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What classes will survive ?

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    Posted: 19 Jun 08 at 7:04pm

Originally posted by G.R.F



Surely what is required is a boat that is equally adept at performing in a
Force 1 on Q.M. and a Force 6 in the Channel. Anytime, anywhere and
with the possibility to continue development in the future with a class not
tied to a builder and a rig open to any sailmaker and open to
development. 


 

I think, as Chas 505 has pointed out, these boats already exist. Not just 505s but many of the traditional performance symmetric classes will perform in these conditions.

Nevertheless, I think you make a valid point that some newer classes are too extreme for the weekend sailor or condition specific.

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JimC View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 10:29am
The trouble is you are in grave danger of ending up with a Camel - a horse designed by a committee.

Its very easy to design a boat that's equally mediocre in F0 and F6, but you've still got a mediocre boat... Its not so easy to design a boat that is really good to sail in such a wide range of conditions, and I haven't seen it done yet. And frankly it isn't going to be done by basing a boat on a fifty year old design, great as it was back then.

In my current boat I may sit on the beach in a gusty F6 because I'm not happy with my boat handling skills, but if instead I had a boat that was mediocre in all conditions then I'm almost certainly sell the boat and be sitting at home playing a guitar instead...

There's something I reckon I've observed from comparing the UK dinghy scene, with its superficially ridiculously large range of classes, and comparing it with the dinghy scene in other countries where they have a very limited range of classes and strong barriers to new ones. That is that many people, if given a choice between sailing a boat they don't like, and not sailing at all, won't sail at all. And why not - you do it for fun, so if its not fun don't do it.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote 3600Matrix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 10:46am
I'd say the Merlin is a pretty fantastic boat in all conditions.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote scullyman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 11:10am

I knew a girl called Pandora once...

I think Jim's point is a good'un but also agree with James.  (Sitting on the fence, the comfiest place to be).  I started sailing at a club in Cornwall that had a fantastically strong following in two main one design classes.  They weren't SMODs and there was plenty of grumbling about differing boatspeed but there were still 20 boats out for Wednesday and Sunday racing in both fleets every week.

Roll forwards a few years.  Complete absence of either.  Why?  Because there was a move towards newer boats and some people moved to 1720s, then SB3s, then realised that actually the sailing was more expensive and less fun than they anticipated, particularly given that new and better kit was being brought out all the time - not a problem in the older classes that they'd enjoyed - so they stopped sailing.  There were a few SB3s but nothing like it used to be.

Roll forward a few more years.  One of those two classes has been reinvigorated - primarily by hard work by the association and club members - and is thriving again with new members.  Yay all round!  But it just goes to show that a prevalence of classes CAN lead to people stopping sailing all together.

Probably horses for courses!  I think that you shouldn't try and limit the number of classes we've got 'cos there will always be people who love sailing extreme boats like 12ft skiffs.  Bonkers.  But classes need to work to promote class racing from club level upwards so that those people who want to sail and race in big fleets can do so.

I've no idea how.

Incidentally, and apologies for the off-topic comment, but how did these people messing around in development classes get so smart?!  I might not be the sharpest tool in the box but neither am I an idiot... but I'm completely lost when some 14-year old who has a moth and a cherub (not pointing at anyone on this forum) starts talking to me about flow cavitation caused by an inaccurate chord on the left foil - and then writes down a formula to explain it.  Aerospace of the next millenium?  Perhaps we should focus more on sailing in physics classes at school.

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Post Options Post Options   Quote tmoore Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 11:21am
Originally posted by scullyman

Incidentally, and apologies for the off-topic comment, but how did these people messing around in development classes get so smart?!  I might not be the sharpest tool in the box but neither am I an idiot... but I'm completely lost when some 14-year old who has a moth and a cherub (not pointing at anyone on this forum) starts talking to me about flow cavitation caused by an inaccurate chord on the left foil - and then writes down a formula to explain it.  Aerospace of the next millenium?  Perhaps we should focus more on sailing in physics classes at school.

my physics exam had a question on lift, drag and flow of air around a ball - very similar to a foil in many aspects. while the rest of the class were confused i just did it because of my reading of bethwaits bible

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Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 12:20pm
Originally posted by scullyman

but how did these people messing around in development classes get so smart?!  I might not be the sharpest tool in the box but neither am I an idiot... but I'm completely lost when some 14-year old who has a moth and a cherub


Its not that they're smarter, its just what we talk about... Maybe I'm a cynic because I dislike being intoxicated ( I like the booze, but I don't like the effects!) but it seems to me that "Legendary class socials" consist mainly of people talking about who got the jammy windshift while getting p******d. All well and good, but at the development boat events we spend a couple of hours talking about the serious techie stuff before hitting the impure aquaeous ethanol solutions hard, and there are always a few very smart people in those classes that you can learn a great deal from if you keep your ears open.

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Post Options Post Options   Quote Smight at BBSC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 12:53pm
Maybe it's because the people in the one design classes don't have to worry about foil shapes and sail shapes etc because they are already pre-determined. 
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Post Options Post Options   Quote NickA Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 1:17pm
Originally posted by scullyman

I started sailing at a club in Cornwall that had a fantastically strong following in two main one design classes. 

Is sailing really being ruined by a multitude of classes?  Or was there always a multitude of classes - at big clubs anyway- and fashions always came and went. 

I seem to remember that when I started sailing at Grafham in the early 70s - there were:

Optimists
Mirrors
Enterprises
Wayfarers
Larks
Kestrels
Fireballs
Flying 15s
All kinds of cats (Tornados included)
ICs
GP14s
5o5s

Most probably there were also:

graduates
albacores
tempests
flying dutchmen
lasers
solos
etc
etc

and I'd rather sail a modern boat than any of them (5o5 excepted perhaps).

... and if a club dictated what you had to sail, would you sail there?  I wouldn't.  Fleet racing isn't everything after all.

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Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 1:20pm
Originally posted by Smight at BBSC

Maybe it's because the people in the one design classes don't have to worry about foil shapes and sail shapes etc because they are already pre-determined. 

According to something I read in the press earlier this week Olympic Laser sailors worry deeply about sail shape, to a level of detail I'd probably be quite incapable of spotting! I suspect the top of the fleet in one designs like 4470s and Lasers are probably tuned to a far highe pitch than most development boats, simply because with less variables a world class sailor simply works on them with much more intensity.

But I remember thinking a few years ago, when the apre sail conversation ranged from aspects of working up Ellen MacArthurs' Open 60 to the implications of a heavy rainstorm on the engineering of Mirabella V's boom, that folk in one designs sure miss a lot... It beats the h**l out of talking about Big Brother...
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guest Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 Jun 08 at 1:45pm

Originally posted by 3600Matrix

I'd say the Merlin is a pretty fantastic boat in all conditions.

 

That is probably true and part of the reason it's going so well right now ...

When they went for the bigger kite with longer poles they really gave the boat a lift ...

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