Selecting a new Dinghy

As we generally intend to be sailing at sea is it better to have a bigger (maybe heavier) dinghy to punch through the waves better ?. I have only sailed the LAser 2 on a river so how would its performance be effected in the rougher sea conditions.

No, you more or less have that right Hobbo!

Older GRP boats tend not to last as well but there are still some good ones out there, especially for a developing sailor. Wooden boats are a bit of a liability on the maintenance front but the pride of ownership overcomes that for some people... however, I am getting my new glass boat this month to replace the wooden one!

A key point about Ospreys is that they carry weight well - I regularly race one with over 32 stone in it and occasionally a lot more! They handle the sea extremely well and very forgiving while still being very quick.

Love em, biased, can't help it... but still think it would be a good boat for you!

May I humbly suggest the Scorpion.

2 person hiking dinghy, very sea worthy (designed to be sailing on the south coast in those lovely waves). Pretty good weight carrying capacity and well enough behaved, fast too.

Come in both plastic and wood (but if going for plastic buy one of the new Ovi foam sandwich boats).

Just my 2p...

Paul

Gotta be an Osprey or an RS400. 

Anything else probably won't handle the weight or be too complex. 

I'd suggest a B14 as the fastest "body swung" dinghy in existence, but after level 2 its probably not advisable, unless you can bag 30m2 of kite!  I moved from an LII into a B14 and it damn near killed me.  Your weight is perfect for one though and they do come cheap, prob the best bang for buck around.  If you're confident with your boat handling it might be an idea. 

This could open a can of worms...

Having used both types (moved from 400's last year to Ospreys this year) the symmetric is probably easier to hoist and fly well than a symmetrical for a beginner. However both have their nuances and hoisting/flying well is going to require practice in both boats - the spinnaker course should hopefully show you both types and give you an idea of what you like.

I believe Asays are harder to helm downwind due to the helm having to find the speed vs pointing balance as they can't run ( i believe the 505's now go downwind like this due to their mahoosive kite??) whereas symmetrical boats can run dead downwind.

Try the spinnaker course, see which system you prefer and try all the boats out too, i can vouch for Ospreys and 400s being great fun in the right conditions, my only experience of a 3k being one of very limited vision due to the amount of spray being kicked up. I'd have thought you may have wanted a 4k over a 3k as they are bigger?

And the reason you wont find any foam sandwhich Ospreys for sale is that they are brand new so there wont be many up for 2nd hand sale for a while, the old glass boats are good enough to learn in and still great fun to sail (been sailing the glass boat dad had built when i was bout to be born, 17 years ago yesterday, until our new boat arrived a couple of weeks ago and she still went beautifully). Wood boats might still be worth a look but you'd have to ask some others (Pierre, Stan?) whether they are a hassle to maintain.


Edited by Hobbo