Uninvented classes

One of the major worries when we created Fastsail was whether we would see the poaching of crews between the member classes.
In short it hasn't happened.
One or two have moved but they were going to anyway and I believe there will be a couple more moves in the next year or so.
To put this into perspective that equates to 0.5% of the Fastsail membership that have decided to change classes.

Buying power was also mentioned a couple of posts ago,
Yes we do have a great deal more buying power which in our case has enabled us to secure prizes worth well over £3000 in the last two Symmetric Grand Prix.
However it takes time and not a little effort to get the different Class committees to agree on just about anything.

In the early days things are easy, everyone is enthusiastic and those who aren't keep their heads down as they don't want to appear as dinosaurs.
Mid term and the momentum is slowed as some Class committee members start to twitch as they get scared that they might lose some of their power to the Joint Class committee.
Long term, the membership of the classes will force more integration as the joint events are all so much better run, at better venues, that are more fun with more friends than the old single class events.
At least this is what we hope and there is a fair amount of evidence to support my claim.

I still believe that we could do with a larger body or an expansion of the Fastsail model to support and represent the interests of all the amateur Classes.
The RYA does not appear interested, at least not at specific Class level.
Allowing the 470 class to fall to just 13 class members, is an example of the RYA's commitment or rather lack of it to individual Classes.

RS, Topper and Laser are all run by professionals, the major Sailing Clubs are all companies and many of the smaller Clubs are having to go the same way.

The vast majority don't indulge in any more than friendly banter thankfully - those who get a bit 'too excited' from time to time should perhaps 'get out a bit more often' or double the dosage ! 

I think we are mostly agreeing here ....  But as for Finns, Phantoms and Blazes appealing to the same sort of sailor, well speaking for the Blaze community most of us are far too 'weedy' (a relative term) to seriously consider Finns or Phantoms !.  A 'heavy' Blaze sailor would still be 'challenged' in either of the others !   I like my high wind blasting and at 80kg it's absolute heaven - I'd be restricted to being a light wind specialist in either of the others.   There is no doubt some overlap in ideal weight exists but the Blaze appeals more to Laser sized sailors than those ideally suited to either Finns or Phants.  For that reason alone 'defections' are extremely unlikely either way.  The experience of 'Fast sail'  indicates that people do not move very much anyway - so why not more joint meetings then in 2005 as a prelude to 'Single Sail' in 2006 ?  Interested - see you at Alexandra Palace ....

Mike Lyons - Blaze Class Association

Originally posted by carshalton fc has anyone disgusted the posibility of a new symetrical class being made.

Yup! Completely disgusted.

(Guess who's going for his hundredth post?)