Alto - Why?

Originally posted by boatshed Originally posted by English Dave The B14 is a cracking boat and I am surprised that no one has attempted to make the kite-launch any easier. The B14 kite is around 300 sq ft.   Thats a big load of fabric to wreck on each haul up & down through a small shute on quite a small hull with low freeboard.   And the shute and kite would fill with and trap water.  I'm fairly certain if a B14 was modified to a shute, it would end up being slower around a course. If you are sailing triangles, then the bag system pants for windward launches and I agree a small kite in a shute is better ( ie RS 800).  But the B14s sail up and down courses, so windward and leeward launches are fine. I have never sailed a B14 but I14s have chutes and what must be a similar sized asy.

I'm quite impressed by anyone who can deal with the technicalities of an I14 and face it, it's the one boat
that has triumphed in the face of the skiff onslaught.
There was one on the Holt stand, and looking at it, it's probably easier to understand the
Reisner-Norstrom Solution
than work out which rope to pull.

So getting back to chutes, in the greater scheme of things how does the Alto chute capacity look
compared to an I14?



Personally I'd like to see a bigger chute and it take off further up the mast.

What acerage do you have comeing out of that tube then? Looks a nice smooth ring (fnar fnarr), should slide in and out nicely (someone stop me). That cover Mylar like on the '9er bags to shed water from the top? Still going to get in at the sides, but I suppose it is better than having an all mesh/dacron tube.

 

As for the I14, it didn't merely become skiff-like, it merged with the Aussie 14ft Skiff Association- which is why there's a 12ft, 16ft and 18ft Skiff class down under, but nothing actually called a 14ft Skiff. Of course, the very adjustable rig does set them apart somewhat from their antipodean half-brothers.

Edited by alstorer

Many thanks to all you guys for your comments. They are all
valuable ,especially at this final stage of the AltO's development.

Firstly I would apologise to radixon if I thought his comments applied to
our stand especially as he spent so much time admiring the wrong boat.
The AltO was certainly not dumped, or in a corner! If our stand was
unmanned for more than 10 minutes all show then I would be surprised.
More than 150 brochure sheets went with some left over, and at the end
of the show the trapeze wires had not been nicked!.
Re. martin555's comments, the pole does look 'slim'. In fact in four years
of use it has not broken and that includes the Alton Water frostbite series
07 durig which the wind was usually force six with some seven gusts! To
keep it slim and therefore light it was a carbon coated aluminium pole.
The production pole on the show boat you will note iis more chunky!

Unlike boats such as the B14 it was not intended to be an extreme
machine. However it was designed to fit into the average dinghy park!

Regarding the suggetion that a new class today can only be started by big
business with advertising and marketing muscle, then recent events have
shown that classes created this way have too often had short lives with
the big muscle of marketing finally pulling the plug and ceasing
production. With the right product it is better to have natural organic
growth created by demand with built in long term protection of the new
class. This leads on to coment(s) re. changing one designs. Concenrnig
the AltO, it is only now being released as a new class. Changes to date
have been part of the natural developement of this class prior to it's
release. Future changes to this one design class such as in construction
and materials in order to remain competitiely priced would be at the
instigation of the class association. The intension of any such changes
would not be to increase the boats speed thus affecting the value of
existing class boats as has been done recently in several classes.

What the AltO is, and why, will be explained shortly in the next altobaots
.com website revision when the history page will be added.

Thanks again to all you guys who write and read on this forum and for
showing such an interest in this new class.

As I think I've said, having seen the boat at the dinghy show, I'm more positive about the future of this boat. My comments before hand had been based on what I'd seen of the prototype, which did not inspire confidence at all.

I won't be buying one- even if I had the money to buy a new boat, I'd be going for something a bit more skiff-esque- but it does now look like a "real" boat, rather than a franken-craft. I'm still not convinced on your pole system- I think the comments about it being a bit weedy looking relate to the bow-fitting, but as you say, you've yet to have it fail in test sailing.

As for taking up room in the dinghy park, what's the beam of the AltO? With the cover on, the B14 is barely wider than a Laser.