Auction of historic dinghies

Originally posted by iGRF

Originally posted by iGRF

OK lets' take the Austin A40, I once drove one to Germany in 1970 it took lots of petrol and 2 gallons of oil, I had a transistor radio scooting about the dashboard trying to stay tuned to radio luxemburg and I had to frequently stop to check my map or wind down the window to ask someone the way. Meanwhile Jack Holt was what?Just moving from his Solo into a Streaker and a Laser was about to be launched costing about the same price as my A40 if I bought a newer model.

So now I drive down the lake with fourwheel drive, abs, acr, gps, dab radio, internet access, a/c, electric sunroof, electric windows, google maps telling me the traffic's a bit busy and my journey will be 14 mins one way or I could try another and it will take 13minutes, then when I get there I ask what boat I should be sailing and they tell me Streaker, if I choose to go to Hythe&Stupid SC they'll tell me Laser, so what were you saying about the sport moving on?

And if you do sports like horse riding, cricket, or swimming - all popular activities - you'll probably use kit that hasn't changed any more than sailing has. 

What you're ignoring is that many classes had changed dramatically, as others have pointed out, and many areas of sailing have changed dramatically. The areas that have changed dramatically haven't done particularly well - how did windsurfing do when it threw away all the old classes?
There's been a lot of change in trapeze dinghies, and trapeze dinghies are now a much smaller part of the sport. Same thing with cats.

For many of us, the boat is just like a set of rules in other sports. The sport is in doing your best within those rules, so we're just as happy with rules from 1970 as people are with the rules of chess, which date back hundreds of years. Other people have a different way of looking at it and that's cool.