to be honist i think that people wory about it to much iv seen really small people good faster than hevey people when its windy because they can sail the boat well

or on the other hand iv seen heveyr people go faster when its light because they can sail the boat well and they get the momentom going

Are you sure about that.  That's between 28 to 30 stone. Fat-blokes-R-us !!!!! 

yer me and u alex are about 25 combined so all good

promis me one thing when you first go out call me and tell me where your going out

il bring my camrer

 yes will do dont think it will be for a while though,  we dont have that much money  we will take cash or cheque donations though  anyway i would quite like to see you go out in a monster wind with your vareo!!

thats wot evrey one says

and last time i tryed it i never pulled off one jibe but i only had the boat a week and i could do it now

wots hapaning to the 4000 i thorght you where going to takit to garda and doing all the opend and stuff

yer we are doing all the opens etc.  we arnt going to garda cos lack of funds. but once i get a car we will be there. 

i will see you in march when we are at grafham for the 4k training event.

hope its not windy for it then

il be ok then any way  stomy  

i thught you where deing sponserd any way

Hey 5420

Did you go to the nationals at Filey??? it was pritty windy on the last day their

The 49er is meant to be able to plain upwind in about 12 knoots of wind. We usually find that we don't think about what speed we should be going to enable plaining, we judge it more on the feel of the boat. There is a bit of a grey area where the boat is between plaining and displacement mode, we just go with what feels fastest but 12 knots of wind seems a good estimate.

Cheers 49er.  I was hoping to do some calcs on the planing performance, hence the curiosity about boat speed. 

Sorry for hijacking your thread guys!

They do not know what the optimum wieght is for a 49er because the weight equalisation rule has been lifted so now they are aloud max rakes and no lead. You really need to be about 142kg to sail it otherwise it just gets to hard to soon. At the Olympics Draper n Hiscocks were 146kg when the rule was in place, and the guys how won it were 163kg. At the moment people are thinking its about 155kg but there are plenty of teams out there going quick who are lighter, but i dont think theres any of the Performance or Olympic Deveolpment Squad Sailors who are heavier. Club sailors go up to alot heavier but the lighter guys will be faster unless its very windy and even then Draper and Hiscocks and people like that go unbelieveable quick.

49ers plane in less than 12 knots, you should be planning in 8 knots upwind and downwind. Just because your not flat lining doesnt mean your not planning, we plane in our 29er in 8 knots, its probably less than that even in a 49er. You have to bear in mind that downwind the 49er has an all up sail area of 59 square metres and boat weighs about 100kg all up plus the crew 250kg. It also has very little rocker to make it plane quicker.

29er stats are 12.5sq m up wind sail area so prob 9m main and 3 .5 jib with a 15sq m gennaker

Probably 130kg, how much do you weigh?

It might be possible to sail a 5000 at slightly less than 130kg, but the major problem would be righting her from capsize. The boat is a "heavy" boat to right and when we had to do it with 140kg on the tip of a board, it took ages. Another thing that would help on a 5000 would be to have a crew with reasonable upper body strength to help bagging a 33sqm kite.

I think our combined weight would be 125 kg but we're not thinking of getting anything untill probably next season.

What he said really.

Iv sailed a 5000 a fair few times, and as im fairly light, the transition from boat to rack seemed like a leap of faith.....though for the price you can get them 2nd hand at the moment, I think they're great. Although there are some cheap 800's floating around.

Also if you're light, trying to pull a 5000 up a slipway after sailing, really isnt great.

yer well if you like to spend alot to get them up to stratch.  there is a reason why they are cheap.

My limited experience of the 49er and the 800 suggests they plane in 7 or 8 knots of wind and at a speed of about 5.  However its a very subjective thing because both boats have the sort of hull shape which goes smoothly from non-planning to planning - so there's no real transition.  They're not like Wayfarers you know.  Even the much lower performance 4000 has a very blurred transition (unless you're sitting to far aft).

I'll have to dig out my "High Performance Sailing" by Bethwaite - it'll be in there somewhere.

As for lightwieghts sailing 5000s I have to point out that unless the conditions are very favourable my 88kg is not enough to get a 4000 onto its side from total inversion.  Sailing it is easy enough though.

Have you noticed the MPS seems very happy to lie on its side after a capsize - a real safety feature.

True - the carbon rig helps a lot ...

We always use a masthead float, not very cool, but I'd rather be sailing than trying to uninvert a 4k or 5k!

Sailing single handed I always use a masthead float as my Vago inverts very quickly with the kite in the water, safety first!