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    Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 9:04pm
Originally posted by Rupert

The more I sail assy spinnakered boats, the less of a fan I am. In light winds, you are constantly luffing to keep it filling, and it it faster to drop it and goosewing. In strong winds, you have to just bear away and go where it takes you, or get blown flat. Neither of these things seems like a step in the right direction for sailing.



On boats that use one purely for convenience of fashion that may be true, but Not if the whole boat is proportioned properly (weight, beam, sail area etc). I'm no apologist for asymmetrics as you know, but some boats do benefit from them - but many boats are not designed so much as drawn.
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 8:43pm
The Martin 16 disabled keelboat uses a flatish genniker that rolls up rather than being dropped - a small code zero style thing, I suppose. I can't say I like the look of it when setting on the Martin, but the concept could bear looking at. Windage, of course, upwind, being the main problem.

The more I sail assy spinnakered boats, the less of a fan I am. In light winds, you are constantly luffing to keep it filling, and it it faster to drop it and goosewing. In strong winds, you have to just bear away and go where it takes you, or get blown flat. Neither of these things seems like a step in the right direction for sailing.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 8:41pm
Quite so. And if you going to pay a grand for a,kite system, you may as well use it as often as possible.
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Posts: 669 		Post Options Post Options   Quote ifoxwell Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 8:32pm
Originally posted by Peaky

I still believe there is a gap for a kited singlehanded that the 100 and D1 don't meet.

I agree but I do fear that Pondmonkey is right, and the 100 now has the single handed kite market sewn up.

But I'm with you on the smaller kite, round the cans target. The whole "a bigger kite gives you better VMG" argument, although correct is completely missing the point. If your worried about absolute performance then its fine but if your trying to make a boat thats just plain fun to sail then what's it matter. A smaller kite means more chances to fly it, which means more time spent blasting on two sail reaches and thus proportionally less time slogging back up wind.

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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 8:21pm
Has Cobra missed the boat? Maybe, it's been over a year since I drew her, but it's been an interesting exercise at the very least and I still believe there is a gap for a kited singlehanded that the 100 and D1 don't meet.

Cobra is not all about speed. There are compromises in the design away from pure speed, to such mundane things as comfort, control, and cost. Harder to measure,but more important than speed, is 'niceness'.

If you were doing Cobra from bin parts, you could use Aura wings, icon mast and sail, RS400 foils and a Laser 2000 kite (right size, wrong shape). Before I sold my Icon I could have had one on the water for not much at all.

If you want a single sail singlehander, you need the Nemesis!
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Posts: 173 		Post Options Post Options   Quote charlie1019 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 6:53pm
One of the great things about the D1 in my mind is that the rig allows you to power it up, or depower, allowing you to keep the power on on a reach to about the depth where you can pop the kite up.

I think one of the reasons the 200 is able to hold a kite so high is because it is so small for the crew weight on board. Plus the boat is 'quite slow' which I wonder if this stops the apparent being brought forwards as much? We found in the canoes that a smaller kite generally did not allow you to reach that much higher, you just went faster and then had to bear off on the apparent. Meaning you were best off with a larger kite optimised for w/l courses.
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Posts: 997 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Daniel Holman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 6:42pm
Don't think there is owt wrong with the concept per se. Best of luck to anyone concerned,
My own personal preference as a sailor is "old fashioned" white sail downwinding and the skillset involved, hence that's where I went when I chucked my eggs in the basket.
I would relish the opportunity to do a kited boat, I just recognise that any boat with kite of rs400 pace or more may on occasion be frustrating on smaller inland racetracks, especially if singlehanded. It can also make the downwinds a hikeoff too which isnt always to everyones tastes. Similarly it could shine on more open courses with a strong VMG running accent.
And putting a kite on, even if tiny, will add over a grand to the new cost of any boat, and may comprimise other aspects of its utility and aesthetics.
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Posts: 4028 		Post Options Post Options   Quote G.R.F. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 6:33pm
The luddites on planet Blaze are still wringing their hands and ruminating over the thought of a carbon mast and now their builder appears to have sold out to the Eyties and dubious distributors of ancient lard carrying boats, I see little chance of a kited Blaze ever seeing the light of day in my lifetime since they have that niche already covered with Dope 1.

It was such a missed opportunity and sadly that Cobra looks to me like it, I'd seen it already, peaky vry kindly showed me those earlier in a PM and as nice as they look, (not sure if they are going to have a kick up plate and rudder like the Blaze, unless it's down to the weight of my EPS and feels anything like it, i won't be interested. I get such a kick out of messing with the clew first stuff and have recently scared myself stupid on a clew first wave ride with a bit of a sudden puff, it could almost have been a kite, the surge in speed was so apparent.

I wonder if a conventional kite is actually what we're looking for on a single hander, we do need some sort of deployable extra canvass, but I've often wondered if it could be approached differently.
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Posts: 4028 		Post Options Post Options   Quote G.R.F. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 6:18pm
Originally posted by SoggyBadger

Originally posted by pondmonkey

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Are those special goggles which help you find things easily?
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Posts: 2202 		Post Options Post Options   Quote pondmonkey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Oct 12 at 5:18pm
Originally posted by Peaky

I agree that a tight reach is a stretch too far.

yep- and not required anyway.  As soon as it's planing weather (when it gets interesting from a 'pure sailing' perspective regardless of any boat/board/kite/jetski etc) you'll have enough surplus white sail to get you down a tight reach screamer.  

The problem comes when you're going for what would otherwise be a deep reach for a Solo/Laser/420/505/Phantom etc and you're bearing off like a t*t and have to dump the kite (more bearing away... eek) and then cruise in on a tighty-whitey hoping you don't have to tack for the leeward mark... or worse, you round the windward mark, sail high before the hoist and are then on catch-up whilst 'dropping in' on the rest of the fleet, sailing what they perceive to be 'a proper course'.  It makes you about a popular as a turd in a swimming pool, even if you don't swear at them.  

So we've 'got to do' one of the following things:

- run Windward/Leeward or old skool 'lympic course rather than a cats cradle
- run separate races for w/l boats (probably the best solution)
- accept that the USP you've just ponied up for (a kite) can only really be used on DDW courses or circuit sailing
- adjust the kite down to a size where it's not an issue (seems fine for 200s, 400s, L3ks, L2ks...)

Personally I think there was a MASSIVE opportunity for someone to get it right.  The class best paced to do it was the Blaze, it offered the lowest cost of entry to the market, (£10k is still a stretch out for a lot of bored Laser sailors), but for reasons of maintaining loyalty in their existing class structure it got poo-pooed by their fleet.  

I'll watch this thread with interest, but I do fear Toby's a bit late on this one.  The 100 has the main UK foothold and the brand to support it, so it will probably grow still and remain formidable competition for any new entrant.  The D1 has picked up a few of that initial market who would still rather have a kited singlehander in a PY race than sail a Laser in a fleet.  It will also probably still pick up its share of those new enquiries that the Cobra would otherwise challenge.  But for the rest of us who were willing to take the punt, well we're back to a unarigs, pipe and slippers gracefully accepted, and that moment in time is now over.   

But, if there was already a fleet of them already, could that passion for screaming two-sailed reaches be rekindled?  Yep, absolutely.  So don't give up hope.  There just needs a new influx of recession-busting, early adopters to come along, passionate enough to tell folks like me not to be so cynical about kites and hiking our nuts off, and that actually we were right all along, Jim & Dan are STILL wrong about the concept, and we just had the beta product 'prototypes'.




Edited by pondmonkey - 08 Oct 12 at 5:23pm
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