A little bird told me...

As ever, Mike Peyton put his finger on life's realities:

To an extent, Rick is probably right - most classes have their particular appeal, which may or may not fit our requirements at the time (I can think of one or two exceptions, mind). But digging back, I find that way back in '91, I wrote to Y&Y pleading for more objectivity in their tests - 'stable', 'fast', 'exciting' - they're all relative terms, applicable to a Laser... or to an 18 foot Skiff - it all depends on your base-line.

My 'solution' at the time was to test new boats back to back against a comparable older class which most of us might have experienced. E.g. test the Solution alongside a Laser, then terms like 'more stable', 'faster' have some relevance. A certain other publication does multi-boat tests, but not terribly well imho - there's so much verbiage you don't come away with a very clear idea of the relative merits. German magazines, of course, would have tables rating each quality out of 10, but that's maybe not really practicable.