The Evolution of Expense

Or fools and their money...

In the beginning mast steps consisted of a slot or a hole in which you put the mast step. Cost on a wooden boat - well, about 10 minutes work, lets say £10 at modern labour rates.

===================================

Next we went to Adjustable metal racks:


16 quid. And many classes have stopped there.

But for proud parents it doesn't stop.

Your darlings Oppie can have an adjustable mast step :

And this will set you back 29 quid.


Getting silly? How about a High performance mast step with low friction and an adjustment scale.

Yours for 42 quid, which might take only a second for a company director to earn, but rather more for an ordinary working family.

But now there's even more. You can now buy a Optimist megastep



For only 78 quid, over 10 hours work on the minimum wage, you can have this doubtless superbly engineered piece of gear on your kids Oppie.

But I ask you, will they be having any more fun than they would if the class abolished all this ridiculous excess and went back to a piece of wood with a hole in? They're probably among the worst offenders in terms of what the rules allow as opposed to what the boat needs, but by no means the only ones.

The trouble is its very hard for class administrators. There will always be people pushing how much better the class would be with this or that, but please, retain some damn balance...

Edited by JimC - 06 Mar 15 at 11:15am

Honestly, how many parents are going to wonder if that will make the difference little Henry or Henrietta Hooray needs to push to the front of the fleet, genius bit of marketing, when can we have them for proper boats?

My son won Silver Fleet Opens in a old shape, 1980's home built Oppy with no mast adjustment. In fact bugger all anything on it.

Option 1)

Moth bits are expensive - clever, light, strong, low friction etc etc, but £343.06 ( + postage from AUS ) for a wand pivot?
http://www.sailingbits.com/class-specific/moth-bow-mechanism/