What classes will survive ?

Originally posted by Guest#260 Originally posted by getafix - agree that speed and fun aren't linked that closely, Rubbish ... who likes going slow?

I'd rather good racing in a slower dinghy than rubbish racing in a faster one...

I'm moving from an 800 this year to a 200 next (for reasons NOT related to the quality of the racing in either fleet, as they are both excellent), and I'm really looking forward to it!

Originally posted by Guest#260 Do you pootle around on a motorbike?

Something I observed in the bike trade, which I spent several years in, is that the very fastest aren't actually that much fun. If the guys fancied a bit of a trip they'd be much more likely to go out on smaller bikes that they could take towards the limit rather than something high powered that you have to back off all the time if you want a life expectancy of more than 3 months.

As far as I'm concerned, having ridden, when I stopped bothering to count, well over a hundred different models of bike, and several hundreds of thousands of miles, riding a 150mph bike at 100mph isn't nearly as much fun as riding a 60mph bike at 60mph. I'd much rather ride a small, light and relatively low powered bike flat out than a high powered one backed off. I'd much rather sail my Canoe than a 60 foot multihull, and I'd much rather sail an old style moderate rig Cherub than a 49er. So no, hitting the boundaries is fun, but just plain speed doesn't excite me that much. Hell we all know that, that's why we're in sailboats not motorboats...

On the "consolidate into big fleets": thee are countries that do that, and their sailing scene sucks compared to the UK. If I had to sail a Laser or a Solo I wouldn't sail at all. In any case, apart from the odd special occasion, I dislke sailing in a fleet of nore than about thirty boats: the race is three quarters over halgfway up the first beat, and what fun is that? There are a suprisingly large number of folk who feel like that, and why the hell not: its our time and effort.

As for ISAF not listening: if you believe that then I recommend that this November you take the time to read all the submissions that come into ISAF from all the National Authorties, and then see how the decisions and the conference relate to that. When I did it I learned some big lessons about how folk in other countries feel, and they're a lot different from we rich westerners. And who the hell are we to tell them what to do?

Edited by JimC

Originally posted by JimC Originally posted by Guest#260 Do you pootle around on a motorbike? Something I observed in the bike trade, which I spent several years in, is that the very fastest aren't actually that much fun.

Perhaps not the best anology because of the risk of death/loss of license.

However I have to say 160mph on an FZR1000 was more gripping than thrashing my VFR400.

It's a matter of taste of course.

That said the great thing about sailing is there are no speed limits and crashing generally is painless & inexpensive.

I like speed, or perhaps the sensation of being on the edge ...

Another example is downhill skiing v slalom ...

Originally posted by getafix Originally posted by Chris 249 <span style="font-style: italic;">- <span style="font-weight: bold;">29er or 49er is a heck of a lot less "outdated" than the Finn, Star or Yngling....</span></span> Yes, in a lot of ways a 9er IS less "outdated" than a Finn, Star or Yngling. Yet the 9ers are also "outdated" in some ways compared to a Lazich- modified 18, an I-14, a foiler Moth, etc. The point is that 9er sailors don't enjoy their boats any less because they are slightly "outdated" so why shouldn't other sailors enjoy even more outdated boats? <span style="font-weight: bold;">-</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> agree that speed and fun aren't linked that closely, but when the point of the game is to get round the course as quick as possible, and have fun, then surely embracing technical advances that facilitate that isn't bad?  if you have fun racing an Ent for example, good on you I say, but you wouldn't hold up the Ent as the bleeding edge of dinghy sailboat design would you?</span> Yes, but isn't the point of the game getting around the course as quickly as possible WITHIN A SET OF RULES? After all, we sail on slow courses (we don't just reach) on gear that is slowed down by rules (even a foiler Moth or 18 is slower than it could be). Yes, an Ent isn't bleeding edge design. It was never designed to be bleeding edge in speed, it was designed by a master whose aim was to create a popular boat. When designers aimed more to create popular boats rather than fast ones, the sport did a lot better. The Ent could be held up as a great boat for those who want a fascinating tactical boat that can be used by most sailors. What we have to stop, for the sake of the sport, is the destructive people who sl*g such boats off as out of date . . <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">- so given the choice you'd use cheap, low tech plain bearing blocks on your mainsheet, not ball-bearing (carbo) ones?  why bother with epoxy, FRP or carbon fibre when we've got GRP and polyvynlester resin.....</span> Yes, the boat I now sail more than the others has several cheap, low tech plain bearing blocks. It's the most popular boat in the world. It outsells everything (apart from perhaps the Opti). It's Olympic. I can't really see why throwing more money to change blocks would make anything much better. Sure, maybe the mainsheet takes more muscle; if we want to start complaining about things like that where will we stop? GRP single-skin boats can be great for club racing. They take hits well. They can be cheap. They don't "bruise" when you get a gust while they are in the rack. I've had carbon/kevlar hulls and part-carbon masts for over 20 years and sailed on a bunch of autoclave-cured Nomex pre-preg carbon Maconaghy etc hulls. They do one job well, single skin GRP alloy-sparred boats do another job well. The point is that surely we can respect one type as much as the other. <span style="font-weight: bold;">- </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">I don't think Clubs, anymore than big builders, are going to shoot themselves in the foot by only allowing fast, modern designs, and I think a good spread of classes means a good spread of ages, shapes and abilities and there's nothing wrong with that.... but my point was about some clubs and nationally organised 'training and development' programs that help continue these old classes against what I believe, would be '<span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">death by market forces'</span> in any other circumstance, if you don't like what the club wants you to sail, choose another club, there's plenty out there, but there's only one RYA program for yoof sailors....</span> Sure, it's a valid point. However, take out RYA/ISAF/whatever programme classes, and what do we see? We see that many sailors, or most sailors, choose to sail slower boats. Solos, 125s and Sabres (down here), RS200s, Larks, Scorps, Ents, US Club 420s etc don't get squad support, but they are more popular than the fast boats that do get squad support. why should they support sailing? <span style="font-weight: bold;">-</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> personally I believe the ISAF spend a lot more time having expense lunches and  listening to entrenched opinion from existing classes <with very effective lobbying by the Finn, Star fraternity in particular> and very little time listening to what </span><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">any</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> countries tell them, or even their own technical committee for flips- sake!</span> Have you read the submissions from the various countries? They are there on the ISAF site. They are rarely arguing for newer classes. I'm not quite sure the Technical Committee are necessarily all that in touch; a lot of people have a view that the world is going towards fast boats and there seems to be no evidence. If the TC thought everyone was going to sail cats or skiffs or boards, I'm glad ISAF is there to correct them.

Rick re "Rubbish ... who likes going slow?"

I would say that the hundreds of RS200 sailors, Laser sailors, Squib
sailors, Solo sailors, XOD sailors, Pico sailors, Salcomble yawl sailors, Lark
sailors, Scorp and Ent sailors enjoy going "fairly slow". All of these get
biggest nationals fleets than the most popular skiff type.

The sensation of speed is largely comparative and our enjoyment of is it
subjective, or else a ride in cattle car in a 747 would be the peak
experience of our lives. The MPS is a fantastic boat, but it's damn slow
compared to the fastest singlehander (A Class cat) or the morning bus to
work. Does that mean you don't enjoy your MPS? Of course not!

If speed under sail is all-important, why bother sailing anything but
speed boards or big cats? Dunno about the people who sail slow/medium
pace boats around your place, but around here many of them are
intelligent, experienced sailors (our Mirror champ is a former 18 Foot
skiff "world" champ, former top pro windsurfer and Tornado worlds
runner-up) who get a hell of a kick out of slow boats. He is not stupid.
Who has the right to tell him that he is not having fun?

I'm not so interested in the fast/slow debate, as it strikes me as utterly ridiculous. Someone used the motorsport analogy, and clearly doesn't understand the motorsport world. The vast majority of people who take part in motorsport do so in pretty slow machinery. The challenge is in extracting the maximum out of what you have, not moving on to the latest, fastest thing to appear on the track-day map. If that were the case, everyone would be at their track-days driving Radicals

What really winds me up is the attitude that "outdated" classes are labelled dinosaurs and should be killed off in some way, and this would make sailing more appealing to a generation that has the attention-span of a goldfish already. Classes will survive as long as there are people who want to sail them. I'm not convinced the emergence of (relatively) big business has been beneficial to the dinghy scene. Do RS and Laser really have any interest in building what people want, or do they in fact distort the "market" when they offer the latest rotomoulded, dumbed-down all-purpose tub with 0% finance, trade-in deals, ready-made "fun" social scene etc etc? Does anyone really want a Vago, or is it the easy option? I genuinely don't know, but I know I don't!

Neil