V Twin

She's laying in my drive looking a tad forlorn and I have to make a decision do it try or should i get her down to someone proper like Andy @ Bloodaxe for example. I've kind of formed a plan as to what's needed, but I want to do t and lose some hull weight, that will involve carbon and expense...

GRF claims that the electricity is free which interested me greatly as an engineer as I am not aware of any truly free source of electricity available on the planet. Further reading on this matter indicates that the Bonneville Hydro Electric Plant is run by a not for profit organisation called the BPA. The BPA markets the electricity to the market at a price which allows it to break even. So unless all the operators, maintainers and materials providers are working for free then it is highly unlikely the electricity is free. Wikipedia and common sense could be wrong however I doubt it very much. We are also forgetting that the dam was built by the army and therefore the governments expense which would also not be free. Nothing in life is free and GRF would do well to remember this.

 

Credibility is lost when posting wrong facts on the internet.

 

Originally posted by G.R.F. Abuse given to Australians is legal - fact. At no time is an Englishman expected to back any comment he may have made to an Australian, the Australian should simply accept the wiser and superior words of the Englishman and be humble, in fact be happy he is even being acknowledged as anything other than a convicted felon or a bush dwelling aborigine. This is the Law. So now to the facts. The factory I recently visited sits adjacent to the Bonneville Hydro electric plant on the Columbia river the electricity is free. The resin I told you of's formula is secret it is being kept in the US to protect their intellectual property from thieving Chinese (and Australians). The wood used in blank construction as well as Bamboo is from managed forests from within a 50 mile radius. The Sports that like light stuff as well as Windsurfing, which no longer has the sun filled uplands of a better tomorrow in which to bask in the fires of progressive innovation, are SUP ( a hollow race board), kite twintip and surf boards and wake boards capable of being both light yet capable of sustaining punishment in cable parks. I've no doubt that somewhere along the Gorge folk are using similar stuff to build sailboats and all manner of stuff, but those are the instances that have prompted my latests rants. You may now go to your room and reconsider your position.

Now there are lots of easy examples to contradict an assumption that the world of yacht design doesn't move with the times.  Just look at C-Class Cats, Foiling Moths and the asymmetric singlehanders many would have said were 'unsailable' 20 years ago.  There are even examples where the 'establishment' is so forward thinking that we (well some of us) can be super critical... FO big kite race boards that are now in the Olympics from 2016 (totally untested without even an established global race programme) and what about the AC being a multihull event now (shocking behaviour for match race purists, never mind the H&S risk those AC72s are going to present)

But these are all isolated examples of 'progress' which do nothing but make the sport appear elitist, or at the very least 'niche'- Grumpf's criticism focuses on the mainstream lack of progress at club and circuit level.  Baseline amateur sailing for joe and jennie bloggs.... it hasn't moved on, bar some lipstick development to manipulate the grossly flawed PY system most clubs seem intent on offering, but do little to implement properly.  And yes, it arguably lacks appeal to a future generation and it's easy to see why when you buy a 'cool boat' but get penalised by a spreadsheet and rarely get a decent course suitable for 'cool boats'.  

I have some sympathy with his views on this, but then I can't help but bounce back to the very fundamentals of the sport I grew up with.  Dinghy sailing was never considered 'cool' and it will always have its middle-class stereotypes... you can't change the fact that even a modest new boat, like a Laser, is more than a lot of people will spend on a reasonable secondhand car.   

So you come around to a sense of 'f*ck it'... the strength of dinghy sailing is good class racing and as often pointed out by Chris249, in relatively slower, tactical boats.  Ideally this occurs locally and is not 3 hours away on some windguru-jinxed circuit.  And to some extent it really doesn't matter what that boat is as long as you pick the class that loosely fits your biometric and economic profile.  Okay it might not be 'cool',  it might not be inexpensive for young people, it not be that 'attractive' compared to other lifestyle sports... but really people, it never was and is never going to be. 

 Exactly what i had in mind...