The only one that I disagree with is the merlin and 400.  The merlin is still a massive class and will continue to be regardless of the 400. 

Appart from that I have to agree RS have'nt done much for other classes like the Contender and so on. 

This is true.

Which ones though

Never owned an RS but have sailed some..

It's easy to bash RS for having a crack at traditional classes.. but how many of the "independant" builders actively market their boats themselves and how many leave it up to the class assocs??

Market share is all about exposure and having a good product, rightly or wrongly RS and the rest have beleived in their product and then gone out to get the publicity.

every one is fogeting all they are doing is moving every thing on a stage things will alwase become out dated but all they are doing is making that happen faster

talking to adluts at my club they have been saying when they where my age it was a big deal for them to get a go in a ent or a fireball but nowi think nofing of going out in a 49er 18footer 29er ect all that has hapend as we all get beter we need harder boats to sail so we get the same thrils

and the contender has a biger opens than the 600 so you can not go on about tha one ether

i have to totally disagree with this, I believe it is the reverse, these days, particularly the up and coming youth are not so interested in the contenders and 12's and such classes (with respect i know there is a percentage that is interested but it is not a majority trust me, i am a youth) the RS range represents affordable longetivity. The launch of the  600 saw a new "age" as such in affordable single handed performance. I dont think it is fair to bash them for the 700 launch to coincide with the musto, yes they are very similar but the ethos from my perspective for the 700 was again equalised racing on the amazing circuits that all RS classes share and to provide a next step in terms of perfomrance from the 600 (although they are slightly different boats). In owning an RS these days you are pretty much guranteed local competition and an excellent build quality from teh outset. The events continue to be some of the best the UK has to offer. The RS range has something to offer for almost all people (id like to meet someone in a situation that cant be catered for though) Having left the RYA focused youth classes a while ago, i havnt looked back, since then ive been actively racing a 200 mostly along with a bit of 14, lead-mine and 400 racing. Theres never been a time when ive not come in and not learned something that has enhanced my sailing. The class associations are second to none and the after market advice and service from LDC  cannot be faultered. Anyone who owns or sails an RS will say the same. You cannot faulter a company for being competitive in the market place, the same scenario is found worldwide. Laser have done it for years now so have topper. I think it is safe to say that the RS range is indeed superior so is in the public spotlight a lot more these days at the end of the day it is you who choose which boat you want to sail, and if a company is putting the ideal boat for people in varying situations onto the market, then why complain. At the end of the day it puts people and boats on the water. The more boats on the water the more recognition our sport gets. They must be doing something right if there classes are thriving in the UK with fleets growing year on year. It should be noticed in the 300 alone, yes it has taken a while but people are catching on to what a great boat it actually is, its even drawing people away from Lasers into it as they want a new challenge, yes you will never make a big dent in the laser fleet but who hasnt been bored in a Laser from time to time??? Same question for the 300, i doubt there will be many people bored in a 300.... They provide excellent well thought solutions so why complain

As turntutle said, adapt and survive, they are only catering for demand. The classes that have survived so long have done so because of changes in rules etc to bring them up to date. Having sailed a development class (moth) its good being in the crowd with all the latest advances, but its expensive so i sold out of the classes and im moving into a SMOD because i know  that what im getting for my money is exaclty what i want from a class and i know that in time changes will bring about new smods or updates to existing ones. people are already experimenting (linotn jenkins the designer of the british hydrofoils for moths has made a set for a 600 recently)

Lets not forget the laser destroying most of the single handers. all except the phantom or finn which cope with higher weights.

Does the RS range attract totally new sailors into the sport? i doubt if there are very many. If not and you believe therefore that there are a limited number of racing sailors out there then older classes must have been damaged by RS 'stealing' from them.

But that has always been the case with any new class. For instance, the Enterprise when new must have stolen sailors from the Fireflies, N12s and many 'local design' classes. In a similar way, the Fireball probably stole Hornet sailors. Granted there was an exposion of interest in sailing as well, but without the Ent and Fireball around the old classes would have benefitted more from that explosion than they did.

The difference now is that RS, Laser,Topper etc have a large marketing budget and that further squeezes the smaller old classes. That said, the better ones not only survive, but flourish (Fireball, Solo, Merlin, N12, GP14, etc), while others fade away( Seafly, Toy, Hornet). That's because we (the consumers) like what RS etc offer more than the alternative.

Thats not stealing.

There is always the possibility of revival - for instance the Osprey could easily have been on the list of fade away - but maybe the new boat will change that - I hope so.

Its already been said, if a little criptically...... the RS range has profited on an already existing (at the outset) trend in the dinghy market. If you are going to say that is a bad thing, then your issue is with the people who by them, not sell them. They have run a shrewd business plan and given the market what is was begging for. A boat in a box - pay you money and go for a sail, no strings attached (no pun intended).

I think the greatest thing traditional classes can gleam from this success is that it isn't the cost of a new boat which deters potential buyers, but the worry that you can spend the balance on the price tag and not have the same gear as somebody else. For many classes, trying out developments, I think sail, boat and gear developers/manufacturers should be reined in a little.

There are only so many different markets in dinghy sailing, there is close to being a boat for every type of sailing you could want to do so it’s pretty hard to do something new. All RS are doing is designing a modern boat for each type of sailing, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Why leave the advances in materials and design to the dev classes and leave one designs to stagnate and become outdated?

Let's not forget 79 boats at the Solo nationals either. Rather more than Phantom or Finn.

To answer the original question/post:

I ask the question, would there be any more sailors racing now had there never been any RS boats? The answer is a definate no, they are 'for those who can sail' classes. That being the case, obviously sailors who sail them would have otherwise been in other existing classes (you might say traditional classes). Whether that constitutes 'irrepairable damage' for 'many classes' is very much up to them, and how they respond to the competition.

Here here!

I think we are nearly all agreed that anyone who thinks LDC/RS is killing sailing is a the kind of person who listens to Rage Against the Machine and thinks Bill Gates is the devil incarnate. 

oh come on that is not called for. Rage Against the Machine are ok and bill gates is a genius. 

It is all just a bit of healty smod bashing.

need to be done or they would take over

Regarding the 600 and Contender comparison, I think it would be fair to say that at the time of the 600s release it offered a significant development. For starters it has a carbon mast which the contender has only introduced within the last 5 years. A powerful fully battened main, and the choice of wide or narrow racks. Each boat is virtually identical, thus ensuring true one design racing (lets not discuss the advantages/disadvantages). 

In short it is a more extreme singlehander. With all the new extreme classes coming out, it is harder to put into context its relevance today, but it still remains a fast, challenging and enjoyable boat to sail. I would also hazard a guess that the contender is significantly easier to sail, so maybe less rewarding?

As someone who has had to endure his housemates 'Raging' at four in the morning, I have to disagree.  I'm not sure I can ever believe anything you say again.

i have had to endure the rage against the machine at four as well i can see your point. 

More, probably. Don't forget the Solo was around long before the Laser.

Bill Gates may not be the Devil, but he certainly represents the corporate face of relentless greed by the use of the patent laws. This is the very issue with which the inclusion of well run, business orientated corporations to the dinghy market causes concern.

The example that springs to mind isn't from the RS camp but Laser's successful patenting of a vanging device using a strut and pulley. I've seen this many times over the past 40 years and Im sure the diggers out there can find evidence from further back of its use....... but they have the audacity to patent it as the Gnav as if they thought of it.

With all the SMOD's- they steal technologies, developed at high expense by talented non profit orientated classes, and then sell those technologies as their own for massive margins.

The balance is in a good state now as the development classes keep bringing up new things to keep themselves ahead, but I only hope LDC et al don't get too big from the work of others and stagnate the development.

I quiet like the RS/Microsoft comparisons. Both companys are very good at what they do and both sets of customers inslude groups who can see weaknesses in the one size fits all approach.

I think RS probably have done a lot of good for UK sailing, they produce some relativley cheap, resonably high performance boats that have a fairly broad range of appeal. At the same time they will never really appeal to the type of sailors who enjoy playing with tuning and systems and ideas almost as much as they enjoy sailing. I gess the main concern of the sailors in these classes is that the bigger the RS range gets, the fewer opportunitys there will be to play with non-RS toys. A few classes will have a high enough existing profile to be reasonable accessable (kind of like Apple) while the rest will get to a point where you only know about them if you are very intrested/lucky/geeky (like Linux)

So how you feel overall about RS probably depends which of those groups the classes you sail fall into.....

Much as I like the idea of a comparison, I can't accept RS==MS. I'd be tempted to nominate Laser for that role, with the majority of their income coming from one very successful, almost ubiquitous product (cf Office), thier dumbing down of good ideas (Laser 2/3000?) e.t.c.

RS I feel have more of a dedication to produce very good products, unlike a certain software giant's contiunal, ruthless persuit of a quick buck.

I would like to retract that comment, as I have no evidence to back it up. A quick search has shown a number of uses for the word gnav, and beside from being unable to patent a generic word, there is also nothing to point to laser's use as I stated. I appologise if I a wrong for smearing the Laser centre, unreservedly.

I do, naturally stand by my original post on all other grounds, gawping and the way SMOD's steal developments given to the world for free. On this basis, I think RS et al have great comparisons with Bill Gates and Microsoft.

While nobody can deny microsoft have changed computing, for better or otherwise, their products are using technologies they did not invent, marketed and aimed to deny anyother manufacturers from making the same product with the same use. As I am using this microsoft product to moan to you all, you all endorse the same product by reading it. The more of you race RS boats, the more of you will benifit from buying their products.

Further, RS have been defended for the great after sales service they offer, but this is also a great parellel with Microsoft. The investment in after sales is a way of ensuring people stay with the product, endorsing it further and maintaining market share. The dinghy world, like the computer world, will benifit from as much variety, and competition as the manufacturers can muster....... its a sad reflection that in the fast moving world of PCs that is no longer an option.

Or that a higher proportion of sailors are going to Nationals, which is I suspect more likely. Or that an increasing number of sailors go to multiple championships, which a fair number now do.

If the sport had grown, clubs ought to have more members. I've never seen any UK consolidated figures on sailing club memberships but most clubs I know of complain of declining membership (and yes, I know Chew has a waiting list: exception not rule). 

The report McKinsey produced for the RYA a few years ago concluded that sailing participation was in marked decline. How precisely they came to that conclusion I cannot remember and the report no longer seems to be available. However McKinsey tend to get their numbers right.

So I suspect your prejudices were right all along.

In my area (the north) I feel things are slightly (very slightly) on the up in terms of members numbers. Its worth noting clubs will always complain of no numbers till they have a waiting list. This upness is only after such a massive decline though, that some clubs nearly or actually folded. We are yet to be in postion of refering to dinghy and small keelboat sailing as healthy.

Membership numbers at the Cotswold clubs (Whitefriars, Cotswold, South Cerney and Bowmoor) appear to be pretty good. Clubs are either full or are at the point where they have to start thinking about how many members they can take. How much of this is down to companies like RS, how much due to olympic sucess and Ellen, and how much to healthier living, I know not. Could also be the clubs being nice places to be, of course...

he doesnt have the angel mast with the ally sleave, hes got the superspars one its often just sand and grit or built up salt that makes it stick, try putting the bottom section of your mast in a container of fairly hot water for a while and see what happens (i.e. water that your hand wouldnt be comfortable in but not boiling) but make sure your mast isnt freezing cold first bring it up to heat with a hair dryeer or something first.

And watch the walls come tumbling down.

lol

When I was making my spinnaker pole I couldn't get the mandrel out the middle. So tied the mandrel to Mr Loco Perro's car, and the pole to mine. Then simply drove in opposite directions! Ben has some pictures somewhere.

(It didn't work and the mandrel is still down the middle of my pole as I type.I reckon that's the only thing keeping the pole in one piece on some very windy twin trap reaches.)