New women's Olympic boat

Originally posted by nathan People keep going on about getting a new boat and how a twin wire boat will be far more exciting than a 470 and it will be great boost for women, encourage more participation etc. Whilst I agree with this on the whole, looking at the mens fleet- in Hyres this week- 74 49ers entered, compared to 113 male 470s. Similar numbers in Palma a couple of weeks ago. Whilst in GBR the 49er is much more popular with approx. double the amount of GBR sailors in the 49er as compared 470, worldwide the reverse is true. Why do people think this is? The costs of running the 2 are very similar. The amount of events are the same. Sailors of that level I'm sure could get used to sailing both. So why is the 470 so popular? People keep bringing up it is an obvious boat to drop, but why are there so many boats racing?

I don't think the popularity of the 470 is just a cultural thing. Some people - like Steve Clark who owns the C Class cat Cogito - reckon that the scale of windshifts makes medium-speed boats like Lasers and 470s ideal tactical battlegrounds. And in many parts of the world, launching facilities and cold water make sailing skiff types too much of a pain - particularly when you could sail a cat or a board if you want speed.

It's commonly said that sailors don't want to move to faster boats because they are conservative, but as a comparison, down here in Oz the 420 is about as popular as the 29er or Cherub (and the Cherub probably has as much financial assistance from skiff clubs as the other two get for the Youth teams). The 125 (a cheap small-rigged light 12'6" trap and kite boat) is also about as popular as the 420, 29er and Cherub, despite being slower than all of them.

So even where the "southern lightweight" type was established earlier and has just as much support, the conventional slower boats are at least as popular.

As you point out, there's basically no evidence to indicate that increasing speed will increase popularity, whether we're talking about individual classes, general styles of boat or even the whole sport. It may not be something that we like, but it's a fact. Pity the sport's "leaders" can't look through the propoganda and simplistic chants and see the facts.

The point about the 470 as a female class is that to be successful the boat typically requires a crew of around 5'10 - 5'11" who weighs around 11 stone.  While there are plenty of women around who fulfill the size and weight criteria for helming, how many women do you know who fit the criteria for crewing?  Not many, I'll bet.  So obviously not many women are going to choose a boat where they are all too often over powered.  Hence the lack of popularity - especially in this country, hence the search for a new female Olympic double hander.

Fireball is also way more fun to sail than a 470 ...

Originally posted by Granite I think that less people sail high performance boats because to feel happy racing them you need to sail regularly with the same person which is often difficult in normal club sailing. If you dont get out enough to be confident in your boat handling the windrange that the boats are enjoyable in becomes smaller.

This is so true. Owning a boat that you (personally) can only manage in around 8-15knts is really annoying and frustrating and I'm sure there are quite a few people with high performance boats in this position. Getting crew is often hard at the best of times but trying to get a crew that can cut it in a HP boat is even harder. I'd like to have 2 boats, one that is easy for high wind days and something faster and more challenging for less mad conditions.

On the boatspeed thing, do it really matter which of these is the fastest? All of them a quick enough surely other aspects of the boat are far more important.

m_liddell is right, the boat speed of all of these skiffs will be fairly similar and even if they're not joe public will hardly know the differnece between one boat going down wind with lots of spray and another doing pretty much the same thing. surely its better to compare the boats on grounds of build quality or cost or how easy they are to transport rather than all out speed (all though having the fastest boat would be nice (or at least knowing which one is the fastest)).