New women's Olympic boat

"To compete at Olympic level in the Laser or Laser radial also requires a full time committment to living and sailing on the international circuit."

Not sure.....the bronze medallist and the mid-fleet triple Olympian used to spend most of their time training here, a loooooong way from the international circuit. I bump into last year's Radial women's world champ and the guy who dominated the Euro circuit when I do regattas down here; they sail the circuit, but not full-time. The guy who got about 7th in the other small singlehander (Mistral) at Athens spent something like 9 weeks overseas in the preceding 4 years. The US rep was off the circuit most of the time.

Re the idea that people watch spectacular boats......it seems logical and Bethwaite says people do it in their thousands when the Eyedeens are out on the harbour in Sydney.

Problem is, it doesn't seem true these days. On our national day, I was one of hundreds picnicking on one of the islands that form the rounding marks for the 18s. In a perfect nor'easter (15 knots or so) there were about 23 modern 18s and a  bunch of Aussie and Kiwi Historical 18s/M  class running around, metres from the shore.

No-one - neither the tourists or the locals - seemed interested in the skiffs apart from the sailors in my party. Oh, and there were one other couple watching; turned out they sailed Herons or something. No one else batted an eyelid, much less turned around and went "hey, look an extremely expensive, hard to rig boat for athletic young men who have years of experience.....that's the sport for me!!"

I used to teach sailing in the harbour and found out that not even sailing students really care about 18s.....they just want to sail to picnic spots.

PS not sure whether the women should have to sail a cat.....aren't there many more women in monos? My friends on the Euro A Class/F16 scene say there's almost no women skippers on the fast boats. Maybe an OPEN singlehanded cat....I think Steve Brewin won the A Worlds at about 67kg and 5'6" so women could do OK in an open cat.

BTW down here we've now had about a season of the RSX Olympic/youth board. Popular opinion is that it will last one Games. It's about 25% heavier than the proto that won selection, is falling apart with poor manufacturer support, probably needs even more pumping than the Mistral, and in the normal conditions around most of the world (about 8 knots) the women/youth 8.5 version is actually slower than the original Windsurfer One Design. The only good point is that weekend warriors like me can now beat the Pro World Cup and Formula Windsurfing world champ around the course, 'cause she's gone RSX and I'm still on Mistral.

It seems to make the Yngling look good.

Originally posted by Chris 249 "To compete at Olympic level in the Laser or Laser radial also requires a full time committment to living and sailing on the international circuit." Not sure.....

 

To stay at the top of the ISAF rankings requires you to do lots of regattas. To be competitive (win medals at European, World or Olympic) this is not always the case!

Edited by Jon Emmett

Originally posted by Rupert Originally posted by Jon Emmett Originally posted by Rupert So, Maybe we need a third form of Spinnaker - one with the wow factor of the asym and the versatility of the conventional one. Over to all you budding sail designers...   By definition a Spinnaker is either Symetric or Asymetric!!! But it doesn't necessarily have to set in the way that they do today. The old Cherub idea with the extra long pole was the forerunner to the bowsprit, of course, used down under alot, from what I understand, but that has most of the disadvantages of both systems.

I've been toying with the idea of a swing rig, similar to those found on Marblehead RC yachts, for a two-man hiker. Whilst it wouldn't be as fast as either a conventional or asymmetric kite, it does have the advantage of being easy to use and flexible (i.e. varying pole angle but simple to gybe). Forestay tension would be low as a result of being attached to the end of jib boom, but as I intend to use a rotating wing mast it would be anyway.

Originally posted by Rupert The old Cherub idea with the extra long pole

The Cherub class can't take any credit for that: it was standard fitment on Antipodean classes. I assume its the reason why the Laser 2 has a relatively long pole, I guess Bethwaite/Performance Sailcraft were compromising what was needed to gain decent performance with what they thought Northern Hemisphere sailors would accept. Presumably they didn't want to repeat the error of the Tasar being too advanced a boat for most Northern hemisphere sailors...

Originally posted by Jon Emmett By definition a Spinnaker is either Symetric or Asymetric!!!

Funnily enough some early Cherub kites, like the skiffs and so on, although with luff and leech the same length and symettrical if you folded them in half were effectively asymettric with a leech and a luff, and the seam shaping done differently in each half: here's a photo. They must have been rigged with two guys on the luff and two sheets on the leech: goodness only knows what a nightmare they were to gybe.


Edited by JimC

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