Another What Boat Thread

Hi, I'm new to this forum, relatively new to sailboats having decided to
"retire" to the sit down arena after years of racing windsurfers and
decided to teach myself in a Musto Skiff as a first boat.

O.K. so I now know that was a mistake, and having spent the first half of
this summer rebuilding my confidence in something tamer I'm ready for
another boat.

Now, I'm a bit particular about stuff, and I sail from a gnarly beach with
'orrible shore dump so want a retracting centreboard. I quite got used to
banging the spinnaker up with the rudder handle thingy between my legs
on the musto, so quite like the assymetric rig and so far all I can see that
seems to fit my bill is the RS500.

Its a bit new, nothing in any of the searches I made prior to this post
seems to indicate exactly where it sits, how good a "ride" it is wether its a
half decent sea boat and what the optimum crew weight would be.

I'm quite light at around 67kg I have a couple of chums who are around
85kgs and occasionally want to bring my daughter on when its light.

So my questions other than above (Crew weight) are:

Has anybody here got one or sailed one, are there any alternatives that
would fit my bill (retracting centreboard assym rig), and anyone know
what the portsmouth yardstick (is it still called that) rating is for the 500?

Thanks in advance.

Oh yes one more thing I want to try and nail that wire business, so it must
have at least one wire, its tricky after years of having a boom to hang on
to, just the mental block of letting go with both hands.

Edited by Graemef

just choose whatever you want..but remember that dinghy sailors have a habit of wearing boots...and you can't get sails from Tushingham


Edited by laser4000

must admit I really enjoyed sailing the vago, although it's probably not high enough on the performance scale for grumpf

RS500, nah go get yourself an RS800

I think if you want a wire, assy and centreboard, your choices are fairly limited, as most trap boats with an established class, will have a dagger board rather than centreboard, apart from the new fangled ones like vago and 500.

Hi Graemef

Do you sail at Hythe?

I am looking to replace the topaz I currently sail there to a 2hander. I will probably choose a laser2 or 3000 due to their indistructable nature, enjoying sailing the laser 2 in the past and the fact that there should be good racing between boats for these classes.

Andrew