Fastest dinghy?

Chris

I14's with the international rules mast height being less than the original Australian 14 skiff rules have less to gain than the 12's by stepping down. Although even with the old mast height the step down was a risky move because the impact down hill if the breeze backed off at all was severe.

The first fat head I14 main was seen on a Canadian boat at the worlds in Beer in 2000 and was roundly and unfairly bagged by many including me at the time. The sailmaker was Fyfe, who I understand has a 12' skiff background from NZ.

Subsequent to that, Linsday Irwin and I developed it for the Japan I14 worlds, finding that it went better in the strong breezes of Perth as well. Dave Alexander Sails copied it from there and they now seem to be the norm. I have however seen reports on the Y& Y pages of Hyde sails developing a pin head main for 17 knots and above.

I dont know of anybody who has current experience on the latest generation 14's and 12's.

The wind average & gust structure for the sail melbourne course region is shown on the following web site.

http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/~awatkins/fbeacon.html

With regards to the 12's being able to step down a rig. At the Sydney I14 nationals in 2000/2001 on Botany bay with a jetstream induced/boosted sea breeze of 30 + knots the full rig boats still beat the step down rig boats, mostly because they are faster down hill with the bigger kites and mainsails. The same jet stream induced the tornado and storm that passed over Nicorette during the Sydney - Hobart race that year.

Similarly in Perth the next year when the sea breeze was regularly 28 - 30 knots average the bigger rigs proved faster, in fact, this is when the fat head 14 mainsails first emerged.

Both of these venues have flat water that allows the skiffs to be sailed at full pace, whereas on Port Phillip in Sail melbourne the Seas are so steep that cartwheeling down hill becomes a real issue.

If ever controllable in a good breeze a hydro foiling International 14 would surely have a chance of being the fastest dingy.

[QUOTE=JimC]Yep, but its basically true. They have much more consistent sea breezes than us. Doesn't necessarilly make a difference to the proportion of really big breeze, but a decent Sydney sea breeze is as much breeze as most people need.{/QUOTE]

Maybe I'm not most people then. Big breeze all day is what I want - not just for a few hours in the afternoon.

That is a very broad generalisation: Europe and USA are both fairly large places! The Med is mostly light-wind in summer but the UK is in the track of Atlantic depressions arriving every few days on average and therefore fairly windy, especially in the west and north. You can't even assume the Med is light-wind. We once did a championship between Marseilles and the Spanish border and took along light-wind sails. Big mistake - the smarter locals were measuring in flat sails and we soon discovered the venue was regularly blasted by the Mistral (strong northerly funneling down the Rhone valley). The recent sailing speed record was set during a Mistral.