Fastest dinghy?

It all seems very confusing...

Simon said "I'm not actually dis-agreeing with you (we have some work t6o do on the international stage re F18 etc), but you will find in the UK that we do sail when it's windy (+25kts).  It is a  myth we  don't sail when it is windy."

I know you guys have more wind than many places, and I don't personally agree with the fact that cat sailors here stop racing fairly easy.

<>Re "Were there really 8 Ausies / expats in the F18 worlds top 10 ?

Yep;

1 - Bundy and Gashby
2- Mitch "van den" Booth, a former Avalon (northern beaches of Sydney) boy.
3- Gavin Colby. Dunno how much time he spends in Europe but he's definitely an Aussie, did the H 16 nationals etc this year and IIRC was an Aussie when he became H 16 world champ runner-up.
5- Andrew "Von" Landenberger. Grafton (northern NSW) born and bred, a former Moth world champ. Nice guy.
6- Greg Goodal (Bendigo, Vic, Aust) and "Fabio" Van Kerkhof (Port Stephens, NSW)
7 - Mark Laruffa (Qld? Oz), Liam "Toy Boy" Goodal, Greg's son. Very definitely an Aussie.  I think we have the photos of him and young girl in the spa of our share house at the T nats to prove it.

1	AUS 111	BUNDOCK DARREN, ASHBY GLENN
2	NED 11	BOOTH MITCH, DERCKSEN HERBERT
3	SUI 5	COLBY GAVIN, CAMENISCH CORI
4	FRA 21	MOURNIAC JEAN CHRISTOPHE, CITEAU FRANCK
5	AUS 1	LANDENBERGER ANDREW, RUSTERHOLZ MARTIN
6	AUS 10	GOODALL GREG, VAN KERCKOF DANIEL
7	ITA 13	LARUFFA MARK, GOODALL LIAM
8	FRA 808	BOULOGNE EMMANUEL, BOULOGNE VINCENT
9	FRA 901	VAUCHEL THIBAUT, LAGARRIGUE JEREMIE
10	GBR 365	STYLES HUGH, LUNCH MARCUS

I see first, second, fifth and sixth......

 

 

[/QUOTE]

@Chris249

I took your 8 aussies to be 8 aussie boats - ho hum...

 

 

 

[QUOTE=Scooby_simon]

@Chris249

I took your 8 aussies to be 8 aussie boats - ho hum...

 

....And your way was probably the logical way to read it. I have to admit, I often get slack with the details in this sort of forum 'cause I spend my days working on stuff where I have to be pedantic about the minute details and I tend to blather here for light relief, and it's the concepts and trends that interest me more.

I just got the latest Australian sailing with a pic of Gavin Colby's boat, he has an Aussie flag beside his name on the main, and a Swiss flag beside his crew's name. I was still very surprised to see the way the Aussies went, especially since about half of them are not normally F 18 sailors but Taipan 4.9 sailors. Makes me feel better about the fact that Liam's the only one I ever beat!

 [/QUOTE

Simon, Re: boards.

Windsurfers are an interesting point as when the plane they are barely in contact with the surface of the water and so the rules about righting arms do not really apply, the same can be said to some extent of planing craft, but it still works as an analogy that is sufficent for this discussion (Bethwaite discribes it better than I could). 

Have you noticed that board sailers at speed have the rig heeled over significantly to windward?  This is what supports the riders weight.  On a dinghy sailed upright the two main componants of the force produced by the sail are along the centre line of the hull and across it, both horizontally.  With a rig canted this far to windward the force that would be heeling the board to leward is now pointing up as well as across the board.  This vertical componant supports the riders weight and also lifts the board out of the water.  The other plus point is that the force to leward is reduced and so a smaller foil is needed to keep the board in a straight line (also less drag). 

The thing to remember about boards is that they are inherently less efficient that a dinghy and have allredy reached their top speed to within 2 knots (i guess).  Their limiting factor is infact the air resistance of the rider.  What allows them to seem faster is that they can go out in far windier conditions.  Most board records have been set doing only a small fraction more than the true windspeed, whereas the records set by multihulls have been set at more than twice the windspeed.