two-sail dinghies

Just been re-reading in an old(ish) copy of Y&Y  the Test of the Albacore.

It struck me that fans of two sail dinghies have some remarkable boats to choose from:

for the lightweights, the team racers and such like - the Firefly
for techies, boatbuilders and budding designers - the National 12
for those who like travelling round the UK with the occasional foray to the Indian sub-continent - the Ent
for the slightly heavier sailor with a preference for hot-dogs, Jack Daniels and maple syrup - the Albacore
for the lovers of barbies, tinnies and blokes called Bruce - the Tasar
for the adventurer who wants to sail against sailors from countries that have never been part of the British Empire, and spend the summer trailing round Europe - the Snipe
for the middleweight who wants to go to the Olympics - the Star (used to be a boat for heavyweights but then the class got an Italian Chairman - excuse this outburst of bitterness and prejudice)

There are probably more classes, but significantly in the above list no design is recent. Is the market saturated by such a plethora of fantastic boats or can't the major manufacturers be bothered?

Gordon

Really Rick? How many of the classes Gordon has mentioned has a "major builder"?

Gordon: Star optimum crew weight is 420lb. Boxing super middleweight is max 168lb. I'm afraid Stars are still for heavyweights, even ones who cut a "bella figura".

Stefan,
It is all a matter of perspective. At 125kg and 1m94 I consider anyone under 100kg and 1m85 to be, for all practical purposes, a dwarf! (I exagerate, slightly).

I don't really want to get into a debate about the Star Clas total crew weight. However the notion of an optimum weight for any boat usually implies that there are a variety of crew weights possible and that  a best compromise for good results has been empirically determined. In the Star the process is somewhat different: the best crew weight is the highest weight allowed by the class rules, and everybody tries to be at that weight. If the class rules allowed more weight all crews would increase their weight, and the boat would go faster.

The formula adopted means that the weight of the crew depends on the weight of the helm. There is not a single allup weight. The earliest formula was
Crew weight (C) = (106.6- Skipper weight S)/1.5+106.6 kgs which meant that at 114-115 kilos I could crew a helm of 95 kilos - which is what I did when I spent a season looking at Star transoms!

The new formula is c=((100-S)/2)+100kgs which means that at 115 kg I could crew for a helm of only 75 kg. Paradoxally, if I took the helm at 115kg I could have a crew of 92.5kg and we would be able to sail with an all up crew weight of 207.5kg.

The debate in the class was interesting. The Americans weren't really bothered because it only affected the one boat per fleet that qualify for champoinships. The Bacardi Cup is not subject to weight limits. The Europeans seemed to have  problems with the whole concept of Olympic athletes weighing more than 100kg. As soccer playing nations they had not spent their youth idolising the Pontypool front row and other fine figures of the larger specimens of humanity. Athletes are necessarily thin, light and not that tall it would seem!

I think a debate about weight limits in sailing would be intersting, maybe elsewhere on this forum. I am concerned that as people seem to be getting larger (even without taking into consideration obestity) the optimum or permitted crew weights  seem to be getting smaller. I would like to think that my son could go sailing with his colleague from the second row, but this now seems a forlorn hope.

Gordon

Originally posted by gordon In the Star the process is somewhat different: the best crew weight is the highest weight allowed by the class rules, and everybody tries to be at that weight. If the class rules allowed more weight all crews would increase their weight, and the boat would go faster.

I believe that's true for most leadmines.

I agree. I will be away for a few days but wheni get back I will post my thoughts on weight limits and the decreasing size of sailors.

To get back to the 2-sail dinghies. There seems to be a lot of people sailing them, a big demand for tactical sailing (downwind legs become nautical chess-games when a gybe incurs no speed penalty). So why aren't the SMOD builders interested?

Gordon