How hard is a Skiff

like I said... Vortex Assy. Skiff speed. Good price. Get straight into it without falling over from Yachts. Learn about apparent wind, traping and single handed kite work. Sell on without losing much, and then get a MPS.

With a Contender you are sailing a Laser with a trap and learning a load of boat handerling skills that are specific to one arkward boat to sail. Nothing wrong with that if you want to end up sailing a Contender but if your goal is an MPS or similar you aren't really dealing with a lot of what you need to know. i.e the mechanics of getting around a boat with two sails and a trap.

It is true that the Vortex has some specific techniques for tacking... not using too much rudder and taking speed into the tack etc but you need to do that in a skiff so that is transferable.

You aren't learning balance so well but as this is a more natural skill and it is the fumberling around with rope and tiller extension that gets in the way of balance when sailing a skiff, if you've learn't - how to - on a Vortex the move to an MPS will not be so daunting, you will just need to get used to the instability when turning corners.

Originally posted by mike ellis Originally posted by turnturtle once you're bored of it (1 season or 2) its taken me 7 months to get bored of mine

Ben Ainslie and Robert Scheidt didn't get bored with the Laser. You guys
must be pretty good to get so much better than they are within such a short
time that there's no challenge left!

Originally posted by Chris 249 Originally posted by mike ellis Originally posted by turnturtle once you're bored of it (1 season or 2) its taken me 7 months to get bored of mine Ben Ainslie and Robert Scheidt didn't get bored with the Laser. You guys must be pretty good to get so much better than they are within such a short time that there's no challenge left!

i never said i was good, i just said the boat was boring. and it is boring when on every lap there is either a unicorn cat or a 600 sailing over you going faster and the helm doesnt have the look of pain on their face from hiking. but on a windy reach its still a grin.

I just get a bit sick of the continual Laser abuse, normally from people
who don't know how to get one going well. Sure the Laser is slower than a
Unicorn or a 600.....so what, the Unicorn is slower than the cat I sail and
the 600 is slower than a couple of my monos. Doesn't mean any of them
deserve to be labelled as boring.

443, as you admit, we don't know what Ben thinks of the boat. I think
Schiedt
has regularly said he thinks it's great. For a while I trained with Blackburn
and I never heard him complain about the boat.

I've sailed Lasers against a bunch of former 18 world champs, the current
Tasar world champ, the FD worlds runner up etc etc. They know good
boats and they sail Lasers and don't say they're boring.

In terms of speed for dollar or for sail area it's an outstanding design, and
even in terms of speed for length it's good (for a hiking boat). It just
seems self destructive to attack the sport's most popular boat. To assume
that, as Turnturtle did, that a person would get bored with the Laser that
quickly flies in the face of the fact that more people choose to sail them
than any other class.

Edited by Chris 249

Now i don't sail a laser, but i find the idea of getting bored with a boat because it makes you work hard for the rewards, ie beating that guy who always betters you at opens etc slightly odd as surely thats the whole point behind racing!  When I sail an event and drive past someone up wind cause i'm hiking harder and longer because i've spent longer trg or in the gym it puts a smile on my face.  When i'm tring to find that extra boat length to gain an overlap I'm far from bored.  Laser and boats like them reward in a different way to other boats, besides I bet MPS sailors find the rush of pure speed soon wears off.  I might suggest that continually jumping from boat to boat top get that new thrill rather than sticking with a boat till you've mastered it to the best of you ability shows a certain mindset in it'self.