420 winged rudder

Originally posted by Paramedic Is Dad not a little bit entitled to come in here with something of an attitude?   People - who have never even seen his son's or his mates boat - have accused him/them of cheating. People have been calling for bans, protests and all sorts

Nonsense. No-one accused them of cheating.

What was said that if a boat had been modified out of class that would be illegal, and if it had been modified to make it faster AND the RC had not been informed that would be cheating, and that damn well ought to be uncontroversial.

There were then various hypothetical digressions on the subject of modifying boats out of class and penalties.

No-one called for anyone to be banned since there was no evidence that the RC hadn't been informed, which was hardly suprising since it transpired that there was a fairly mind-boggling misidentification involved and no 420s had been modified in the manner suggested.

The main discussion, if one actually reads the thread, was about RS800 rigs.

I think radixon posted what could certainly be construed as a sort of apology for staggering incompetence in boat identification. I don't believe anyone else needs to apologise for anything.

Originally posted by Rupert Originally posted by gbr940 Random question - why do we even still use the 420 nowadays? When I was younger I couldn't think of anything more boring when I saw them at the sailing club and the Dinghy Show, and nowadays they just look old and aged.  Because they teach the skills needed to be a top racing sailor in a big, competitive fleet. The fact that they are still popular when faced with compietition from the 29er might just tell you that speed isn't what everyone dreams of.

They're also the obvious trainer for the 470!

there's one out fairly often at Hunts, but I know what you mean - not many in the uk.  But go abroad and they're eveywhere.

So have we all agreed that it wasn't a 420 that had foils on? That's a shame, my time looking at stern wake of 420s from the BM was wasted!!

Why should a child who has nothing to defend himself against come on here to do that?

I think Mike's tone has been good humoured and well mannered, and I couldn't blame him if he was a bit miffed by some of the comments. Of course, if the 420 did have a winged rudder, maybe those comments were valid.

I accept that the 420's didn't have winged rudders, but I am also sure that Radixon knows the difference between a 420 and a N12, so I am still not at all clear what was seen...