'Weight on the Wire'

Originally posted by Neal_g fair point rick but the fireball handicap has dropped in the past ten years was 991 probs about 7 years ago and now its down to 982 which is a fair drop for an established class

It would be interesting to see a historical graph plotting PY against years for some of the established classes; I wonder if anyone has the data for such an exercise?

I suspect it would be depressing to see how little PYs have dropped given the development effort especially as new materials and sailcloths have become available. Especially for some of the classes that have had significant rule changes like n12, Merlin & Phantom.

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Roy Race It never ceases to amaze me how boats which in the grand scheme of things appear to be very similar - in this case, 505's, 470's and Fireballs - arrive at such very different solutions for rig set-up. My theory is that because the performance of the sailors is probably around 90% of what makes a top team and boat speed is probably around 10% no class ever really knows what's fast and what isn't. Thus fashions in setup are defined by what the current hot guys in the class use rather than absolute speed. Haven't we all seen the supposedly lightning fast boat that gets sold on and never appears at the top of the fleet again?

I suspect this is very true; if all this development was making boats go faster wouldn't the 470 & Fireball (and other classes) have seen a gradual reduction in PY over the last 30 years whilst the SMODs stayed fixed ...

Originally posted by Roy Race The spreaders are much higher than even half height between gooseneck and hounds. I've never had this explained to me properly.

Its a question of where you need control. With a traditional deck stepped mast the mast is effectively free to pivot at hounds and at the deck, so all else being equal the point of maximum bend will be half way between them. Thus that's where the spreaders should go.

If, however, the mast is keel stepped with a fixed mast gate, or has a prod and lowers, then because the bottom of the mast is held rigid there's a sort of cantilever effect, and point of max bend is further up, hence the spreaders are higher. 66% used to be conventional.

Originally posted by Medway Maniac That seems reasonable, given that the 470 is underpowered relative to the Fireball, in terms of crew weight requirement, or so it's seemed to me when I've sailed both with a lightweight crew - we could still drive the 470 in blow, but the Fireball made us feel the need for kilos.

Agreed, but that's why the crew weights are different.
Fireball crews tend to be about 13 stone and 470 crews
11 stone. This should account for the FB being narrower
and therefore less righting moment.

But once you've got a heavier crew, the rigs should be
similar I'd have thought.

The fireball has a narrower shroud base so shorter
spreaders will give the same deflection to the shroud so
the same control of the mast.

The 470 only allows deck level control of the mast whereas the ball allows struts this would let you move
the spreaders up.