The RS900 - 'our' fantasy dinghy!

Yup - the hull form is Howlett derived and it is defiantly 'dinghy' coming from I14 shapes a decade or so back.  (Dinghies did not stop when 'skiffs' came along thank you !)  This means it is quick enough but it is also hightly suited to a wide range of conditons and locations as has been said.  Where it does do particularly well is in medium and higher strength breezes and it will frequently embarass 'faster' shapes in planing conditions both up and down hill.

Another 'traditonal' feature is a centreboard rather than dagger.  A slight speed penalty possibly but again very user friendly.  Still these sort of features have hardly stiffled the growth of the class or for that matter the popularity of larger classes such as the Solo and Phantom et al ....  All these classes are a bit like marmite - love them or hate them  !   But an awful lot of people do go for them.

GRF - understand your point and if it were a board rig you would be more right for sure.  The advantage is that you can 'feather' the leading edge of the sail when over-powered and keep trucking - 'hard' battening on (single sail) singlehanders means that sheeting out when overpowered can just lead to additional drag as the camber is more forcibly locked in and cannot collapse, the boat slows even more, is more over-powered etc.  This HALO rig is also far from conventional as the stick is an elliptical 100x42mm wing section that 'over-rotates' - does the same job as camber inducers without 'hard' battening.   Highly efficient and the sail design is in keeping with its characteristics.

Mike L.

GRF

Always happy to talk to prosepctive buyers !!.... Perhaps you had better try out a 'standard' one first though.  There are several ways to go faster downwind and not all of them involve an extra sail .....    Happy to pass on some of the feedback from our own trials.  We have no particular bar on 'specials' nor could we enforce a 'ban' as sold hulls are owned by others.  

However any non-supplied modifications and their impact upon the basic structure would become the sole responsibility of the owner as we would not have control.   We would also strongly recommend that you do talk with the CA as well - Peter Barlow their technical guy has experimented with several spinnaker set-ups in recent years.  

FYI a STANDARD Mk3 epoxy Blaze will be displayed at the boat show on 17/18th as part of the Dinghy Showcase.  Could talk then.

Mike L. (aka Cirrus)