420
Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: General
Forum Name: Choosing a boat
Forum Discription: Ask any questions about the sport!
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7561
Printed Date: 06 Aug 25 at 8:00pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: 420
Posted By: EmmyC
Subject: 420
Date Posted: 15 Feb 11 at 1:18pm
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Hello everyone.
I am thinking of getting a 420 after my birthday and was wondering whether there were any 420 sailors on here that would reccomend it.
Thanks
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Replies:
Posted By: Wee Man
Date Posted: 15 Feb 11 at 6:29pm
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I'll let you know next week, I'm crewing on one on Sunday. The girly helm loves her 420. |
Posted By: ChrisJ
Date Posted: 15 Feb 11 at 9:30pm
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All depends where you are going to sail it. If you are going to race against other 420's ,then get one quick. If racing against RS-200's: then buy a 200 instead!
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Posted By: EmmyC
Date Posted: 16 Feb 11 at 6:30pm
| Well I wouldn't be racing against any other 420s, but I probably wouldn't use the spinnaker or trapeze straight away anyway, so it wouldn't matter who I'd be racing really. |
Posted By: jeffers
Date Posted: 17 Feb 11 at 8:12am
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If that is the case Emmy why don't you look at a double handed boat that does not have those fitted? Depending on your ability what about something like a Graduate or National 12 perhaps even a Scorpion (I know it has a kite but it pretty quick round the cans on white sails and you can easily depower if you and your crew are light).
I would say unless you are looking to go the squad route then the 420 might not be the right choice for you.
Whatever you want to get in to always have a test sail first. ------------- Paul ---------------------- D-Zero GBR 74 |
Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 17 Feb 11 at 1:03pm
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I'm not a 420 sailor, but as a 2 handed boat for light weight people, who may well move onto trap and spinny when ready, I'd say it would be a great choice. Once you get confident, you'd find the class has a much higher % of young people than the average to spend time at events with. I've no idea what the social life is like at events (sometimes too many squaddies can be a bad thing) but it is probebly better than most others for teens. I'm assuming you are young - it might be your 65th birthday you are waiting for! ------------- Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686 |
Posted By: Pierre
Date Posted: 17 Feb 11 at 2:35pm
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I agree with Rupert. Great boat to learn everything on. |
Posted By: WoodenBoatLuvver
Date Posted: 19 Feb 11 at 2:26am
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Having sailed a friends one many times on the Orwell, I think they are generally a good boat.
I find no thwart a downside, single handed and as on most short boats (Solos too)the double pulley centre main a bind, with the owner and me on board the side tanks flexibility was more than noticeable.
Mentioning that aspect at another club, the person I was discussing said same reckoned he once saw a side tank go bang on a 420. |
Posted By: EmmyC
Date Posted: 19 Feb 11 at 12:05pm
| I have sailed many 2-man dinghies on my own and have never found no thwart being a downside, although that is my personal opinion. The birthday I'm approaching is my 14th, so I'm not very heavy and I don't suppose my crew would be very heavy either. |
Posted By: TwoLegged
Date Posted: 19 Feb 11 at 10:07pm
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Emmy, I probably wouldn't recommend a 420 as your very first boat. However, if you've got a good grasp of the basics in a Mirror a Topper or something like that, then it's a great next step. It'd be a good idea to try before you buy, but basically they are good boat for the intermediate learner. I sailed a 420 when I was teenager (sometime before Noah took up boating). It was a fun boat: stable, reasonably light, quite free of handling vices, and reasonably fast. The flared topsides keep it quite dry. I leant a lot from sailing mine, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I took to single-handing it with all 3 sails in modest winds, when it flew along ... and with a crew I took it out in some very heavy weather and learnt an awful lot about boat-handling. However, the 420 is a very old design, from the days before designers understood how to use fibreglass, and as a result the hulls have large swatches of fairly flat unsupported fibreglass which flexes a lot. This means that the hulls get floppy quite quickly, so the race-winners tended to get a new hull every season. Staying at the front of the class is an expensive option, but it doesn't sound like you want to do that anyway  The old design also meant that the gear was not as well thought out as on newer boats, so some of the controls (kicker, cunningham etc) are not as accessible as you may be used to ... but So I'd strongly suggest that if you buy a 420, buy a cheap and old one, and have lots of fun with it while you learn how to handle a reasonably fast boat, recover from capsizes and practice spinnaker and trapeze. You don't need the latest and greatest boat to learn, and there are plenty of battered 420s for sale at less than £500: http://tinyurl.com/6e7x7pt - http://tinyurl.com/6e7x7pt |
Posted By: TwoLegged
Date Posted: 19 Feb 11 at 10:13pm
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PS I was 14 when I got my 420. I wasn't heavy, and usually sailed with a light girl. The heavy boys won the races in heavy weather, but two of us light ones never had a problem keeping the boat upright, even tho we couldn't always sail it at its fastest. But we did need the trapeze to make much progress upwind beyond about a Force 3 |
Posted By: EmmyC
Date Posted: 20 Feb 11 at 3:54pm
Thank you for that very valuable advice. The 4th boat on that ApolloDuck page was the one I had my eye on anyway. It's cheap, and local. I have also seen a pair for sale in Cambridge for £200 each which seem in quite good condition. I have been sailing for 4 years now so I have sailed a lot of Toppers and Topazes etc so I do have a fair amount of experience. |
Posted By: Wee Man
Date Posted: 20 Feb 11 at 5:33pm
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Just back from my first outing on a 420, loved it.
I guess 10 - 15 mph wind, offshore so a wee bit gusty, tipped it in when we needed to drop the kite and found another boat in the way, no big issues getting it up again fom turtle (even with the kite still up. I'd forgotten how nice a dinghy is on the plane (I normally crew an F18 cat)
It felt quite stiff, I know some have flexing issues. All the fittings seemed well laid out and worked well, big smiles all round. I'm told it's not great in light winds though.
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Posted By: TwoLegged
Date Posted: 20 Feb 11 at 7:25pm
Emmy, I'm glad that was helpful! If you've been sailing for four years, you should be more than ready to try something more advanced. I'm sure you know that it will involve a bit of a learning curve, and you'll probably get very wet a few times ... but if you want the challenge, then geting your own 420 will be a great way to do it. Do remember that a 420 won't fit on top of a car, so you'll need a trailer to move it. If you're going to keep it at a sailing club, then you can probably borrow a trailer to get it home. My 420 was an old and battered one (it had actually been abandoned at sea!), which I bought at about your age to fix up. I learnt the hard way that if you are buying an old and tired boat is to figure out not just how much it'll cost you to buy it, but how much it'll cost you to get it sailing with working gear.  If you aren't used to rigging a 420, it'd be a good idea to view the boat with someone who knows that sort of boat (not necessarily somebody who knows 420s, but somebody who is used to rigging boats a bit more complicated than a Topper!). It's important to rig the boat and see what gear is working, and what's missing ... 'cos anything you need to buy separately could work out expensive. Look around some of the chandlery websites, and you'll see that even rope isn't cheap, and bit like new jam cleats all add up. Big bits are a lot more: a brand new mainsail will cost about £400, a new mast about the same, and a spinnaker pole about £60. You could get a lot of bits secondhand on Ebay, but it'll still add up ... so make sure you do your sums! Go for it, and have lots of fun! |
Posted By: EmmyC
Date Posted: 21 Feb 11 at 11:07am
Thank you very much for more words of wisdom! The one I'm probably buying has and old and battered, but still usable, road trailer. Although both the mainsail and the hull have been repaired there are no apparent problems with them. It seems that the only thing that I will need to splash out on is the spinnaker kit, which I don't need to have brand new as I will probably end up breaking it as I have never sailed with a kite before!  I probably won't sail it straight away so I will have plenty of time to watch Youtube videos and speak to a lot of people regarding the rigging! |
Posted By: jaime
Date Posted: 27 Apr 11 at 11:50pm
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Hi all sorry if this is wrong place Im new and cant work out how to start new question I have just bought rs feva but no road trailer and cant afford new Can anyone advise what I need to look for second hand eg does trailer neeed to be specific to feva or are they more interchangeable than that Any help appreciated thanks so much |
Posted By: doeywizard
Date Posted: 29 Apr 11 at 5:47pm
| I looked at a 420 as my youth class boat, what put me off were some of the comments about how the top sailors change there boat every few years as old boats are not as competitive, it was something to do with the side tanks flexing on old boats. |
Posted By: doeywizard
Date Posted: 29 Apr 11 at 6:04pm
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jamie when you go on a heading such as choosing a boat in that heading above all of the questions is a button (towards the top, left hand side) called new topic, click that and then ask your question, with regards to the trailer, it has to be a trailer that matches you launching trolley, some have different width rollers to slide the two trailers together. I would recommend that you find out the make of your launching trolley and try to find a road base with the same make on somewhere like ebay, y and y or apollo duck. The main thing to be careful of is the baring on it and check that the tires are not shredded, however if the trailer is cheap enough then these can be easily replaced.
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Posted By: Foiling_Toff
Date Posted: 30 Apr 11 at 4:42pm
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I'd be interested to know if there is anything in this. There always seem to be boats that are just a few years old for sale at very attractive prices. Often with loads of kit too, do the sails go off quickly too? |
Posted By: doeywizard
Date Posted: 30 Apr 11 at 6:15pm
| It was just a comment I heard regarding the slightly older boats (I guess older meaning well used 15yr+). The main reason was that I dident have a reliable crew of my own age and that just wouldent work if I was wanting to go off traverling. But I can see your point that you can get a verry well set up boat for little money, the tanks are just something to look out for. |
Posted By: Hughph
Date Posted: 02 May 11 at 10:49pm
The boats don't go off but the 420 is the ultimate OD arms race IMHO... I have seen older 420's raced competitively for much longer than the squaddies keep them for. The sails are made of some pretty good dacron so tend not to go off quickly if you use them properly and buy the right manufacutrer... ------------- |