Dinghy Show

Shall I go and give up one precious sailing pass to just look at boats... Erm, in a word, no.

As for the Weta - great price when launched, reasonable spec but not Gucci for no reason, quick, simple, accessible- can take a kid or Doris out when it's sunny and warm, can hitch up and wouldn't look out place on the back of Saloon headed to a French family campsite near some good wine regions.... what's not to like? Oh yes, no one else sails them and worse than that, as a multihull they're even banned from the some of the god forsaken handicap events that the D-One boys have stencilled out a circuit from and the cat sailors (jet skiers without the spends for petrol) are very snooty about tris too, so AIUI, no SCHRS allocation. It's so f*cked from every angle it's airtight.....

You know, young Fuller, the problem is that nothing can be new. When some bugger invented the microchip getting rid of all those valves and condensers it opened up a world of innovation enabling a host of inventions and development. What development can actually be made when you have a wind driven thing you sit on? Materials improve and they in turn effect manufacturing and performance but nothing strides forward like the invention of the internal combustion engine or Mac Donalds. I thought wing sails might be a good idea but they have not been enthusiastically adopted so far. The trouble is that you have moving air above you and sloshy stuff below you, in-between you have  a plank to sit on. If the air above you creates to much power the plank falls over and you get wet, so you make the plank wider and it goes slower........Now I have the greatest admiration for you Graeme (may I call you that?) and I keep a photograph of you sewn into my underwear but when you applied your giant intellect to the problem the result was less than satisfactory. Why then do you think that there are other mere mortals capable of improving the wheel?

I have your name tattooed on my left buttock as well. On my right buttock it says, "Inventor of the............(left blank). 

Now be that all true? The Weta is the development we are looking for......Isn't it young Fuller? Or, as I suspect, it may not be sexy enough for some of us........

Originally posted by RS400atC It has been the case since WW2 that new designs come along, either fail to sell or are fashionable for a few years, the most successful endure as classes for varying numbers of decades. For every eclipsed SMOD there are 10 forgotten classes from the 60's etc. That's one issue, the other is trimarans. Why don't people sail them? Why don't able bodied people have a go in Challengers? I can only guess what other people think, but I have never really been drawn to multihulls(except 50ft plus..). The increase in straightline speed is fun, but the size and relatively slow tacking takes the edge off it. Then there is the shoreside hassle and unsuitability for smaller venues. I don't buy the 'Weta does not capsize' bit completely, I reckon if you raced them hard in the kind of sea conditions where the better RS400 sailors are at risk of capsizing, tri's would capsize too, as indeed the cats do. People will always push limits racing, then you just have to get unlucky with a wave. PS how can anyone race level with both RS600's and RS400's? One is a lot quicker than the other!

Depends on the sailors, I guess?