RS 600 where now?

Very true , unless you sail at a small bit of inland water wth shifty winds, which most people in this country do, in which case it’s vile 

Had a read of the facebook page just now...

My thoughts from there were

- makes sense to adopt as many generic RS parts as possible to keep costs down.

- new rs rudders are fine themselves, it's how they're screwed to the boat which is the issue

- 800 boom should be just fine. There is huge load on the gooseneck in the 800 as the kicker angle is so steep. 

- I'd definitely go square top. I was the most outspoken against it in 200's, because I didn't think a trendy or performance look was the selling point of the class. In a performance orientated class I think it makes sense to make these upgrades. A nice square top would give the class a jump on the musto, contender and 700 in terms of upwind sails. I'd aim to make it slightly faster than the current sail upwind, by allowing it to depower more, and fit a bit fat cunno purchase. 

I'm not sure how many more people the square top attracted in the 800s, but, unlike the 200, I think keeping up with performance trends is more important in performance boats. However, you then need to decide whether you pitch the updates as cosmetic only (like the 800 main) or purposefully make them performance enhancing like the 9er updates... personally, I'd go for the later. I reckon the 800 could have nudged the performance more and gone fully battened. 

The 800 square top is very similar in performance to the pin head. We run the same setting for both and in the bit of club racing we've done against other 8's with the pin head... so RS can do it, if that's what the class wants. But I think it's a bit of a hollow aim. I think you should go the 49er route, have it visibly different and sell it to people as being tangibly better.

I also think at national and club level you can easily creep in a decent performance bump without it affecting results in a boat handling orientated class. It's not like the RS200 where 90% of the fleet can tack and gybe well and have boat-speed within 1% where even a tiny disadvantage in top end speed would obliterate someones results. 

 

the cadets at my clubs have always appeared to get to grips quite quickly

Looks good to me; might give the class a bit of a leg up...