R Speculation

Originally posted by Rupert A car needs to be a box with a towbar. A boat, however, needs soul. This doesn't mean it has to cost a lot.

Originally posted by Riki @ RS Should (will) have a boat on the Dinghy Show stand, latest revisions are coming together over next few weeks so will be able to add more (inc photos) shortly. Much sailing and work done since Martins initial post.

As for cars, i have just become officially old having ordered my first Volvo Estate.

I think your all to inward looking. You're assuming that all sailors are exact replicas of the drones who frequent your own clique!

I know many a sailor who's boat is worth several times more than their cars, and I know an equally large number who have inexpensive cars and inexpensive boats.

One of the main points is that depreciation in boats is significantly lower and slower than automobiles, which perhaps encourages people to spend when they maybe wouldnt on a car. If new boats came out every couple of years and everyone jumped ship so to speak and move to the latest craze then I suspect residuals would plummit and we'd be in the horror position that new car buyers are in (who buys new cars?).
This then raises the question of why re-invent every 3yrs. Car manufacturers do it because cars are seen as status symbols and they have hoodwinked the public into thinking that driving around in anything older than 3yrs makes them look like a 2nd class citizen. The general public are like unthinking sheep following the herd into financial ruin just so that they can keep up with the Jones or try to win one over the rest of their street, all for a tin box that gets you from A to B. Its ultimately fashion.

Sailing isnt really a 'fashion' sport and as such I think its wrong to try a draw comparisons to the marketing worlds that some of you exist in. For the majority of us, a slight rounding off of some sharp corners on an otherwise identical hull shape wont make us run down to the bank for a loan every 3yrs and nor will a slightly different hull colour. The latter being a model employed by Laser but I very much doubt if as a result of it they got any owners to trade up from last years colour!

Sailing is a technically constrained sport unless you sail a development class. Followers of the sport appreciate improvements in tech and not just visual guff, and the developments tend to be in things like blocks, cleats, ropes and not the actual hulls. If you stick to a particular class then why change boats every 3yrs if a ten year old boat is still competitive?

Now if your proposals are to create sh*t boats that break after 2yrs, depreciate by 60% as soon as I tow it away and evolve at such a pace that only the wealthy can carry on playing the game then frankly you can piss off and leave our sport alone.

I will now disappear off in my 10yr old car thats worth £1000 and carry on sailing my 10yr old boat thats still worth £3500!!

As for RSpeculation, I'm now really looking forward to pictures, but on a forum like this, weeks are years - I want them now!