Small boats more fun?

I was thinking about which class I will eventually join when I have money and am no longer a poor student.

This summer a spent some time sailing RS800s and 29ers. The RS800 was cool and pretty fast, but I always felt kind of disconnected sailing it. The 29er although definitely slower, felt more exciting A laser in a blow downwind which is much much slower, is still loads of fun.

I think it's down to the size of the boat, the sort of go-kart effect. This is taken to the extreme with windsurfing which is really awesome (as long as there is enough wind!). Has anyone else experienced this?

I currently have a modified I14 which I’ve only sailed twice, but due to light winds and asymmetric problems I have yet to see her true potential. I’m pretty sure I’ll stick with my 14 for quite a few years yet. For £800 this boat is an absolute steal! To get a boat with racks, self tacking jib, T foil things start looking very expensive though. Most 14s seem to be very expensive off the shelf beiker designs kinda defeating the object of a development class. Maybe an ovi 2 or something with some work may be affordable.

The cherub class looks very interesting. I wanted to buy one instead of the 14 since my sister and I would be more suited to it weight wise, but there were hardly any available used for around £1000. Lots of them seem to be wood (maintenance issue) and have aluminium masts/symmetric spinnakers still. They seem to be getting with the times recently though! Anyone in the southampton area want to give me a ride in one?

Racing is of no consideration to me, I just want to go really fast. Most windsurfers never race, same goes for snowboarding and ‘extreme’ sports. Tried racing and didn’t like it. People yelling/bitching at each other and protesting is a weird idea of fun on a Sunday morning. My first open meeting 2 out of 18 boats had holes in their sides after the first start.

Did a couple of seasons club racing in an Enterprise back in the day and also a few races in a 29er. Racing really seems to bring out the worst in people and I've found even at local club level, people are needlessly hostile on the water. We had one guy who came mid fleet in the series forcing a note put on the bottom of the published results about a 2 boat situation which didn't even change his position! This is just Sunday morning club racing! We have also had people come in on port yelling starboard so we had to avoid a collision, and so miss the mark. These were experianced sailors, they knew they were on port!

Another situation I've seen on the water was a guy infringe at the windward mark 1st time round. Instead of doing his circles he just sailed in and packed up his boat. The weather was perfect, so even if he didn't want to continue he could have just free sailed instead.

On the other hand I've had some really enjoyable informal races against some of my mates in lasers. Great fun. We allowed kinetics and hitting marks too. Some people need to leave the ego at home, chill out a bit and try and have fun instead of trying to prove a point. Sailing already has an image problem, the amount of red tape/cost to just join some clubs on the south coast is crazy.

For these reasons I have avoided racing and just changed class when I can manage the boat OK in a blow, then move on to a more difficult boat.