Lost Mojo..

Originally posted by sargesail Easy wins or mastery GRF.....you are the acme of the churn marketeers target. Yes the 300 does take a bit to get over the performance hump but its worth every swim.....and it's not as bad as many make out.....but you do have to have the stick wiggling basics off pat first....

Well no, you have to learn a whole new raft of stick wigglery or so the young man told me once I'd managed to get back alive and without a swim, although that was more through sheer winsurfery balance reaction than anything.

It's a bloody great long thing on a par with a Musto and has to be swung around the back to all intents, it was the only things that really had me perplexed, I could handle the wobble and I'm sure some wax would get rid of the slippy high points which make it's high sidedness so intimidating to your average sailing dwarf.

And what's with that nose down attitude, that felt a bit weird as well, the long stick encourages you to sit forward, it feels like you should sit forward, yet the nose is biting like a bitch.

So no I don't think it's a design masterpiece, I think it's another 90's hangover from the marketing regime that went 'you're only any good if you can sail one of these' but omitted the brackets (because we can't).

This was on a lake in conditions that were just about as clement as they come I hate to think what a force four would do to our relationship. (Me and Satans Spawn it should have been the RS666.)

I'm glad boats like the 300 exist, and I'm sure I'm a good enough sailor to be able to sail it, if I spent long enough swimming, but I have to admit that I find I enjoy sailing less tippy boats more. I suppose I subscribe to the school of thinking which says you should be able to jump in a boat as a beginner and then stick with the same boat right through - the Laser is the most obvious example of this - beginner to Olympics. Given how many boats I own/have owned, I guess this is odd thinking for me, though the Firefly has been a constant from the age of 9.

I suppose all GRF is trying to invent is a boat which you can learn in which has the potential to go as fast as something like a Musto Skiff once you are able. For some reason the Cat concept, which appears, for open water at least, to do this perfectly, doesn't fit. Jo Richards must have had similar thoughts for the Vortex (maybe with very early/smaller beginners using the Funboat?!) but there appear to be a whole raft of design constraints that have defeated the brightest of dinghy designing minds, let alone our very own grumpy old man.

Exactly that Rupert, that boat is the dinghy equivalent of a Div 2 Sailboard, which for those who don't know them were round bottom boards that were very very difficult to control off wind even by experts once the wind exceeded 4-5. But upwind were the nicest experience you could find in a race board, short of planing.

Quite honestly as impressed as I was with it's performance and it is fast, I have neither the time, nor the inclination to put into what it would take to become proficient enough just to climb up the side, never mind know what to do with all that wiggle stick and tbh if ever I got V3 built it would knock it into a cocked hat and be easy to sail anyway, so what would be the point?


(I'm guessing you have to sail them barefoot and with copious amounts of wax?)

Edited by iGRF - 20 Jan 14 at 8:51am

Had an early one ages ago, briefly   Gybe it all day no bother, couldn't tack it for toffee in waves though 

Originally posted by Kev M What did you think of the 300? Was it your first go in one?

Yes and in all probability my last would you like a list? I barely got back alive.

tbh no sooner than I left the dock I remembered what happened last time I borrowed a boat, so was more concerned with getting back to its owner without breaking it.

I found slippy bits in it didn't agree with the shoes I was wearing, the sides so steep i could barely see over the top, never mind climbing the North Face, the wiggle stick so long I worried that it might punch a hole in the sail and a crash gybe, near death role, convinced me to quit whilst it was still the right way up.



Edited by iGRF - 19 Jan 14 at 10:05pm