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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 24 May 12 at 7:00pm
Originally posted by fab100

@chris 249
I refer to Lasers then windsurfers because they were cheap and sold in such huge numbers as to be game changers in the way the others you name were not (Toppers followed along after lasers but probably do fit into the same category, only for kids not adults)

All this forms part of the evolution of the sport (of which our hero, GRF, demonstrates he knows little). it was not not a right or wrong, just part of the journey from there to here. I do fully recognise the challenge of finding a crew, having sold my 200 (for the 100) when mine went off to Aus

My point (with others) was made in a counter to you know who's nonsensical statement that dinghy sailing was declining solely because boats are too heavy, so we should burn all the Solos, GPs et al and replace them a £15k carbon undefined, non existent something else that he would also decide was not fit for (his) purpose 2 weeks after taking delivery.

Ok, gotcha. Cheers
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 6:41pm
Originally posted by G.R.F.

There's a lot to talk about and in some instances rebut in that post and a lot of interesting and accurate facts that I can't dispute.

But the fundamental thing at issue here remains the 'culture' of dinghyists for clinging on to their 'minimum weight'.

I take the point about rig tolerances on boards, but point out that point loading from mast foot pressure and heel dents are different yet still stress issues that had to be dealt with. There was a proto M1 built by SP systems with aluminium honeycomb, would easily take a rig, that was 1980, it was close to 300 ltrs and weighed sub 18kgs. The other boards you referred to used heat presses to apply ABS protection to epoxy I was looking at them on the beach last night some are thirty years old and still look a lot fresher than this Laser EPS I've just acquired.

But the point remains that the proto M1 (which would probably be far too expensive for the market with that construction) is still little lighter FOR ITS SIZE than a Laser. It would almost certainly be heavier FOR ITS SIZE than something like a Tasar, although I admit that the Tasar is a lot lighter than most production dinghies.*

So I'd still submit that there is no proof that boards are FOR THEIR SIZE lighter than boats and therefore they cannot be used as evidence that boats are overweight and over the hill.

Having installed mast tracks, footstraps, chainplates and rudders I remain convinced that the boat inherently requires more weight in its structure, which could well explain the slight weight advantage of some boards. 

The discussion re rigs, other than the fine example set by the C2 rig for the byte, I've not seen anything where a company matches their *mast to a sail, although I accept there are myriad factors that dinghyists can apply to screw up any luff curve and the chances of them setting an appropriate bend curve to match that of a sail are pretty remote, I also accept it's the way things are done, however it doesn't mean it's necessarily right and correct to overcomplicate things just for 'effect' which I fear does go on a lot.

* I accept I could be wrong here my experience is still very limited and even now I might be pleasantly surprised this afternoon with my EPS set up. On the other hand my experience with the RS100 shows just how horrendously wrong they can get stuff even when they set out to achieve what we've just talked about.

I've never met a single sailmaker who didn't spend a lot of time matching luff curves to masts. Unlike many boardsailers, boat sailors appreciate that there is no one mast bend that is suitable for all situations even when the wind strength is the same. The classic example is when you race keelboats with swept spreader rigs - see a Farr 40 fleet before a start and you can sometimes see a dozen bowmen up the rig at once, adjusting diagonal tensions to change the mast bend characteristics for that particular wind strength and chop. They don't do it for fun, they do it because it can create the winning edge.

I agree that there can be over complication of rigs and it could be good to have some simpler classes; the original Windsurfer that I sail probably has the simplest rig of any class. But if you make a simple rig then some people criticise, just as you are doing in other areas, rather than just accepting that other people have different tastes and needs. 


* The Tasar's weight increased when an early example was put on a shingle beach sans trolley or rigging boards Confused and the hull bottom was "bruised". The weight was then increased around 8kg by adding another layer of glass, from memory - I no longer have the class mag article. 

While construction techniques have changed slightly since, it's interesting to see the direct relationship between what I could call boat abuse on shingles, and minimum weight. So it's all the fall of you bl*&dy shinglers! Tongue

BTW carrying the heavier boats is no different and as owner of a light Tasar I am glad to carry lead because I could never enjoy winning just because I owned a lighter boat.

My old Tasar fleet launched from a steeply shelving sandy beach where people holding boats would sometimes have dumping waves break over their heads. We still never dragged the boats up the beach. We just used trolleys, although the wave period could have been longer than at your area. 

To be honest I can't see why there's a problem in the fact that normal boats aren't designed for what normal sailors don't do, like launching at your beach. You used the bike analogy earlier; if you are riding in a place where you have to ride a steep rocky hill to get to the racecourse then you buy a bike that is compromised for that unusual situation, but you don't say that the bike industry is crap and everyone else has to change their bikes as well.

Where the modern skiff concept came from it has been accepted for decades that skiff classes won't survive where they are launched off a surf beach into open water, and that in those areas you race other types of boats. The fact that skiff classes are generally restricted to certain types of water didn't seem to be included in the marketing hype when they went up north, and to that extent I sympathise with the MPS issues (which is not saying it's not a great boat).

PS - how can you call for weight controls on one hand and criticise a carbon mast for being too flimsy on the other? If you have no minimum weight then kit either becomes ridiculously expensive or flimsy, or both.



Edited by Chris 249 - 24 May 12 at 6:59pm
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fab100 View Drop Down
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Posts: 1005 		Post Options Post Options   Quote fab100 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 6:27pm
@chris 249
I refer to Lasers then windsurfers because they were cheap and sold in such huge numbers as to be game changers in the way the others you name were not (Toppers followed along after lasers but probably do fit into the same category, only for kids not adults)

All this forms part of the evolution of the sport (of which our hero, GRF, demonstrates he knows little). it was not not a right or wrong, just part of the journey from there to here. I do fully recognise the challenge of finding a crew, having sold my 200 (for the 100) when mine went off to Aus

My point (with others) was made in a counter to you know who's nonsensical statement that dinghy sailing was declining solely because boats are too heavy, so we should burn all the Solos, GPs et al and replace them a £15k carbon undefined, non existent something else that he would also decide was not fit for (his) purpose 2 weeks after taking delivery.
Great book for Club Sailors here
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 6:07pm

Originally posted by fab100

Originally posted by G.R.F.

sailing sport is dying on it's feet 

that the advent of first lasers, then windsurfers meant that you did not need to drag a friend into sailing to crew for you, shortly after which they got the bug, bought a boat of their own, so 2 newbies needed to be brought into sailing (a virtuous circle). Instead, you could do it all alone (there is a word I cannot use here for that too) then got bored and lonely and left the sport


Errr, why is the death of the sport the fault of Lasers and windsurfers and not the earlier singlehanders like Canoes, Int 12s, Moths, O Jolle, Finns, OKs, Solos, Minisails, Contenders, Units, Toys, Toppers, etc? 

You say there's a word that cannot be named for "doing it all alone" in a singlehander. Surely in the spirit of fairness we could say that there's another word that cannot be named for two men in rubber "doing it together" in a high performance crewed boat? Big smile

There's an inherent problem in the two-up dinghy because it's very hard to find a person of the right physique, talent,commitment and experience that you want to spend every weekend with. Maybe when boats were more expensive and many people could only afford to crew, demand was high enough for skippers to be able to pick and choose, but that is rarer now.

Yes, I know you can train crews up, but after doing that for a while and finding that they went to uni/decided to give up sailing altogether/couldn't find the commitment to finish a cold race that would have put us 5th out of 60 Angry/got a new job and got too busy/got married/decided to skipper/we got into or out of our relationship (a common problem in mixed classes in my experience) etc, I gave up until I met my wife and then she decided that she wanted to crew the dinghy. Ironically, she'd had just the same problem when she skippered her two-up cat!

So I know I spent years out of dinghy sailing because I couldn't find a suitable crew, and I did look quite hard. How exactly does it help the sport if people like me just gave up instead of sailing a singlehander?
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Posts: 109 		Post Options Post Options   Quote AndrewLB Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 5:58pm
this is a nightmare of a thread to comment on, for those of us who have work to do it seems to move faster than i can read it and has covered so many different topics that it would be impossible to post something shorter than war & peace but here goes the abridged version:

Shore dumps - it sounds like Hythe's a total nightmare; wonky courses, onshore breezes and a shingle beach, a bit like Stokes Bay. as suggested by Clive i would recommend finding somewhere else to launch/sail, the launching arrangement is the prime reason why barely tolerate opens at Stokes and much prefer our pair of beaches that enable happy launch/recovery in pretty much every wind/tide/wave direction. there must be a more suitable club nearby to Hythe?

Boats falling over - yes, a 100 will fall over if left alone in a moderate breeze for any length of time, so chuffing what? news flash - a sub-1000PN singlehanderis likely to have a big rig and a lot of power and is quite likely to fall over. i really don't see the problem with this, are people scared of the sidedecks getting wet? buy a cat and be done with it. i wouldn't describe a 100 as twitchy or inherently unstable and as with all 'skiff' type hulls it becomes more stable with speed. hell, last night Marky was even able to leave his boat for long enough to pull his trolley up the beach with 12kts of breeze without catastrophe.

the sailing industry - one of GRF's long running complaints is that the dinghy manufacturing industry hasn't got a clue about how to market their wares. this is quite plainly rubbish as GRF has bought practically every single new boat launched in the last 10 years! Blaze, RS100, 500, MPS, EPS... for someone who thinks their marketing is rubbish he does seem susceptible to their techniques. it goes something like this...

GRF - "i see snakeoil sailing ltd have just announced a new boat and have claimed it's the fastest thing ever. i'm buying one right away so i can beat some kids in a laser."

GRF a couple of weeks later - "well that snakeoil 6000 is rubbish, total tosh, perfect example of why sailing a sport for duds. i sat in the middle of the cockpit holding the end of the tiller the whole way round and got beaten by a couple of radials. another bloke at my club was hiking out hard in his one but it shows how backward the sailing industry is that you should still need to put that much effort into getting performance out of it. but it's ok because i'm selling it and replacing it with the new whizzbang GTi which is apparently amazingly fast and will smoke everything!"

repeat ad infinitum...

there's nothing wrong with folks buying solos and lightnings etc. not everyone sails on the sea. i started off on small puddles in the midlands where it was impractical to sail anything faster than a laser and there was always a mix of GP14s, Ents, Solos. people didn't care that they weren't sailing a new twin-trap rules 14 because you wouldn't even have time to sheet in before you hit the opposite bank, they just enjoyed racing against a bunch of friends in similar boats. it would be misguided to suggest that buying a 'classic' class such as these is showing a lack of progression as they have all made varying levels of developement over the years which has made them easier to handle. go ask a long-term finn sailor if a finn circa-1980 and a finn circa-2012 is comparable, the development in rig is huge and has opened up the boat to a wider range of weights. same goes for the Phantom.

it is always very tempting to lunge in with a bit of a two-footed studs up tackle on GRF as he is prone to posting the type of stuff that causes the sailing community to go berserk but on the subject of the V-twin i still applaud him for having the balls to commission it. he had a vision and he actioned it. it hasn't worked straight off the bat but (if he hadn't mullered it on the beach) it was something that could be dramatically improved by development. i hope that he keeps tinkering, i hope it lives again, but in the meantime get out there and hike damn you!!!
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 5:30pm
Originally posted by G.R.F.

Let me give you another world of basic economics, Bikes, where they spend £5-6000 a pop, frequently and own two or three, the sad fact is there are parallel worlds where people are still spending big sums on their sport activities, provided the product brings with it added value and reason to change.

Take away the reason to change and you take away the desire to innovate and improve, having the fixed status quo of people like you as 'advisors' to the newcomers to the sport perpetuates the stagnation.
Having everything so difficult, just because you and your peers took so long to learn, so that must be the way for everyone, also limits potential.

It's not a question of cost, and talking of sane, why is it sane to spend tens of thousands on a clinker built anachronism because it's what, anti-cool? Building a £1200 carbon mast that is so spindly it snaps at the first half decent gust, those boys at our club who recently bought one must be gutted.

There's plenty of money around if the need arises, what the problem is, is the route to the market for the folk who have the money, what happens to them is they get advised by people like you and so the charade persists.

There is no super GT performer to sell at added value, even you fell for what we all thought was one, then got bitterly disappointed because it was a shiny version of the same ole same ole and riddled with faults that no entry level adult could cope with, even quite reasonable and capable sailors had to junk it, so, all the time that continues you'll dwindle, which is a shame, because it needn't be that way.

I'm taking a total newcomer, MD of a local company, I'm going to teach him to sail and crew for me in the Alto, would I have a hope in hell of doing that in a 505? No, not a chance and even now after 8 years and I'm not exactly a newcomer to sailing, would I go near anything as complex as that, it's needlessly complex in this day and age.

So you and I, we're worlds apart, you however already have what you want, it's all there, exactly as you like it and dying exactly as I predict it will unless there is an easier yet still accessible high performance route into sailboat racing that attracts the adult adventure seeker with high levels of disposable income, sorry to break that to you, but as usual like most dinghy sailors you're wrong. Wink

Grumpf, many of the bikes that you hold up as an example of progress are designed to the same sort of restrictive rules as something like a Merlin Rocket. The basic shape of a road bike was largely frozen before the Merlin was even created. Both have developed, from steel and wood to carbon, and performance has probably improved about the same amount in each case.

So in many ways, the bikes that you hold up as an example are the same as the boats you criticise. Yes, some bikes (MTBs) have developed faster but ironically their popularity started to decline as they became more "advanced" so how does that support your argument? Yes, some aspects of modern bikes have made them more convenient to use than older bikes, but the same thing has happened in boats.

And of course the hipsters of today are hunting down Austin-7 vintage bikes and making them even slower by getting rid of the gears, so the idea that yoof demand new bling falls down there too. 

One of the reasons that bikes have become more popular is the modern accent on simple flatbar/hybrid machines which are great because they are accessible, but they are NOT light and in fact are normally heavier than older road bikes. So once again, there's not much evidence that boats are developing more slowly.

One thing that always interests me is that cyclist and the cycling media and press spend a lot less time complaining about the sport and a lot more time celebrating it, despite the fact that progress isn't very fast.

PS - bikes do present some other interesting analogies. For a start, the reason for minimum weight rules is illustrated by the current pricing of various models of a top-line bike (Cervelo S5). Each gram saved (so you can add weight elsewhere to reach the minimum weight Confused) in the more expensive models costs around $12 US. Imagine the expense in chasing minimum weight in a larger structure like a boat hull, if we were free to go to that extent. And we're talking about a bare frame that is only about a metre long, 1kg in weight, is already built in Taiwan, and costs only $165 less than a complete Laser!








Edited by Chris 249 - 24 May 12 at 6:57pm
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pondmonkey View Drop Down
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Posts: 2202 		Post Options Post Options   Quote pondmonkey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 5:28pm
Odd I just see sailing vids ... Doesn't YouTube suggestions work on Internet history?
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Posts: 556 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Dougal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 5:21pm
It's the clips that are advertised at the end of it that get a lot more interesting...
 
I hate to see that happen to a Contender.  There are so many other boats I would happily see trashed in a shore dump. 


Edited by Dougal - 24 May 12 at 5:21pm
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Posts: 1005 		Post Options Post Options   Quote fab100 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 5:17pm
Interesting how the title of that video entices YouTube to suggest all sorts of non-sailing related others, with the emphasis being on the last word in the title
Great book for Club Sailors here
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Posts: 2202 		Post Options Post Options   Quote pondmonkey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 12 at 5:10pm
The advice came pulling a water-logged N12 up the shingle/sandy beach in Harwich  Wink

I think her point was choosing an appropriate craft for ourselves, our launch and our recovery was all part of good seamanship.  If I wanted to get off a beach like that singlehanded, then maybe a solid beach cat would be the answer?

In the case of Lancing, well I guess you help each other out rather than stand around filming each other's misfortune...
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