RS 600 where now?

am intrigued as to why people would choose the 600 over the contender ?

The 600 is a lovely boat to sail. Sure it takes about 6 months to learn how to get it around a course without going for a swim, but it is such a rewarding boat to sail. At its prime we had regular turnouts of 30-40 boats on the circuit where we had events every fortnight, and there were many highly talented sailors making up the ranks.
Sure it has a few vices but nothing you couldn't learn to deal with.
The racks situation was perfectly adequate in my opinion as there were several top sailors on the wide wings, and it made things simple. We did have a vote at Mounts Bay in 2001 on whether to allow RS700 style adjustable racks but the majority of members preferred the simplicity of the original system.
Unfortunately the bulk of the original 600 fleet moved on to 700s and then Mustos, and then the RS fleet got too big for single events, the 600s,300s and 700s all suffered for being predominantly sailed by blokes and without the 200, 400 and 800 sailors to socialise with the events got a bit dull.
Sadly the RS high performance singlehanders all suffered from an inability to move from a centralised class association to having to manage it within the fleet. The 300 is starting to come out the other side but in not convinced that the 6 or 7 will.

As for whether I'd buy a 600 now, for club racing YES. If I want to travel and do regular opens, NO.
In my opinion it's a nicer boat than a Contender, but it is dying through lack of suitable class management.

Originally posted by bob3021 am intrigued as to why people would choose the 600 over the contender ?

I bought one to replace my Contender because it was much better in the lighter breezes that we normally had inland.

But in many ways the Contender was a much nicer boat.

Good Contenders have never been cheap and the 600 was generally a quality bit of kit that would last forever for not a lot of cash

Originally posted by iGRF Roger Tushingham told me an amusing story of him trying one out at Minorca, Roger for those who don't know him did an Olympic campaign back in FD days was/is an accomplished dinghy sailor, way better than me and he failed so my view was what's the point, like the 300 let ignorant youf bash their heads against the force four wall. Sailing dinghies is in a better state without that sort of senseless elitism being bandied about, although i do love the basic idea contained here, a frankenboat run what you brung event, maybe something would evolve that could be sailed without eons of time dedicated to it.