Tasar PN

The frostbite series started at RQYS this weekend - it must have been cold I even saw one person in a shortie rather than just rashie and board shorts...

Best British worlds result I believe is Mark Barnes 5th in Australia in the late 80's early 90's. 

The new resident champion is Ben Nicholas who has now moved back to his home country. Very excited because he is moving down from London and maybe sailing at my club, Lymington, later in the season.

Given time we plan to fully train him in the art of talking with a plumy voice and eating with a knife and fork and teach him useful phrases like good morning, good afternoon, and a pint of beer barman... It may take a lot of work though, he has been well indoctrinated in his Darwin years. Even says he enjoyed it. Big question here is can we convert him in time for Thailand 2007.

Lasers and Finns?  not picking on them in particular but you must understand that most of our sailing is done in sub 15 knots in the UK and mainly sub 10 and non planing. We beat a whole host of boats in 20+ but PY is about average conditions not the occasional full on windy race. ( and then most of the other classes don't want to come out to play)  When checking weather for the Melbourne worlds we found AUS conditions are about 5 knots higher on average. (and then they set the start time to 2pm at Melbourne for the thermal 25-30 knot that we didnt know about)

Last night I got passed by a laser when my crew was sat to leward, then when the breeze came up 5 knots we sailed past him.

249 doesnt show on the AUS Member register so I was confused i thought it should be a canadian boat. Sounds like a good number to have. Is it a canadian with the wooden inwale?

"Where are you sailing? Is 249 a Tasar"

New South Wales. The Tasar's a 700 series. I haven't sailed it for a long time unfortunately; was saving my energy for a major tilt at the worlds (used to be normally in the Linsley/Bretherton/Duglii/Ferret region of the fleet when I was a regular, but went through a time when I only raced once a year and dropped back) but major family issues got in the way.

I was going to flog the boat but then I took it out for the first time in yonks and realised just how great they are to sail. It's just a pity you need a regular crew because my logical crew owns her own cat and wants to sail that. The Tasar's been lent to a former state champ in Lasers and Tasars who hopefully will race it.

"Does anyone else feel Olympic level Lasers and Finns are slow?"

I must say, I reckon they're pretty slow in that while they're pretty quick for what they (ie a hiking singlehanded dinghy) that category of boat is just about the slowest form of sailing craft isn't it? Here in Sydney over the last few years we've had Schiedt, Ainslie, Blackburn etc and all the top Finn guys and they just can't hold the Tasar in most conditions, certainly not upwind or reaching in any breeze.

It doesn't mean the Laser isn't a great boat (I've never sailed the Finn) but it's just not in the same speed bracket as the Tasar most of the time. Of course that's no problem, if it's pure speed we're talking we all know that none of these classes is worth mentioning.

"Our new resident Tasar World Champion has only raced handicap a few times since coming back to the UK but he has not upset the local Merlin Fleet, yet..."

Yeah, the Whitstable Merlin guys tell me that even upwind in a breeze they can hold or beat the Tasars which is pretty impressive. But what UK sailor won the worlds? I thought the best were 8th and 9th?