RS500 ...

The club might say: fine then, your boat isn't taking up valuable space in the boat park that we could give to someone who does want to support our classes.

And people handicap racing in other clubs might say, I'm fed up with this, I'll join that a club with strong class racing. Especially if they already had a boat in one of those classes.

So it cuts both ways, unless the club is just desperate for any members it can get. Some are, some aren't.

You've lost me there. In what way do manufacturers spend money on bolstering 2nd-hand values? 

Chewie - does your new class remind you of anything? I14 went through many changes of rule before we got to where we are now - that's the problem with out-and-out development classes. In order to remain at the cutting edge - as if that matters - you have to develop the rule as well as the boat within the rule.

The FD class has, in some ways, the best of both. You can build in any material, with any cockpit layout subject to min deck area, with any weight distribution you want. The hull shape is almost one-design, the measurement tolerances were only originally put in place to help builders. The foils are closely controlled, but controls and fittings, standing and running rigging are free. The rule has been robust enough, with only 2 significant changes since it was written, to cope with the pressures of Olympic competition, and the boat itself was the fastest 2-man dinghy in the world until the mid 90's. Not so familiar with the 5oh, but their rules work in a very similar way. A modern 5oh or FD is a very serious piece of kit indeed and in no way dated.

Lots of people on here extolling the virtues of the V3000, which is a 30-odd year old hull with an asymmetric which completely ruins the balance of the boat downwind! A trendy-looking kite does not make a boat 'modern' or good to sail, necessarily, any more than a symmetric kite, overlapping jib and only one wire makes it 'dated' or boring

Manufacturers have to recoup the cost of development, tooling, bolstering second-hand values etc quickly, so they have to sell a lot of boats fast. Classes like the 50h, FD, Fireball etc built up over years, with lots of different boatbuilders and sailors having input into build techniques, fittings, rig development etc. Why is it that an FD can be raced competitively with a crew weight of anything between 145 and 200+ kg ( a range of 50+kg), yet RS can't design a multi-purpose boat to cope with a range of more than 30kg? Because we can go and buy a mast and sails that suit us, and then use the systems the Gods of sailing have developed to tune the thing while we race, that's why! If you don't fit the physical profile for the average SMOD, there's not much point in even turning up.

I firmly believe that dinghy sailing would be much healthier, and might even have progressed faster, without the influence of Topper, Laser, RS.

Neil

Hi all

Yet another lively topic on the Yachts and Yachting Online forum!

A little plea to all of our posters - could you declare ALL commercial interests you may have in products or rival products when commenting in discussions like this. A huge number of people are reading these threads and should be made aware of any vested interests the writer may have.

Cheers, Mark

A couple of thoughts:

a) If clubs were to ban new designs and force us into 'preferred' classes, would we not all still be sailing clinker built things from yesteryear that weigh a ton, barely move, flood/sink and cost a fortune. 

b) I think that one of the reasons new 'one designs' appear to fail after a few years is that they do not/ can not adapt.  They therefore date quickly and (unless well developed prior to launch) keep their foibles.  Fireballs, 505s etc change over time and so could be considered more modern than the ISO, L4000 etc.

So, I've had an idea...

How about a new rule based class.  I've not thought too much about the exact type of rule, but something like the N12/I14 rules but for ISO/L4000 type boats (carbon free hulls, single wire, asymmetric).  Think F18 but for dinghies.  This allows class racing and still allows for freedom of expression/tailoring of design to physique/homebuilders etc...