The Contender

 I bought an old ridge composites about 14 months ago and i think its great its a fibreglass hull with a lovely wooden deck.Its a pig in light airs especially as i'm a big lad at 6 foot 4 and 17 stone but I can live with that as its such a blast thrashing about in a breeze.Especially upwind and tight reaches bear off the thing leaps onto the plane throws up loads of spray and feels really fast.Gets a bit lairy dead downwind in a breeze(then again what doesn't) but its a great feeling and you do get wet very frequently when your learning.I couldn't get my head round the trapezing/steering thing at first and always ended up getting out on the trapeze too late.But once you've got over the wierdness of getting out on the wire straight away its great.I thought I might have been ripped of when I bought it cos I paid nearly agrand but looking at it now I think I got a bargain. 

Thanks for the replys,

Sounds like I might go for one then!  I'm reliably informed that they are fast and I like boats that are a bit more tweaky, not SMOD's like my last boat.  Being able to choose rig/sail options is always fun.

Anyone know any good Contenders going cheap?

CW

£300 is VERY cheap and must be quite an old boat. Some are very reliable and still quite fast, but realistically, the £600-£800 bracket would give you a little more choice. The GRP hull doesn't require so much maintenance, especially if you sail in a place like ours! Some wooden boats like a Bonezzi would look like matchsticks after landing on our pebble beach!  

Whatever you find, good luck and see you in open meetings! (to anyone interested, a whole bunch of us will be on the IoW in June - last year was great!) 

I'm at leigh and lowton I think the contender you bought might have actaully come from your part of the world anyway looks like we're nearly gonna have a fleet this year there'll be four of us out in the contenders.

righting lines could be useful too...
that's the next improvement on my boat anyway!!