Classes fading in popularity

Originally posted by TonyL "Going back a bit it seems that classes which dissappear lack good class associations?" Yes, agree with this completely and this can happen to relatively new classes too. Some of the classes launched by Topper, RS, and Laser in the 90's never really got started did they?  Mind you, this does mean there are some cheap relatively modern boats around for those that want to hack around at the club, which might be the upside of a class doing down the pan!

Be careful though - don't be the last person in the Q who has a boat that they cannot sell OR the first person who takes a massive hit on the depreciation. Ask any past or current owner of a Laser EPS!!

Which SMOD's would people consider to be in the bargain bucket now and in 12 months?

NOW - Laser 5000; ISO, RS600, RS300, Buzz, Boss, Spice, Laser EPS,

12 months - I dare not say ...

It's not a bad thing being in the bucket as you can get very good cheap sailing?

Rick

I don't think the new crop of classes are failing any more regularly than they did in the past - there is just a bigger marketing budget behind them so they do it more publically! A leaf through any old book of dinghies will show dozens of boats which never made it from any period, either because there was a problem with the design, or it didn't look right, or because it was up against something else. The past is littered with singlehanders that were killed by the Laser, for instance, and I'm sure many more will be in the future. No fault of either the failed boat or the Laser, really, just a free market working!

I don't think you can count the Buzz and 300 as being on the way out and as for the Laser 5000 and ISO they were popular for a while, and I keep seeing a few.  The EPS has certainly faded inspite of being quite a nice boat to sail.  The Boss and Spice are definitley on the way out but the 600 seems to have found another niche - that of hairy single hander for those who want to get trained up.  Let's face it if you can sail a 600 in most breezes you can sail almost anything.

The 300 does need to sort out the small rig though. In any open meeting report amazement is expressed if a sailor with a small rig boat does well.

According to the last racing classes review in Y&Y, based on sail number increases over previous years, SMODs with less than 10 boats built include Boss (0), Iso (-31!!). L3000 (-1!), L5000(-5!), Spice(0), Tasar(0), MRX(1), RS600(3), RS400(6), B14(7). I'm suspecting the actual sail number change may be more accuirate than claimed sales, which show even more interesting inconsistencies than quoted latest sail numbers do. I think we can assume that the negatives suggest over enthusiastic reporting in previous years... RS300 wasn't recorded but sold 0 in 2003.

I don't know how many boats Topper, Laser or whatever need to sell to make it worth keeping the class on.Presumably its more for a large manufacturer than a small one.

The most popular boats in terms of numbers were Solo, Enterprise, Wayfarer, RS200, Laser 2000. Rather gives the lie to theories that boats have to be fast to be popularthese days: none of those are exactly speedy.

Edited by JimC