IYRU, ISAF, WS Rejects ...

Down here in Australia, where we obviously have a long tradition of skiffs AND clubs where you get paid just to finish a Sunday race at the back of the fleet, there are very few women sailing skiffs. Proportionately far more women seem to sail hiking singlehanders, yachts and jib-and-main hiking doublehanders.

2007 Women's Skiff Trials. 29er, 29erXX, RS800, Cherub Daemon, Carbonology GT60 and International 14. All satisfied the criteria but no 'winner' announced. There was no wind at the selection trials so another round was to be held... but women's high performance skiff got binned at the mid-year meeting. 

I'm not sure what GT60 is, so presumably it's not been a big success. The 29er XX was the worst boat I've sailed, and apart from a few rigs never gained much traction and any hopes were killed off at the 2012 trials. The rest were existing classes which have all continued as they were but none revisited the 2012 trials. 

Originally posted by JimC Did the 900 win? I'm trying to find the report, but I'm sure the FX came out top in sailors' preferences.

On the question of who 'won' the 2012 trials both the FX and 900 were recommended. There's a pretty full round up here. But if any boat won it was the FX. 

RS900: MNA Sailor Feedback - Number of sailors First Choice = 6, Second Choice = 6, Third Choice = 6

49er FX: First Choice = 11, Second Choice = 7, Third Choice = 0

In my opinion the 900 was the best boat. The FX was faster, longer and wider. Even now in decent breeze it will give 49er a good race. But it suited a heavier crew. The argument was that the FX would be easier to get a fleet with just rigs being needed. But in practice very few people buy rig only and put them on existing hull. The cost / benefit are very different than a radial/laser switch! I think long term the 900 might have been better in terms of sailor size. 

Hi Rupert!

I think we once discussed this over on the cvrda forum- someone there had a Unicorn. It is an interesting question that you've posed, but in the end, it is just one of many that came out of the Cat Trials! Talk about leaving even more questions unanswered. I used to sail and still see quite often one of the crews from the B Class Trials (if you want to find anything out around here, the freezer aisle at Tescos is the place for sailors to meet) and some of the early A Class crowd.  It's a shame, for the Australis was such a pretty boat but in these pre-carbon days there were valid questions from the outset if it would ever be robust enough for the rough and tumble of every day sailing. The one that was sailed down at Weston a lot seemed to lack the ruggedness of the Unicorn - but at the time, the Australian boat had the better rig. But again, talking to the guys who were there (accepting that they might have axes to grind) their comments seem to be that the Unicorn was the better boat, let down by the rig That said, it might have been political expediency to spread the results out a bit, so the UK could claim success with Tornado, the Aussies with Australis. This leaves you with the possibility of reasking the question but in a different way: what if...Unicorn had sailed with a more sorted rig OR what if the Australis could have been delivered as agreed -only to come up with the same answer. Back then, had the market for a single handed cat been overstated? We've seen this happen with other genres and with regard to the A class, for a long time the Unicorn was still the best of the bunch and that includes the Euro boats too. So maybe..not so much that it stunted growth, but that it filled the niche that existed 'at that time'!

The Australis that was around here is now long gone but we still have Unicorns sailing and if you get a chance to have a go, do so, they're still a cracking boat to sail!

Dougal