New ladies skiff

Originally posted by Menace I actually meant the fashion over justification statement over the dreadnought bow, simply from the fact that if you don't need it, why have it when it complicates the build process and reduces the profit margins. In the same instance, if you had the boat without the different bow, it would probably fall behind the 49er FX and RS900 as another also ran boat and because it looks different, people may feel it's different. If you look at the 14s, it's still the boats with the more conventional bows that are doing the damage at the worlds, POW etc and I wouldn't have been losing any sleep over the fact that my 14 didn't have a dreadnought bow. Would have if it was an F18 though.   I understand the misunderstanding (Is that English?), however, as en ex boatbuilder, I can not see that this hull, would be any more expensive to build than others of a similar type. Jon I fully support the female skiff concept, and would have liked to go one further and go for a mixed skiff too, which in my mind you would have the 49er for the males, 49er FX for the females and then give the mixed teams the choice of which rig to go off, like in the 18s.

I'd say that the dreadnought is a good thing in a box rule class - it's basically paring away volume, weight and windage out of the bow whilst maintaining the waterline length.
Don't think it has to complicate build.
I think that reserve buoyancy is a massively misunderstood quantity in monohull dinghies.

It could be said that having such a feature on what is intended to be a one design class isnt necessary.
However I'd argue that being progressive and thinking about little improvements is good - if we all so negative then we'd have our one design racing American style in lightnings and thistles.

Having 10deg of sweep on your stem isn't going to win you the 14 worlds. Being great at 14 sailing, and having a great foil and rig package is.

Remember an a cat hull is 17" long and prob about 1" wide.
A razorblade would look blunt next to that.
Aura is prob about 16" long and say 4 or 5" wide.
As long at the angle of entry of the waterplane is where you want it (I'm sure it is on the aura) then you're only winning with the dreadnought.
The other thing that will trick the eye is the lower freeboard - this will make the bow look "dumpier" than it really actually is.

Originally posted by gbr940 it looks more like the future of the Cherub then a production boat for the Olympics!

Looks a good three feet too long to be that. Personally I'd need to see sme rather more useful pictures of this boat to be prepared to comment on it though.

Bearing in mind the apparent sales figures so far of the 29erXX the motivation for Ovington to have an alternate candidate for the Womens two hander seems obvious. MacKay knows his way round a performance boat too.

Originally posted by getafix ... seems to have been designed recently, rather than in the 50's, surely that rules it out of contention...

How many of the curent Olympic classes were designed in the 50s?
Star - 1910
Finn - 1949
470 - 1963
Laser - 1969
Laser Radial - 1969/1980s?
49er - 1995
Elliot 6m - 2000/2008
RSX - 2004