I was looking at a site and randomly looking at Topper Spice and Iso and i noticed that the spice PN is 920 and the ISO is 926.

The Spice has a double Trapeze therefore surely has more sail area so how the hell can there only be a diffrence of 6....................an ISO isnt a massively fast boat but normally a twin wire would be quite fast so..............??????????

the spice hasnt got that much sail area tho!!!!1

I must agree with you on that one Tim, a UK rules cherub hull is 50kg, a spice bare hull is 80kg! thats without any of that metal and plastic, masts, foils etc! And now being turbo charged, it can reel in a 49er easy.

Im moving back to cherubs now after a stint in the 49er, feeling its not as fun to sail as a cherub!

Andy

This is my old cheurb, a twin wire, 04 rules boat - WAY more fun than plastic!

Funny you should say that..................... The spice was a good idea, if only it had a carbon hull and carbon rig, and perhaps a lil more rag!

HAHA, I must agree with you Mr Champ

See you on the water

the problem with the spice is that if you can sail one you can probably sail a rs800 and that is a much beter boat and there is a beter fleat to race agenst

I like the look of the cherab but I have never seen them out in large numbers

Cherubs now have the same rag as an 800 but half the weight! Even on old rules I could pace an 800 upwind, and then mince it downwind!

The cherub fleet is quickly growing again with the new rule change, so its all go go go!

NO! the entire tupper-wear fleet is overpriced and underpowered! they all weigh and absolute tonne, ive sailed every boat you mentioned apart from the byte, but they are not responsive and give your back real grief when launching off a slipway! They tend to plow through waves rather than riding over them. All beit the 5.9 which is a cat and a true machine, but past its time. Its a nice boat, but sucess went to the tornado and now all the F18's.

ps, im selling my 49er - going back to cherubs! Anyone interested, its priced to sell (3800) and can be found on http://www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk - www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk  

In a time where people want more and more power and less and lees waight the topper fleat do not com up to scrach they are to hevey and don't have enoufe power

people say that the new byte is more pawafall but with the carbon mast it losses most of it's power and the max waight that you can sail and be competative is 9.5-10 stone so it still is a boat for light waites what a shame the hull is so nice on them give it more power

Thay are all just to big and they all have to much waite when you are sailing next to the boss it looks like a war ship we want small light boats that extremaly fast

i know that it is an old boat and that is the problem it is time to sell them and get newer and faster boats

People have these expectations because the ISO was marketed very hard as being High performance, cutting edge and the best thing since sliced bread and it never was.

The thing that I found most annoying about them at the time they first came out was having to sail in the Isometric class at opens rather than the Asymetric (Iso as a prefix meanins "same" therefore Isometric means symetric)

I agree that Iso's (and other topprer products) arent and werent the most upto date boats ever produced but they did at least help to open the door for more skiff orientated boats. As a result the likes of the 9ers, B14s, 800 are now acceptable boats to the sailing public. Without it and perhaps the 5 tonner we could still be sailing significantly different classes around triangular courses... the Cherub would still be assymetric though

if you get rid of all the boat like the iso then you are left with thing like the 800 and all that will mean that will be left with is biger fleats in the good boats and we can look back on the rest IE iso they will be in our memories hopfaly we will be able foget them

there are better fleats in the 800 so i still think the 800 is beter but when the cherub gets a beter fleat i will think about one but i am staying in my 29er for now

Dude, your the kinda people we need - you have seen the light and realise that cherubs rule! So if you get one, then the fleet will grow!

Or failing that, buy my 49er so I can get a cherub again!

But people want to sail boat that have big fleats and that will not hapan over knight which is a shame because it is a brilant boat

i think that most people would like to sail one but they look like a boat for lite waites

This is true, but im 12st, and my crew was about 11 - and on old rules we cud twin upwind pacing an 800 in 10-15 knots of wind, and den piss all over them downwind! so fat basterds can sail em too, or get a small crew, Ben Brown has lil ole daryl    And on new rules they seem to be able to twin in no wind?!

what fast wet and sceary untill they capeszie

that's good they will be easer to get hold of then

i hard that the cherab on handy cap they wipe the face off of anything else

also in a boat like the 800 the winner is not the porson with the bigges overdraft

1400 for a set of sails the 29er are cheaper than that

a new boat is not that bad thow you will pay 3500 for a scond hand 29er

thats about what i pad for 29er but it is an old one 1999

Theres more to just owning a cherub than just turning up and sailing at events. Sure other classes have bigger fleets, but cherubs are all about having fun and I think that something thats been forgotten in other classes. We even hold occasional open meetings without racing just because its good to swap boats, sail with other people and exchange ideas.

Like others Im biased but its a great class thats really going places at the momment. We have at least three pro builders at present that could knock out a hull fairly cheaply.

I dont believe cheque book sailing exists in development classes any more than in a SMOD class. You wouldnt expect to win any OD class with an old boat and old sails and the latest "race pack" from RS.

just get a 800 and sail that without spending any more money and you stay where you are in the fleet or you will get better unless you something wrong with a cherab you have to spend to stay at the front

In five years time some manufacture will bring out a new RS800 or what ever and people will sell there boats and get on. The difference with Dev classes is that you stay get a new boat which just happens to be the same class as your old boat. And keep sailing with the mates you made over the last five years.

you sail with your mates and at the same time you are all going bankrupt

the cherab is a boat that people keep on up grading and they lose there money the only ones that benafit anr the people that are selling the upgrades

you can get the feeling of a chearb by sailing a 800 and you do not have to do lots of up grades befor you are at the front of the fleet

im not saying it's a bad boat it looks grate fun to sail and i would get one if they had large fleets and you did not need to keep upgrading all the time

you need  lot of ability to beat people that have a faster boat than you

wit a cherab you have to keep pending money where in a 800 you do not you buy the boat you go and race

yse but you shoud give you self as bigger advanteg you can

Now thats cleared things up. Definatly i think the amount spent on a boat changes by what class it is not what type it is. the make up of some boats means that they have to keep coming up with new sails and rigging to stay on top form. and others the boat and riggin will keep its edge for years. That is more based upon the way the boat was built (designed)

I think the thing was in a development class the changes could make the older boats obsolete, so you would have to shell out for each development, but if a class has been out for a while it will have leveled out a bit so the developments wont have as much affect, as they could have.

(please tell me if im wrong)

what i do and i think a lot of people do is look at the number of boats that ar racing in that fleet if you think that boats like 29er can get over 50 at the indlands you have a biger chamce of geting close recing than a boat that gets say 10 at the inlands i do not know how maney a chearb gets but i do know that it is betwean 10-20

Ok i take back everythign that i said then.

Yeah the closeness of racing has to take into account not only the number of boats that race but also the spread of their ability. Some of the classes that have massive starts have all the boats from club levle to national level compeating. It just means that the starts are harder but that the 'closeness' of racing is still the same. But if you have a class where all the boats are of realy good ability then the racing is bound to be close reagrdless of how many boats there are.

yaer say if you are in the laser nashanl squad you will have very close racing with the rest of the squad

This topic has exploded since yesterday and there are so many things I want to say that I have forgotten most of them

Someone said that Development class sailors depend on thair cheque book and technology to win and not sailing skill. There is one cherub where the owner has built everything himself apart from the fittings and rope! Does that not take more skill than phoning up RS and quoting your credit card Number?

There is one (Soon to be two) cherub at the moment using a T-Foil rudder. Built by me in my garden shed with the complete carbon rudder and stock and tiller for a materials cost of between £150 and £200 I would be supprised if you could buy a 29er or 800 rudder for less than that.

The cherub does not have big fleets and sailing one takes a bit more commitment than sailing a one design, as with such a light weight hull they get damaged easily, but you easily develop the skill of repairing it yourself which is half the fun.

I enjoy thinking about hull shapes and rig designs and crew ergonomics and have more ideas for how to build boats than I can ever put into practice and that is all part of the fun of sailing a development class.

The One Designs have there place not everyone has the time or enthusiasum to sail a development class and the new breed of boats L400, RS800, 29er are not realy that bad but once you have sailed a real high performance boat Int14 or Cherub or A class Cat, and go back to a heavy one design you can realy feel the difference.

I weigh 12.5 stone and am 6ft 3.

a 29er ruder is about £85 which is very resable

That is quite a good price but does that include stock?

If you are wanting cheap sailing then Development classes are the way to go. You can pick up an old Int 14 or old Cherub for verry little money for the ammount of boat you get. If you are happy to be a couple of years behind in the development there is often second hand kit to buy. I know people who have sailed 14's for years and have never bought new sails they have always got cheap second hand ones.

When you race it is easy to see which boats are simelar age to you and can have good racing against them.  Beating a more modern boat is always a bonus.

Originally posted by carshalton fc yer i think that would be cool beating a moden boat when your boat is like 10 years old!!

Give it another year, and you will be able to (in 14s, anyway). There are Bieker IIs around which were built in 1996 and could still win any UK regatta. (I think top B2 was 4th in last year's nationals). And you regularly get to sail in fleets of 50+ at a Nationals and 88 at the last Worlds in NZ (next two will almost certainly be over 100). Contrast with your average SMOD, which doesn't have a UK circuit worth speaking of after 10 years, and probably never had an international circuit in the first place.

I'd far rather have a 10-year-old 14/Cherub which I can either race or sell into an active second-hand market, than an Iso/Boss/Laser 5000 which I can only race in a handicap fleet and has negligible resale value even if I could find someone to buy it...

Bottom line is that the competitive life of a development-class boat is typically longer than the life of a SMOD class...

Yeah but as granite said one designs do have their place, I would love to sail a boat liek 14/cherub but i dont have the time or 'money' to start sailing one, also at the moment ji dont have enough time to seriously look at the class and work out what the boat should be like.

I think if i have understood everything everyone has said, you dont necerly have to have deep pockets for a development class but have to keep your eyes and ears open to what is changing in the class if youwant you boat to be 'up there'. If you have the motivation and ability to keep the boat up to standard then you aught to choose a class like that but other wise a one design seems like a good idea as a boat jsut to get you on the water at weekends etc. You can have good national circuits (not nec. International) if you want to become more competative.

As I have said before lots of what I say may be getting the wrong end of the stick as most of the things I know about development classes has come from reading this forum, Since Cadets are a RYA youth class all the boats we were kind of aimed into after them were all the 420 and 29er style boats with high youth training. Could some one clear up a few things like which boats are one design and which are development, I have picked up the ones that are mentioned on here a lot, But I know I will make a mistake along the way if i dont ask now.

Development classes - Merlin Rocket, National 12, International 14, Cherub and Moth.  But there are other classes where a little bit of tweeking is allowed, generally this is limited to cockpit layout and they tend to be the older One Designs that were built in wood, examples are, Scorpion, Wayfarer, Osprey Flying Dutchman, Hornet, Fireball, Phantom, Solo, but we should also include the Europe here.  Then there are the very strict One Designs, often called SMOD (Single Manufacturer One Design), of which the Laser is the best example but all the boats from Laser, RS and Topper fall into this category.

No doubt I've missed a few and got some small detail wrong but others will contribute I'm sure.  But I'm sure you get the drift.

Well in the Laser you aren't even allowed to put some tape at the corners of the transom to stop the mainsheet catching.  You have to admit that such strict rules have produced a succesful boat.

PS I'm at the club on Sunday.