New Boats 2005

By come and gone I was refering to boats that were either no longer being built by the original manufacturer or had apparently stopped production altogether.

Actually the B14 is a good case to back up my point about sailors being fickle,  aren't most of them ex - lark sailors??

Er, isn't everyone an ex-lark sailor? That is, anyone who sailed at university would have been a lark sailor. Mind you, I seem to remember spending most of the time bailing the d*mn things out and not actually sailing.

So you aren't allowed to change classes now?

And my point was 25 years isn't exactly "come & gone"...

On the subject of new classes damaging sailing, Every single class was new once for heavens sake!

If new boats didn't come along:

only I14s, Cherubs and Int. Canoes would have assymetric kites,

only I14s and Cherubs would have twin wires

the Contender would be the only trapeze single hander

Catamarans would not exist

How can sailing develop if new classes don't come along and mass market the good stuff from the development classes?  Not everybody wants to sail a Cherub or I14, N12, Merlin or Moth, but loads of people like assymetric kites, single & twin wiring, efficient hiking boats etc.

HOWEVER - a class ceasing to exist because the manufacturer is ready to move on and make some money off the fashion thing is not brilliant.  The only solution I can see is if manufacturer's were to agree that once they had had enough of supporting a class, they would donate the moulds to the Class Association along with the necessary rights, then classes could continue to exist for as long as people were enthusiastic enough to sail them...

Rant over, soapbox put away.

Having recently changed to a Laser 2 I could be biased of course, but the Laser centre still lists and sells all spares, so they're not difficult at all to obtain new ( although I concede masts may be a different story )

With 22 boats at last years nationals the attendance may be down on many other classes but it's still quite good. Taking my club in isolation there are 3 of them, while there are no merlins or fireballs, for example, which makes it a better supported class in this instance. And the potential is there for the three boats to interact with each other and attract new interest.