existing owners looking to renew their boats. 

This is incredibly good news if you are currently looking for a decent used epoxy boat. The market for good (epoxy) Blazes has always been very tight (aka premium priced) but with a number of the deposits being coming from owners of epoxy boats you should have some real choice - and a bit of negotiating power comes with that choice !   The new Hartley ones will come on stream before too long and now we are approaching the end of the season some owners will be very keen to sell their current boats in advance of taking delivery.  

Many go by word of mouth but you could try a 'wanted' ad on the class association website - and if you go this route you should be able to reach a good deal..
 






Edited by Cirrus - 09 Sep 16 at 10:10am

I liked Europes when I had a ride in a couple decades ago. I wouldn't fit in one now, but I'm currently using a Vintage Moth which is one generation newer (much the same beam, less rocker, more modern rig and thus headroom) and enjoying pottering about in it.

Ta for that reply, very interesting.

Talking of two class boats due to weight variations, how are RS doing with the 2000? I know the early Laser ones were lighter than the later Laser ones by a large margin (10kgs that I've witnessed and 20 kgs that I've heard about.) I'm wondering how the new ones compare. 

Edited by transient - 30 Aug 16 at 4:05pm