R Speculation

Well, I guess with Laser being the obvious model, each rig would constitute a different fleet. Otherwise you'd have the situation where those at the lighter end of the weight spectrum are invested with the advantage of changing sails to suit the breeze. Those at the heavier end wouldn't benefit at any time from opting for a smaller sail. The racing would soon become perceived as unfairly biased towards lightweights and in a society where people-size is on the up, not a good move really!

Originally posted by Jeepers At class events you'll probably have to declare which rig beforehand and have to stick with it. So I don't really see a huge benefit in having different sail sizes for different wind strengths in terms of those who would race their boats in a reasonably serious fashion. Most, I would suspect, would aim to develop their expertise using the same sail across the wind range.

Funny, I'd have said that having 3 rigs would mean that once small people are overpowered with the 9, heavy people are always going to be able to use a larger rig, right to the point where they are down to a 5 and the lightweights are blown off the water.

I suspect both scenarios can be true at different times.

Originally posted by rb_stretch You should pick your rig and stick to it.

Edited by kneewrecker - 25 Sep 14 at 1:41pm

I have enough trouble with the EPS, my upper limit has improved, but it's still sub 15 knots, not much I can seem to do with that 9.4, but then I wouldn't have expected to do it on a windsurf rig either where you can at least depower it, hall it over further to windward. It also has a small sail, I've got one, used it once, it was total pants, not having the right mast which they say is a new lower section so I can't see how that would improve much, what's needed with a smaller sail for me is a 'twistier' off top.

So what it gets down to for us lightweights I guess if we must single handed, it has to be with a sail geared to stronger wind, hence my assumption that however small it sounds, the 7.4 would be an optimum one size fits all. Now I haven't used it, I've raced against one with a Europe capable girl rocking it and made very little headway against her with a Zero and an 8.1 (gained a bit upwind, lost it all off wind).

Which was why I was always interested in a boat that had a kite to pick up what a small sail lost on the upwind leg.

Has anyone ever put a sym kite on a single hander?