NS14 - Are they Good?

I refuse to believe that the Tasar is really that fast.  Its a narrow beam 2 man hiking dinghy which was launched in 1975, average weight with average sail area.  It has no spinnaker.  Whilst I will say that it should take out a National 12, it is very unlikely to plane upwind without help from a trapeze or more extreme beam and will be pedestrian downwind due to it only having 2 sails, except in a stiff breeze.

As they say in Sailing Anarchy, pics or it didn't happen.  Just my 2pence but...

Originally posted by combat wombat I refuse to believe that the Tasar is really that fast.  Its a narrow beam 2 man hiking dinghy which was launched in 1975, average weight with average sail area.  It has no spinnaker.  Whilst I will say that it should take out a National 12, it is very unlikely to plane upwind without help from a trapeze or more extreme beam and will be pedestrian downwind due to it only having 2 sails, except in a stiff breeze. As they say in Sailing Anarchy, pics or it didn't happen.  Just my 2pence but...

The Tasar will do" what it says on the tin" but it still requires learning. Long, light and efficient.

Originally posted by combat wombat I refuse to believe that the Tasar is really that fast.  Its a narrow beam 2 man hiking dinghy which was launched in 1975, average weight with average sail area.  It has no spinnaker.  Whilst I will say that it should take out a National 12, it is very unlikely to plane upwind without help from a trapeze or more extreme beam and will be pedestrian downwind due to it only having 2 sails, except in a stiff breeze. As they say in Sailing Anarchy, pics or it didn't happen.  Just my 2pence but...

Well, the Tasar is not "average weight"; the hull with fittings is a genuine 68kg which is significantly lighter than even an International 14, let alone the Merlin. The Tasar also has the advantage of an over-rotating wing mast.

Re upwind planing.
Planing of course is almost impossible to really define; it seems easy at first but many top designers are baffled when it comes to working out just when it happens. Uffa Fox claimed to have invented the planing dinghy, but he told naval architects years later that sailboats were “not really in the “planing” range at all!" Planing, Julian Bethwaite agrees, is “virtually impossible to define – and the more you look into it, the more impossible it is to define”.

Having said, that, you want pics of a Tasar planing upwind? Try pic 20.13 of Bethwaite's High Performance Sailing. It's hard, though, to take a pic that reall demonstrates upwind planing, and going upwind in planing mode in a Tasar is significantly but not massively faster for VMG than just going high and fast. We used to be clearly faster than the gold medal 470 upwind in breeze and we were very light; good enough to beat 90 boats at the worlds but not the remaining 15 or so. The Tasar is clearly closer in upwind characteristics to an International Canoe than it is to a Laser, put it that way.

Notes from a tuning talk by Charlie McKee explicitly refer to the fact that the boat can plane upwind; see  http://www.tasar.org/racing/mckeesem85.html

Charlie was one of the top 18 Foot Skiff sailors in the world, an Olympic medallist in 49ers, and either a gold medal FD sailor or silver medal 470 sailor (I forget which McKee brother won which medal). I suspect someone with that sort of history in trap boats and skiffs may have some knowledge of planing.

In the end, and just to confuse matters, a Tasar planing upwind is slower than a modern NS14 which slices upwind rather in the matter of a Moth. By the way, according to John Spencer (designer of the Cherub and its 14' sister the Javelin) the super-efficient NS14 was for some time quicker than the trap-powered Jav upwind.


Edited by Chris 249

Well hmmmm...yeah no (and other non-committal noises that try to indicate I'm not trying to start a fight but merely to voice an opinion....)

I suppose it's hard to define "very different" but I can't see much that the L2 shares with the Tasar. Totally different concept in hull shape. Totally different rig. Totally different target market. Different heritage.

The 68kg is fitted; I've weighed my boat in at champs many times. It's simply not correct to say that 68kg is "average weight" for a 15 footer.

I know the Tasar isn't IC fast (I own and sail an IC too) but the point is that upwind it feels a lot closer to an IC than it does to a Laser or something similar.

Is it perfect? HELL NO!!

The Tasar has problems. The rotating mast can be a complete sod for the crew. It's certainly not at its best in light winds and enclosed waterways. The hull shape is well out of date in terms of speed for a boat in the medium performance range, and a modern NS14 is much quicker. The Vee shape has higher wetted surface and less dynamic lift. I personally find the traveller setup annoying in tacks. The mast is heavy.

Pedestrian downwind? I suppose it depends where you sail and what you like; one of the best NS designers rates the Tasar as similar in speed to the modern NS and in a breezy reach both are very quick for mid-size non-kite dinghies.

Would I sail one if I lived where you do? Dunno. Maybe a N12 or MR would be better in that context. No they are not that comparable to a modern NS14.

But all I was trying to say is that yes the Tasar can plane upwind. And seen in context (as a mid-size non-spinnaker crewed hiking dinghy) it is probably the fastest OD in the world. Sure it's no B14 but it doesn't pretend to be just like the B14 doesn't pretend to be a 49er (despite having influenced the 49er a hell of a lot).


Edited by Chris 249

I would have thought it would be better to compare the Tasar with the Albacore rather than 12's and Merlins? I'd certainly be interested to see if the Tasar could hold its own on handicap (or possibly on the water) in typical UK gravel pit conditions? I've yet to sail a Tasar (on the to do list as a Firefly sailor, the concept behind it being the same) and have crewed Albacores a little and raced against them a lot, so I would love to know which holds the edge, if anyone knows of any that do sail in the same fleet?