RS aero

what a cheery ol' subject for a Friday afternoon. 

shall we go back to discussing an irrational distaste for dacron sails Simon...?  

I'd not suggest to anyone that they go under the boat for any reason, but it may well be they either end up there themselves after a capsize or they decide for themselves that it is the best way of solving a problem. If either is the case, then it makes sense to become familiar with the underneath of a turtled boat. However, I'd not say that it should be part of a course. But, a course is a safer environment in which to try it. So I'm a little conflicted on this one...

After the situation a few years ago when someone tragically died in an entanglement I had to rewrite all the RS manuals to include the advice from the RYA inquiry, if I remember correctly it was that someone should get to the centreboard as quickly as possible to try and avoid inversion. Don't have a manual here anymore so I can't check the exact wording, but we also fitted every boat with a device to stop the C/B dropping back when the boat was inverted. This was particularly important on the weighted board on the venture: I did get moaned at by an instructor once who'd somehow managed to capsize a venture with a weighted board when it was full of pupils and he'd modified the safety leash to allow him to sail with the board half up.

On our old Javelin the old, wet, sticky, kite used to jam in the chute and I used to crawl under the foredeck to free it off. The thought of being under there wrapped in spinnaker and string when the boat went over gave me bad dreams!