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yellowwelly View Drop Down
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Posts: 2003 		Post Options Post Options   Quote yellowwelly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: R Speculation
    Posted: 21 Jan 14 at 9:53pm
I guess the trick is not to worry too much about the fleet racing thing... let boat sales happen through organic growth to enthusiasts, buying for a variety of reasons, and then the bones of a class are there.

Pick a few open events you hope to all make - ideally ones which enable fleet starts with 10+ boats, the social infrastructure is already there, the racing infrastructure too*... if the forecast is crap, sack it off en masse and save the pass for another day.  

AGM?  Well you can call it that if you want, alternatively just go and grab a curry with new mates and old, or prop the bar up at the host sailing club... whatever works really.


(* not my idea, robbed totally off someone else who robbed it off someone else...)


Edited by yellowwelly - 21 Jan 14 at 9:53pm
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yellowwelly View Drop Down
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Posts: 2003 		Post Options Post Options   Quote yellowwelly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 14 at 10:24pm
Originally posted by iGRF

Originally posted by sandgrounder


Hasn't this subject already been thrashed to death elsewhere on here....?



Well yes but this time it appears to be happening, but like buses you wait for ages and not just one but two come along together.

beggars can be choosers... with any luck
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iGRF View Drop Down
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 14 at 11:10pm
Originally posted by Wetabix

- just how much better than the existing boats does a new boat have to be to get itself established as a class,

It just needs to be modern, have carbon mast, be light, be no faster or slower than a Laser, have no foibles like sheets getting caught on the rear quarter, masts staying pre bent, sails getting shagged after one season then we just get to race it against other Lasers - simples
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iitick View Drop Down
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Posts: 392 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iitick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jan 14 at 11:41pm
Originally posted by iGRF

Originally posted by Wetabix

- just how much better than the existing boats does a new boat have to be to get itself established as a class,

It just needs to be modern, have carbon mast, be light, be no faster or slower than a Laser, have no foibles like sheets getting caught on the rear quarter, masts staying pre bent, sails getting shagged after one season then we just get to race it against other Lasers - simples

We have one but most of you are to fat to sail it.
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yellowwelly View Drop Down
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Posts: 2003 		Post Options Post Options   Quote yellowwelly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jan 14 at 7:29am
And forum policy would dictate that we're too old to...
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Posts: 1312 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Do Different Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jan 14 at 8:39am


I know it has been suggested before but maybe something that could bring the spirit of the 50s home building into the current era of grp & affordable custom carbon tech would be a VERY simple formula circuit.

The likes of the Punk & New RS would be the buy & bring option but also it would be open to home builds, hackers and pimpers.

Instead of being constrained by SMOD nit picking individuals could pick and adapt whatever they want to suit their weight, height, preferences and skill level.

The £100 Laser from the boat park nettles could be the everyman option for tweaking. Home built foils, modified decks for more comfortable hiking with custom carbon rigs switched to suit weight & wind.  
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jan 14 at 8:44am
Trouble is, the rig is now so expensive that putting one on a butchered £100 Laser would mean ending up with a boat worth considerably less than the rig cost in the 1st place, as you have a boat with no real re-sale value. Compare that to Yellow Welly and his Solo experience, where I expect the boat was sold for not TOO huge amount of depreciation - at least compared to putting new kit on old boats. And most sailors aren't that interested in the design and build side of things.
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Do Different View Drop Down
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Posts: 1312 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Do Different Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jan 14 at 9:12am
All sound economic points Rupert.

I guess on a dinghy development thread some I thought people might be interested in pimping and fettling above resale values and sticking with the herd.

I wasn't thinking everyone would go out and order a brand new custom rig. There is always Ebay to trawl, broken stuff in the boat park and back yard ingenuity to explore.

Obviously horses for courses. Some by inclination, practical skills or available time will always prefer the "plug and play" option. 

However wouldn't it be nice (in my head anyway) if the Fred Dibnahs, Guy Martins and Scrap Heap Challenge enthusiasts had an arena to play in as well?

 
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jeffers View Drop Down
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Posts: 3048 		Post Options Post Options   Quote jeffers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jan 14 at 9:13am
I think a lot of people are missing the point here. A lot of sailors simply don't have £5k+ to buy in to a new class. At Hunts we do have the people who have this kind of cash and they do have new boats. Then you have those at the other end of the scale who scrape round and buy the best boat they can afford and might scrape together funds for a new sail the following year.

This is why older 'dead' classes are sometimes a better route and is also the key to the success of the Laser. It has a massive presence already. You can pick up a boat that is perfectly capable of winning races for £500 (my first Laser was £495 and I won club races in it).

Any new class has that problem to deal with. This is why the Rooster project X was such a tantalising prospect. The all up cost was purported to be about £2.5k for a new boat. This brings it within the reach of a lot more people financially and it means that second hand prices will also be lower from the outset giving a chance to get significant numbers out there in a very short timescale.

We all know the Laser has it's problems but for a cheap boat with competitive racing it simply cannot be beaten.
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yellowwelly View Drop Down
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Posts: 2003 		Post Options Post Options   Quote yellowwelly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jan 14 at 9:19am
Originally posted by Rupert

Trouble is, the rig is now so expensive that putting one on a butchered £100 Laser would mean ending up with a boat worth considerably less than the rig cost in the 1st place, as you have a boat with no real re-sale value. Compare that to Yellow Welly and his Solo experience, where I expect the boat was sold for not TOO huge amount of depreciation - at least compared to putting new kit on old boats. And most sailors aren't that interested in the design and build side of things.

correct- the depreciation was in line with my own personal level of comfort.  

I could have probably got a bit more for it, but given the deck colour was always going to be a bit bi-polar I knocked £500 off the real asking price and sold it within 48 hours.  That small (by comparison) discount meant I could have sold it 5 times over... I even had someone willing to transfer me the funds and collect it later without even seeing it.  It sold to a very nice gentleman who sails National 12s.  
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