Hardware development

Originally posted by eric_c I don't see kites or cats or boards racing very much at amateur club level these days? Likewise with other 'equipment based sports', look at cycling. People get out and race mano-a-mano under a bunch of restrictive rules, when did you last see any streamiliner recumbants racing?

Lot's of points I'd argue with on the basis of you would never know what you'd like until someone developed it, but to take your road bike point that is exactly the same as dinghys, for years road bikes were tied to arcane restrictions and riders just resorted to the best chemical enhancement rather than any progress, which, all went on in Mountain bikes which bought all manner of advancements. Including suspension, brakes, gears, and now electric stuff, the only road bikes that went down that path were cheats.

Imagine a Road bike with micro suspension to deal with potholes and disk brakes, which have only just started to appear, Road bikers are exactly like dinghyists.

As to racing boards at Club level, thank the PY authority for refusing to issue boards with a yardstick and staid clubs for refusing, Bewl refused boards on Sundays for years. Our club was saved by windsurfers who now populate the dinghy park, I am however pleased to see clubs accepting wing foiling but as to racing them very unlikely for a while.


None of which is relevant as a reason for t**sers not developing a handy adjustment mechansims to the stays and being basically lazy or luddite in extreme, to perpetuate chain plates and split rings particulalry those that once dropped, vanish into the space time continuum.

Edited by iGRF - 10 Feb 22 at 5:21pm

Originally posted by eric_c As for split rings, there are several alternatives, all of which cost and weigh a lot more than a handful of spare split rings.

There you go again, all about price rather than performance let me guess, you're a GP14 sailor.

Edited by iGRF - 10 Feb 22 at 6:25pm

Originally posted by iGRF Originally posted by eric_c As for split rings, there are several alternatives, all of which cost and weigh a lot more than a handful of spare split rings. There you go again, all about price rather than performance let me guess, you're a GP14 sailor.

Fastpins?

Originally posted by iGRF I've had masts fall down mid race on five or six occasions and more often than not either a fastpin or a shackle failure was to blame. I even tried bottle screws, they come undone, so you wire them up, the wire eventually rusts, breaks and the mast came really close to falling down. Here's a stupid fact, I've had a mast come down more often in a dinghy mid race than on a windsurfing race board and there's nothing other than me holding it up.