V Twin

Originally posted by G.R.F.

Originally posted by G.R.F.

Let me give you another world of basic economics, Bikes, where they spend £5-6000 a pop, frequently and own two or three, the sad fact is there are parallel worlds where people are still spending big sums on their sport activities, provided the product brings with it added value and reason to change.

Take away the reason to change and you take away the desire to innovate and improve, having the fixed status quo of people like you as 'advisors' to the newcomers to the sport perpetuates the stagnation.
Having everything so difficult, just because you and your peers took so long to learn, so that must be the way for everyone, also limits potential.

It's not a question of cost, and talking of sane, why is it sane to spend tens of thousands on a clinker built anachronism because it's what, anti-cool? Building a £1200 carbon mast that is so spindly it snaps at the first half decent gust, those boys at our club who recently bought one must be gutted.

There's plenty of money around if the need arises, what the problem is, is the route to the market for the folk who have the money, what happens to them is they get advised by people like you and so the charade persists.

There is no super GT performer to sell at added value, even you fell for what we all thought was one, then got bitterly disappointed because it was a shiny version of the same ole same ole and riddled with faults that no entry level adult could cope with, even quite reasonable and capable sailors had to junk it, so, all the time that continues you'll dwindle, which is a shame, because it needn't be that way.

I'm taking a total newcomer, MD of a local company, I'm going to teach him to sail and crew for me in the Alto, would I have a hope in hell of doing that in a 505? No, not a chance and even now after 8 years and I'm not exactly a newcomer to sailing, would I go near anything as complex as that, it's needlessly complex in this day and age.

So you and I, we're worlds apart, you however already have what you want, it's all there, exactly as you like it and dying exactly as I predict it will unless there is an easier yet still accessible high performance route into sailboat racing that attracts the adult adventure seeker with high levels of disposable income, sorry to break that to you, but as usual like most dinghy sailors you're wrong. 

Grumpf, many of the bikes that you hold up as an example of progress are designed to the same sort of restrictive rules as something like a Merlin Rocket. The basic shape of a road bike was largely frozen before the Merlin was even created. Both have developed, from steel and wood to carbon, and performance has probably improved about the same amount in each case.

So in many ways, the bikes that you hold up as an example are the same as the boats you criticise. Yes, some bikes (MTBs) have developed faster but ironically their popularity started to decline as they became more "advanced" so how does that support your argument? Yes, some aspects of modern bikes have made them more convenient to use than older bikes, but the same thing has happened in boats.

And of course the hipsters of today are hunting down Austin-7 vintage bikes and making them even slower by getting rid of the gears, so the idea that yoof demand new bling falls down there too. 

One of the reasons that bikes have become more popular is the modern accent on simple flatbar/hybrid machines which are great because they are accessible, but they are NOT light and in fact are normally heavier than older road bikes. So once again, there's not much evidence that boats are developing more slowly.

One thing that always interests me is that cyclist and the cycling media and press spend a lot less time complaining about the sport and a lot more time celebrating it, despite the fact that progress isn't very fast.

PS - bikes do present some other interesting analogies. For a start, the reason for minimum weight rules is illustrated by the current pricing of various models of a top-line bike (Cervelo S5). Each gram saved (so you can add weight elsewhere to reach the minimum weight ) in the more expensive models costs around $12 US. Imagine the expense in chasing minimum weight in a larger structure like a boat hull, if we were free to go to that extent. And we're talking about a bare frame that is only about a metre long, 1kg in weight, is already built in Taiwan, and costs only $165 less than a complete Laser!

Edited by Chris 249 - 24 May 12 at 6:57pm