Which Skiff....

I know this won't be to popular with the Skiffies and Cats but I borrowed a Topaz Trez over the summer to sail a family week and a couple of regattas. My son is 13 and about 35kgs and I'm about 85 kgs. The trez has a trapeze and asymetric and was really good fun. It small enough for me to be able to control in stronger winds and big enough for my son to trapeze in the lighter winds. It's easy to right by myself after a capsize so my son just has to hang on and it seems to be damn near indestructible.  I'm currently waiting for my son to have a growth spurt otherwise we would probably have bought one. It's only really suitable for an adult with a junior, in 6 months time I could have a 6ft tall 11st son as a crew and it starts getting a bit crowded with an adult at the front. My son desparately wants a Laser 4000 but having seen one in the flesh this summer I've told him he needs to grow a bit first as they are alot bigger than I thought.

I fully agree Phil, it's best used for training and this is what I was using it for with my son. By the time we get to the "proper" skiffs he will be comfotable on a trapeze and operating an asymetric. I can't think of any other trapeze boat I could sail with a junior. 

but the topazes are plastic and most of the plastic boats are slow and arnt very attractive a buzz is your best bet or if you fell up to it an iso  ether way you wont grow out of them boats and they are cheap and have a sort of good racing scene.   defenatly buy a skiff dont buy a laser 2 ect they are the past not the future.

the best thing is to wait till he find out how big his son is going to be and then decide cos you might find that his son has a suden growth spert and terns into 4000 material over night. anyway i have seen 12 year old girls on the trapeze before and a 14 year old helm in a buzz

yer thinking about it.