Racing Sailboards v Racing Sailboats

I've never crossed swords with the man, he strikes me as being
misunderstood (Doug Lord that is). But getting back to my man Gods son
and the challenge, I notice none of you have given me a prayer of taking
him in his Laser.

Now given that such a competition would have to take place in Lightwinds
since he's unlikely to be able to pilot a Long Course Board in anything
over a three and surely a Laser is weight sensitive dont you think I have a
prayer?
I've only ever sailed one once out of boredom at some Turkish Mark
Warner place, just to wind them up by winning their end of week beginner
championship by just the two legs, never having so much as climbed into
one before...They aint exactly Rocket Science are they?

But now lets just talk about what our man would have to cope with.

The Racing Sailboard.
The rig has two controls, the downhaul which can be made adjustable (if
you have the balance to let go with one hand and reach down to pull on
what y'all would call a Cunningham with the other all whilst balancing
and still rocking along at a fair old lick at times. The downhaul controls
the amount of twist in the head of the sail, the harder you pull the more
the mast bends this introduces the pre defined mismatch with that cut in
the luff curve of the sail and the head twists off.
The other is the outhaul control basically two position, in for upwind
flattening the sail and out for offwind bagging it out a bit.

Another control is the sliding mast track which is about half a metre in
length to allow the mast to slide all the way forward for upwind work it
increases the waterline length, it allows the foot of the sail to close down
on the board thereby inducing what used to be called end plate effect
which even more effective if the board is heeled onto its lee rail which
also induces foiling lift from the centreboard and has to be carefully
balanced by sheeting application not to go to far, it's a technique you can
perfect after a couple of years or so..

Then there's the bear off and reach procedure as you round the windward
mark you kick the plate back then press the pedal at the end of the mast
track and with a lifting action pull the rig all the way back, this raises the
height of the rig the Cof R comes right back so you are sailing off just the
fin (It's a bit at the back like a rudder but doesn't move) you then stand
further back to get into the rear most straps and hook in and hold on..

Easy even a Gold Medal laser Sailor could do it -   NOT, at least not for a
couple of years, so letting him off with the Kona would make it easy.

And what have I got to do?

Sit in a plastic bath with a bit of old sail cloth and waggle a stick thing?

Piece of cake.

Edited by G.R.F.

After seeing the long board racing at the club and compared to the quality of the dinghy racing at the club i have come to the conclusion that the windsurfers are far more competitive between themselves than the dinghy sailors are by a long shot, i know this is only at HSSC but i can see where graham is coming from and underneath all the attitude he is right.. there are a select few people that do well in each of the sports either in both and seperately but this is only acheived through much blood sweat and tears and having the attitude that says "i will do anything to win" which many people dont have ,Graham does, i certainly dont have that attitude but i do like friendly competition.

Originally posted by winging it Absolutely right Dan.  And as an instructor trying to encourage the people I teach to carry on sailing after level 2, I worry that they will buy something unstable and unsuitable because that's what's marketed hardest, get defeated and give up.

The Dawn Finally Breaks...

GRF has got some points that I agree with (and many that I think are wide of the mark).  Certainly windsurfing has produced some cracking sailors who have gone on to race succesfully in boats... Yves Loday, Ben Oakley, etc...  but I seem to remember quite a lot of good windsurfers back in the day having had a grounding in dinghies (Mark Woods, now back sailing in F15s at HISC) and Tushingham, Noble et al.

So it goes both ways which I think is kind of the point he was making.  But his really interesting thought is this...

"What does wind me up though is that in order to have any credibility
placed in ones opinion it is necessary to be a front runner, when in reality
the folk who create the majority of the market are us beginners to mid
fleet types, yet our views are ignored, by the charge being lead from the
front as the demand for ever increasingly unstable craft bolster other
fragile egos in the pursuit of what? "

Now I have a fragile ego which needs regular boosting and I sail a Musto, but I can't ignore the fact that as the boats have changed so has the whole sailing scene.

When I first started sailing in the 80s, on a little gravel pit in the Thames Valley, the main club fleet was the Enterprise, which would normally get between 10-20 entries for a Sunday morning race.  The crews were mainly male-female, husband-wife, father-son, and the competition was serious. The nature of the racing drew many people into the sport as the boats themselves were easy to sail badly, but to win races you had to sail them well.  It was a 'sport for all' scenario which is disappearing as the large club fleets of stable two man raicng dinghies at club level diminishes.  I think if we as a family came to dinghy sailing now we would be unlikley to get quite as absorbed as we did back then.  Racing in stable boats draws people in, and makes them want to stay.  That's why I also sail a Firefly.

[QUOTE=turnturtle] Paul Goodison on a board... 'handy' springs to mind:


[/QUOTE
]

Stacked springs to my mind..


And since when does freestylee short board antics qualify you as a good
racer.

He'd still be toast.

Waiting to be battered,