Topper Sport 14

Does any one have any tips or gold nuggets they would like to share on racing the Sport 14.  I have had the boat 11 years and although I am not the greatest of helms really good performance on our club lake continues to illude me.  On some points of sail it can be very fast and on others darn right embarrasing, in light airs the boat is a disaster and I often I also lose a lot of speed rounding a mark (but this may be the helm?).  In a pursuit the boat is started with the Lasers, but as I am a solo sailor managing the kite is often a hindrance, but without it the boat often does not have the downwind pace.  The User Manual is little more than a text on how to put the thing together and offers little wisdom on tuning the boat.  I have often found getting a good main sail shape in the Mylar mainsail at set up is difficult and results in many creases. If you have any advice on how to set it up for sailing predominantly under main and jib I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

You are fighting two problems here, firstly sailing it single handed will always be slower, realistically you are well within your rights to have the handicap adjusted to make account of this.  Secondly the boat was not desined to race, and has never performed well on the race course, by topper's own admission they got it wrong (even more so with the sport 16!!)  I would suggest that you read up the the tuning guies for the enterprise and wanderer for a general overview of how to set the boat up, the principles will be the same, even if the application differs slightly. 

I am just wondering the number of persons that can be carried by a Sport 14, some say 2, some say up to 5 but I could never find the "official" information. Does anyone have the answer (maybe from the user manual ?). I seriously consider buying one used Sport 14 for family sailing, (we are 2 parents and 3 teen agers, let's say about 350 kg total family weight).

Thanks for any advice you could give.

hi laserfan

we have a sport 14 in our club and we have had three adults and kids in so it does carry the weight well they are good boats well made and strong just not very fast but are good as training boats.it will never race to its handicap .

so i would say get one and enjoy it.

 

I've just joined the group and this forum.  I've just acquired a Sport 14 and noticed that this thread mentions a "User Manual" - can anyone tell me where I can get one, or possible send me a PDF of theirs?

(The previous posts are all dated 2008 - so I maybe talking to no-one!)