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Rupert View Drop Down
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    Posted: 26 Feb 15 at 11:55am
Originally posted by turnturtle

The Argentine Oppy Nationals was pretty brutal.... you don't need to worry about which parent has the best RIB or drives the nicest T5 sport with lowered alloys.... the f*ckers show up in their submarine to make sure Pedro and Diego are going the right way up the beat.



That's quite a committee boat. You could fire a torpedo along the startline and take out the foils of any boat with its nose over the line.
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Feb 15 at 12:28pm
No one's sneering at Merlin sailors or Salcombe Week - but surely saying "our regatta is tougher than your regatta and our class standard is higher than your class' standard" is in itself inherently denigrating other classes. One can't have a "toughest event" unless one is saying that other events are inferior, and that seems pretty much like saying sneering at other events. Sure, Olympians may be beaten at Salcombe, but that happens in many other regattas around the world so why is this particular regatta so special?

There's no way I can be said to be sneering at the class or the regatta; as noted in the previous posts on this topic, I've given it a lot of respect, and the UK dinghy scene is obviously right on top of the world. But Salcombe Week doesn't seem to be "widely held to be one of the great challenges" since it's very little known outside of the UK - I have never heard or seen it mentioned outside the UK media, just as the UK sailing media don't cover events like the Citrus Bowl regatta or the Californian Midwinters.

I don't know if I've ever sailed a class in which some people didn't say "this is one of the toughest classes with some of the best sailors", and they can't all have been right! Smile
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Posts: 1345 		Post Options Post Options   Quote davidyacht Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Feb 15 at 12:42pm
Forget the marketing hype let's have the facts; The UK has the best sailors in the World, Merlin Rockets are the most competitive class in the UK, Salcombe has the biggest Merlin Rocket regatta in the UK, ergo Salcombe Merlin week is the best regatta in the World, and therefore Taxi is the best sailor in the World, actually Dave Winder and Pippa Taylor are!
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getafix View Drop Down
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Posts: 2143 		Post Options Post Options   Quote getafix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Feb 15 at 1:08pm
The american-orientated and mostly-staffed TV coverage and commentary of the last America's cup was sooooooo strewn with ridiculous superlatives that to even start such a thread (in a sailing context) with a post about UK dinghy sailing is odd, to say the least. Of course, all this pales into insignificance compared to the billions of bytes wasted on football, just on Saturday mornings alone.

I also think you'll find it hard to beat a Bill McLaren simile - he's like a rampaging giraffe - Doddie Wier, being my absolute favourite.

If we have to stick to UK dinghy sailing, I'd say the hype over the recent O's and the "mockrage" over past Winter PY events on here are closely tied for the lead.
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Feb 15 at 1:12pm
The Asymmetric hype of the 90s must be hard to beat. Basically, if you weren't sailing one, you were totally past it and simply not with the programme at all.
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getafix View Drop Down
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Posts: 2143 		Post Options Post Options   Quote getafix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Feb 15 at 1:25pm
Originally posted by Rupert

The Asymmetric hype of the 90s must be hard to beat. Basically, if you weren't sailing one, you were totally past it and simply not with the programme at all.


Oh how we chuckled when I caught up with a fellow I-SO-went-there veteran the other day and we chuckled about some of that 'do-do' that went on back in the day between the classes and sailors.  Still, we were young, dumb and full of..... the joys of over-hyped 'skiff' sailing, even to the point where we, frequently, attempted it on patches of water plainly unsuitable to anything quicker than an Enterprise
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Posts: 2538 		Post Options Post Options   Quote turnturtle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Feb 15 at 2:51pm
Originally posted by getafix

Originally posted by Rupert

The Asymmetric hype of the 90s must be hard to beat. Basically, if you weren't sailing one, you were totally past it and simply not with the programme at all.


Oh how we chuckled when I caught up with a fellow I-SO-went-there veteran the other day and we chuckled about some of that 'do-do' that went on back in the day between the classes and sailors.  Still, we were young, dumb and full of..... the joys of over-hyped 'skiff' sailing, even to the point where we, frequently, attempted it on patches of water plainly unsuitable to anything quicker than an Enterprise

yes but if you were there doing it at least you were old enough to experience how sh*te reality really was .... those of us at impressional ages (< 40 years old now) could only stare on in wonderment from those body disfiguring Laser side decks grimacing through the pain, clinging on to one hope - one dream - that being, if I work hard at school and get good grades, one day I'll have a boat as cool as those guys in their Iso.  

I wish I had been more brand aware back then.... always was just another b**tard Topper.


Edited by turnturtle - 26 Feb 15 at 2:59pm
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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: 26 Feb 15 at 3:00pm
Never got on with the ISO, but always enjoyed sailing the Buzz when I got the chance. Bit of a teatray, but at least that gave it some stability. Didn't need the weight as well, though.
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Feb 15 at 12:12am
Originally posted by Rupert

The Asymmetric hype of the 90s must be hard to beat. Basically, if you weren't sailing one, you were totally past it and simply not with the programme at all.
 
And the assymetric hype in dinghies was matched at the time by the water-ballast hype in big boats and the sportsboat hype in small yachts.
 
Twenty years on, and shifting ballast boats, skiffs and the more extreme sportsboats still only make up a small sector of the market, with the apparent exception of the USA and perhaps Italy - and average white boat cruiser/racers are everywhere.
 
We may not have learned anything about hype. Wonderful as foilers may be, the growth in overall fleet numbers outside of the UK and Oz seems to be pretty small according to reports presented at the class AGM. The foiling R Class in NZ attracted a sad 6 or 7 boats to its last nationals, which is a bit of a tragedy for what used to be a popular and leading edge class.
 
The other current hype is arguably the "shift" to multis. It's hard to find evidence that they are doing anything more than quietly climbing out of a trough that saw them lose market share in many places.  The hype of a shift to multis is being generated by people who don't seem to have heard of the size and strength of classes like Formula 1 (85 footers), Formula 40, Micros etc in earlier eras.
 
Meanwhile the *eros seem to be getting ready to become more popular in their first year or two than the foilers have become in a decade of hype.
 
And speaking of RS success and the assy hype - given the collapse of most of the hyped "skiffs" of the '90s, what would have happened if the 400 hadn't been around to show that people would buy new boats that didn't adopt the skiff hype?  Was the 400 enormously influential in showing the industry that people generally preferred "non skiffs"?
 
 
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turnturtle View Drop Down
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Posts: 2538 		Post Options Post Options   Quote turnturtle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Feb 15 at 7:24am
I seem to recall the 400 was equally 'skiffy' in presentation - and the 600 the skiffy version of the contender. The real beauty of the 400 was that it dressed a Merlin up in a skiff skirt- which allowed it ride the hype In its infancy, but below the surface, was just a decent one design version of a well suited dinghy to multiple UK waters.

As the skiff hype died, the 400 could shed the skirt to reveal regulation PE knickers- very functional and keeps the camel toe in check.... Decent boat with decent class racing and can still perform on handicap. still find it a very appealing class - now 20 years since I first saw one.
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