Open Bic

A sensible approach would be a box rule for both a fast single hander and twin hander single wire that has a few caveats to keep them real and within the sailing ability of those who could afford to buy and sail them by virtue of full employment elsewhere.

I.E. If it fails the falling over test when left at the dock unsupported

Or if it fails the standard health and safety lifting weight for average workers in the workplace. (32 kgs) (64 for two isn't it, something like that anyway)

People get put off by lots of things y'all don't often consider, being able to lift them is one..

Chris....you and Jim are the last people that I'd think of as anything but thorough, for I know that we share the view that properly conducted research gives a far more balanced answer than many of the knee jerk comments than some of these threads can attract. Take the oft expressed viewpoint that if the sport could but free itself of the so called 'farmyard classes' that we'd suddenly see a revolution in the sport. Of course people are entitled to their own views, to me though the baseline data just doesn't support the proposition.
In one of the talks I give I've some interesting slides that show that as you add sails/sail area whilst lightening the hull, that you end up with faster boats but a smaller pool of people capable of sailing them. This isn't 'the factor' but it sure is one of them! Another is taking the sailing 'experience' in it's totality - not just what happens afloat but the whole thing - from being part of a class, to having similar boats to race against, to being with like minded people.

Incidentally - you should remember this...with reference to iGFR's comments about box rules - just before the big bucks renaming from the IYRU to ISAF there was indeed a plan for an 'open' twin wire 15ft dinghy. This was indeed to be subject to a simple box rule and rig restrictions but got overtaken by events elsewhere and the idea died a death! Somewhere I still have some IYRU papers on this - will see if I can dig them out!
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Originally posted by Chris 249 sail) D

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Originally posted by 2547 Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Chris 249 The stats I'm working on seem pretty clear - the drop-off in numbers at national title level is mainly caused by the fall in performance ODs and development classes and in slow "family" boats at the other extreme. The Laser/Opti etc are not the culprits, they are the survivors to emulate. Exactly what I see as well: the sport is focussing on the middle. I'd have thought that the youngsters who did who did campaigns in 29ers from my club would be wanting to sail high performance boats, but with a few exceptions (hello Nicola) it just doesn't seem to be happening very much. How does it look if you aggregate some of the similar High Performance (HP) classes? In the 80s & 90s there were few HP boats; the 505 & Fireball were the classes you sailed if you were a bit of a boyracer ... now we have many more classes following the late 90s and early 2000s proliferation of fast SMODs ... I suspect the damage is more as a result of the HP fleets getting fragmented rather than sailors falling out of love with HP boats ... How do you stats look of you look at the number of competitors in various bands of PY? That would be an interesting graph if you had the base data to hand ...

Edited by Chris 249 - 07 Aug 13 at 12:52pm

The width of the gates at Ichenor sailing club was the deciding factor on how wide an International 14 was allowed to become.

However, does "make it more fun, they will come" work at all? Lots of different ideas of what "fun" is, therefore lots of different types of boat. Of course, for the majority of the human race, none of them, from Tideway dinghies to 49ers to Westerlies to Maxi raters are fun, therefore they don't sail.

However, the blinkered vision that GRF witters on about can mean that those already into sailing can miss that many people elsewhere are having fun (more fun?) in something new, and maybe it is worth a look. That new thing doesn't have to be any of the Faster/more hitech/etc to be fun, just a different take on things.

Perhaps the Open Bic falls into that category?