V Twin

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by alstorer Mind you [Uffa Fox] did design keel boats as well as dinghies, so he must have recognised there is a place for weight after all Uffa made a distinction between weight and ballast.

And we all know who the ballast is around here

Funny I recall an instance back in the day, the RYA were promoting a new 'class' for us windsurfers, it was called Division 1 nicknamed the flatboard class which they deemed should have a minimum weight for the boards. So there we were putting 2 kilos of lead in our Mistral Superlights, meanwhile a bunch of 'mothies' were busy circumventing the sail measurement rules to cram as much area into the 6 sq mtr limit, that was OK, but having a light board wasn't - dinghy mentality it's the hypocrisy of it all that gets me.

Edited by G.R.F. - 23 May 12 at 12:38pm

minimum weights are there for consistency between boats of the same class to make as equal as poss. I agree that it does seem daft to make it lighter then add loads of weight back into a boat.

However the other benefits of min weights are that it means boats aren't built so light that they fall apart in a season or two. I know that materials these days overcome a lot of this but back a while they weren't. That helped people who didn't have loads of money and expected a boat to last a few years.

That said there is nothin wrong with finding a low min weight and limiting the amount of correctors that could be fitted, just don't use an artificially high min weight.

This is on reason why the phantom has worked over the years, it has a pretty low min weight and you are only allowed a max of 3kg correctors so there isn't an arms race going on to keep building lighter and lighter. The class seems to be doing ok but admittedly I don't expect the builders are making that much from them but how would having no min weight help them, it wouldn't. All that would happen is that people would disalussioned with the boat as a never ending change mobile and leave it. Don't think that would help the builders profit margins.

It's about wanting one design racing without the SMOD ideal and that means a min weight for am equal playing field.

by the way I never paid anyone to put the 1.5kgs in my boat. I got some old lead flashing, bashed it flat with a hammer and bolted it to the bulkhead.

Mind boggling, what are you on GRUMPH?  - crystal meth and Ex-lax - 'cos that's a helluva load of sh*te delivered in a very short time.

Edited by Slippery Jim - 23 May 12 at 12:59pm

Judging by the prices that are charged for dinghy sailing beach holidays, the sport of dinghy sailing isn't dying, just changing. The 1950's model of lots of small clubs scattered around doing their own thing, either handicap racing or class racing, is struggling. Personally, I like being a member of a small club, but the politics of it all wears me down occasionally.

I really can't see how that has anything to do with how heavy boats are. I also have no real idea what the solution is, and reading this thread hasn't helped one bit in finding out.

Fab100, your are really on fire today - loved the postings!