Multi-rig racing

Originally posted by zippyRN the interesting thing with 'multi rig' racing  is that it goes on in other classes and no-one bats and eyelid   different cut  sails ( both white and  spi) , use of genoas and jibs on classes with both ...  but it;s suddenly an issue with  siungle handers becasue  there is sufficient data to produce seperate  PYs  for the different rigs and  with Laser there was the promotion of the raser ladial as a seperate class  for girls and lightweights

I can't off hand think of anything else other than the Laser where it regularly happens in dinghies. Its the two classes but one class bit that confuses it.

If you consider the RS300 and the RS100 for example, the RS300 doesn't seem to have any significant amount of rig swapping going on. When it was new the two rigs were regarded as equalisation, and rig swapping was banned for the extremes of weight ranges, and severely discouraged for the middle. Even though they don't have the weight ranges now I've never heard of rig swapping, and the small rig seems to be moribund.

The RS100, on the other hand is a perfect candidate for multiple rigs as a spinnaker boat. The trouble with putting a small sail on a single sail boat, as I discovered with my project, is that as long as you can hang on to the big sail uphill you want to, because you lose so much on the downwind. With a kite boat you don't have that issue, and I always thought that was why the skiff classes, with unlimited rag and downwind sails, were the only boats that used multiple rigs much. So with the RS100 it makes complete sense to have a quiver of rigs, and select the right one for the day. However the class was always keen to establish separate identities, and it doesn't seem to happen that much. Maybe buying two sails and two masts was a bit too much?

But suddenly with the Aero we're seeing it the other way, although they are much better labelled as separate classes than the RS100 was, we're seeing at least some early adopters thinking they must have multiple rigs. Odd. be interesting to see how the class(es) settle down once people are familiar with them.

But its also true that we seem to be seeing more rig swapping in Lasers at my club than we ever used to, and even a request from one of our more mature sailors to be allowed a separate handicap for his Solo storm sail because he finds it so dispiriting to be way off the pace on the days when its storm sail or not go sailing.

I have some theories about enthusiasm for rig swapping, but that's enough of an essay for now.

Edited by JimC - 07 Mar 15 at 7:15pm

the interesting thing with 'multi rig' racing 

Delated - for a quiet life ! 


Edited by blaze720 - 07 Mar 15 at 6:24am

Will the timings be sent back to the RYA as sailing the correct rig? I suspect in many cases, not. So then you get an Aero 5 in a blow being returned as an Aero 9.

I guess I'm of the "sail what you like" school, but am unconvinced by it being scored in the same set of points.