Redeye Solution

Morning all,

We now have 2 Solutions at my local club and I finally managed to get a playing in one!

My personal verdict.....(and this is only from a 25 minute play in gusty conditions).

Offwind...

Felt good, quick acceleration, very easy to steer the boat back under the mast and felt nice and smooth.

Upwind....

Different story, probably down to my unfamiliarity of the boat and the fact that there is not currently a tuning guide...

The boat had a lot of weather helm even when kept flat ir really wanted to go into irons and I have to say it felt slow upwind. This would probably come good with technique and practice. For now I have to say i prefer my Blaze upwind, especially when it gets gusty!

Controls....

Again a personal thing, I would have rigged it differently but that is personal taste and can be specified when you order the boat. They guy who was kind enough the load me his boat is an ex fireball sailor who likes the main/kicker combination cleat, I would have led the kick on a continuous line back to each side. aside from that they were easy to reach (I would change the colour on the c/b up and down too) and all worked well, quite low loadings on all controls when moving them and low sheet loadings too. A nice boat but I think too much like hard work upwind, time will tell....

As for me, I will stick with my Blaze now I have got the hang of it, those Phantom boys no longer look over their shoulders at me but look forwards :-) (well some of them anyway).

It is a nice boat just not for me I think (I am quite glad, had I loved it I would have been gutted).

Also to add I was crewing a Laser 2000 yesterday with quite a light helm, we had the measure of the solutions for most of the first race (and beat one by a handy margin and were 9s behind the other on corrected, pys are 1066 for solution, 1089 for L2000). Really told upwind especially when the wind came up we would really eat into them and then lose a bit on the offwind legs that were too tight for kite.

As always just my 2p, thought I would share my thoughts and first impressions....

Of just one more thing there are 3 solutions at the club, I am told one of the guys does not like sailing his, the other 2 love it.

Paul

Well it was me that got in front of the 2000, in what were perfect 2000 conditions (pretty windy). It was the first time i had been out in it. The standard set up has the kicker run to the side, on a continuous system, with no main sheet cleat. Off wind it was the best behaved single hander i have sailed, just need to get your weight back and let it fly. It gybed on rails, I kept looking for the assym, as the loads were so light due to its pure speed.

Up wind was very hard work. Getting the boat flat was the key. As soon as there was any significant leen it tried to screw up into the wind, but unlike a laser the rudder is big enough to compensate, but slow. I ended up using loads of mast rake, with the board up 20 degrees at least to keep her flat and footing. Shed loads of cunno, and when really windy the kicker had to be eased. Personally i would have prefered a bendier mast tip, so i could keep the kicker on. Tacking seemed best done slowly, and in the luls, rolled easily.

I expect we will end up having to sail a bit free up wind, very much like the phantoms. I think when we have a little less wind we willl see how fast they can be, fully powered upwind, and with a hull that comes out the mould at around 45kg(not rig and foils), very early planing.

I think the ideal helm weight will be very interesting. Very much like the phantoms at hunts, the light weights will do very well inland, but may get blown away on open water. Although i felt at 78-80 kg in sailing kit a phantom was too much, even inland in more than a 2, and it was cheaper than a second hand pahntom. 

Altogether the boat seems very well built, the controls all work well, and although the first sail was a little extreme, great fun. Hope to get to grips with it more in january, and maybe the ggp as well.

Overall was great, but early days, and still miss the skiff.

Andy

i reckon it probably has quite a bit more power than your europe!  and some legs on it!!

Originally posted by radial179102 maybe, but you gotta love them really!! I can still beat the Blazes over the line so I'll stick with my Carbon... apparently powerless... Europe!

Now that sounds like a challenge. But having said that there wasn't much that didn;t beat me at Grafham this weekend .

Oh and an update on the Solution, they guy who was kind enough to lend me his boat the other weekend has now had a chance to play with the rig. He tells me raking it back helps a lot with the weather helm (he was certainly going better yesterday).

The Blaze is quick but it does need open water as it tack relatively slowly so it sometimes pays to bang the corners on smaller waters.

Paul


Edited by jeffers

Originally posted by radial179102 awww bless!!

A sympathy vote woo hoo that cheered me up!