custom colours are in

I dont think any suggested any performance increase!  Just a rethink and refresh.  Any performance increase would be frankly marginal even with a slightly newer sale design.  Lets be honest the class is pretty much dead in its current guise (sorry if i am being cruel) The fact that you can now buy a brand new boat again for under £8k is a really good thing.  Some people dont want a kite.  (i can talk from my own experiences selling D-ones) which is fine, some people dont want to spend a fortune on a brand new Contender.  Some people want a challenging ride from the wire.  What options are there???  A 600 with a rehashed sail design in a new fabric, with a new single coloured hull in a mad colour or perhaps a stealth balck or dark grey would IMO increase awareness of the class. A new sail design beit jusst a change of fabric or a higher clew and more defined fat head would bring the boat right back into this centuary (just look how good the FF sail looks) and with a bit of supprt from RS i think the class could get back up off its knees again.  As i said in my earlier posts (if you bothered to read them) i dont intend on buying one, or any RS frankly.  But thats for my own reasons.  Even if i did buy one i would not join the association again, but thats for my own reasons.  But i am just giving my opinion, which i think is a valid one.  I beleive the class is out of date, with no real numbers racing anymore. Improve one of these things and you may improve the other.

I'm sorry but i dont understand how changing a sail design (an item which has a linited life) is going to be detrimental to the class.  First of all as with Most RS sail developments (other than the 400) the sail plan stays the same - Check out the 300.  Using more modern cloth WILL make the boat look sympathetically more modern. FACT. Its not trying to catch up with development classes its just bringing the boat cosmetically into this centuary.  But like what they did with the 400, 300 soon the 800 etc. etc.  I think its a great thing, as long as its voted for by the class properly.  Like it or not the 600 needs to sell new boats to survive long term.  I beleive people will not buy that type of  boat with a sail that has seen no update other than the sail makers mark in the near on 20 years the boat has been made  it looks old, heavy and unlike classes like the the Laser its design has aged very quickly.  So what i am saying is give people the option to vote in a new design or sail cloth.  This would give the class something to shout about, coupled with the fact you can now actually buy a brand new UK built boat at a good price.  Couple this with a decent marketing strategy and demo boat/charter opportunity and you have in my opinion the green shoots of some kidn of recovery.  What you are sugesting is just let the lads sail their £1500 scrappers with duck taped sails.  No point spending the money on the class, when quite clearly there is a point in spending money on the boat.  It fills a proper niche.

especially from a boat builder that regularly sells boats of all colours.

Alex,

point well made, you can't argue when peeps put their money where their mouth/keyboard is (or isn't)