The RS900 - 'our' fantasy dinghy!

 

Same goes for the RS comment earlier from BBSCFaithfull.

 

Hence my original point about expense, everything escalates when you shift from glass epoxy to carbon epoxy. Material cost is the first thing that goes up, then the protective measures you need for the guys doing the job, I'd never send anyone into a room with carbon grinding, sanding, etc going on without breathing apparutus. Know people do it in their garage but it is really dangerous. Working with the dust in the air is about the same as working with aspestos in my mind. All sanding jobs we do at work with carbon is in an extracted room. Then you have the cost of storing / curing pre-preg if you go that route (which I would) and on top of that the extra skill levels you need to do the job. I simply wouldn't give a minimum wage apprentice the job, it needs to be your top whack skilled guy. Then you have the blades, drill bits, grinding disks burning up quicker, so you rattle through your tools at a greater rate on top of the fun of the carbon dust shorting out electrics. I've seen a computer blow up in an office off a lamination room, through carbon dust shorting it's electrics. Based on the price of an 800, do you expect RS to absorb all this extra cost or pass it on? I've got a figure in my head as to how much it costs and I'll be suprised if it's lower.

 

However, the more I think about the 900, the more it appeals. When we looked at the 800, there were a lot of good points, but we had a lot of "only if's" in our mind. Only if the boat had a bigger rig, only if the boat had wings..... Seems the best out of the lot going for selection at this time, my concern is the price though. Do it for under £16k and reckon it may be a winner.

 

Also have to agree with Chris Turner, supplying a 49er / 29er with rope is almost pointless, first thing we do when we get a "new" boat is to re-rope it and fit it out to what we want. Just a waste of time giving a "standard" fit out from our point of view. Every Ovi' boat we've had has been absolutely spot on, you open the hatches up and you can see the quality of lamination on the boats we've owned. Do that with some of the non-ovi boats we've had and you'll get spikey laminate, structural bog that still needs to go off, etc.

 

I know some people are going to shout and scream about this statement, but to non-sailing public, boats like the 49er appeal. I can ask anyone to name a boat and 90% of the time the names that come up are Laser, 49er, Hobie Cat, Topper. If you want more people outside the sport to get vaguely attracted to it, something like a skiff helps.