Multi-rig racing

In the past, many dinghies were sailed with a choice of flat sails for windy days, maybe with less roach or whatever.
Yachts still do that.
Some people will choose their spinnaker according to conditions.
So long as the NoR and SI's are clear, I don't really care, but more people on the water has to be the aim.
Has there ever been a genuine case of it ruining a series?
Any more than the vagaries of PY in disparate boats does anyway?
Or is it really a theoretical thing?

In our club, I can see it might give RS100's a leg-up in stronger winds and reachy courses if they were encouraged to use smaller sails. But only to the extent of putting them back where they were against two handers in lighter winds.

Of course it means you need to own 2 or 3 sails, but the top people always do anyway.

Assuming we let there be a free for all on rig swapping and let's fast forward a few years. The Aero 5 and 7 rig have handicaps that are very close to the 9 rig because they only get used on strong wind days. As Jeremyc points out they are faster than the full rig in strong wind days so this isn't just a theoretical thing.

Anyone who buys an Aero 7 will then find that they are completely uncompetitive with just a 7 rig and can't sail to the handicap. Their only choice is to invest in a quiver of sails to sail to their PY, but they don't have the money to do that, get disillusioned with the supposedly cheap and simple sailing and give up....

Similarly 90kg sailor buys a Aero 9, but finds that nearly everyone else sailing the 9 is far lighter and quicker in up to force 3 and can seemingly sail to the Aero 9 handicap it now has. When it gets to force 4 they change down, but Aero 9 sailor can still only just keep up. At no point does the Aero 9 sailor seem to be competitive....ditto above.




Edited by rb_stretch - 06 Mar 15 at 7:23pm

While I can see your point to an extent, remember that there will still be smaller kids in the 5 who will struggle in the big breeze bringing the average back down. Even if you were right and the 5 handicap got faster, I'd wager that the top guys in the 5s would still be so far infront of the average 7 sailor that they could still beat them.

There is of course sense if you have a one design fleet that everyone sails the same or if you shrink the rig you still sail off scratch.

That's where Sailwave needs to improve. Currently you can change the PY from Race to race to reflect a change of boat, but currently there is no way of inserting the actual class into the race. I know the sailwave guys have looked at it, but not been able to resolve it, perhaps due to different priorities.

One thing I've learned from sailing the D-Zero in 4 of the Sailjuice Winter Series (Handicap) events through the UK winter, with 25 D-Zeros entered, is that in the 3 events I sailed in conditions significantly greater than 20 knots at times, I managed to remain competitive with the larger 8.1m2 (Grey) rig, despite being relatively small at 5'8" and 75 kg (165 lbs). It should be noted that sailors of up to 100 kg have also proven to be competitive in the boat over the winter.

In the Laser, which I sailed for several decades, I would generally need to switch down from Standard to Radial rig in 15 knots+, in order to remain competitive, and would generally be quicker round the course than had I been in the Standard rig.

I am fairly certain that in the D-Zero I would not have been quicker round the course during these windy events with the smaller Blue rig, and feel that the boat rewards good technique and effective, yet simple, tuning of the rig, rather than simple physical attributes.

From what I have observed to date I would estimate that the rig switch from Grey Rig to Blue Rig in say 15 knots of breeze would apply to someone of approximately 70 kg. So from what I can see, in general the Blue Rig is suitable for ladies and youths and the larger Grey Rig is suitable for most adult males, across a large range of wind speeds. I don't believe that rig switching will become a widespread practice in the D-Zero.