R Speculation

Many boats have tried to challenge the Laser over the years and all have fallen by the wayside. There is likely a good reason for that....

Is Laser the company still producing/distributing boats in UK, or are those sold by Sailboats remaining stock?  How about the other rotomould models, such as the Pico & Vago?

Blimey – so much to say – so little time.

Most of the words in our design explanation were written by Jo Richards himself. Some of you know him – he’s not a man known for “marketing bo***cks”. He is, on the other hand, known for calm clear thinking about how to best solve each design question.

Jo believes strongly that the sail needs to be Dacron for best shape adjustment. This is not a Finn rig, specified to suit a sailor. We’re trying to make adjustable rigs that work across a sailor weight range and wind range.

I’d rather have Mylar from a fashion perspective – I’ve argued for it, because I’m weak and want the easy sell! But I’m definitely not a sailmaker, so it seems wise to listen to experts.

We’ve spoken to Hyde designers in the UK and North designers in the USA. Both agree with Jo’s view, but they are up for working on it – and yes we have said rig development is not complete and experimenting with a combination (along the lines of the 100 & 300) may be worth trying to make work. But don’t get me wrong – the designers think they’d be trying to make a Mylar / Dacron sail work, whereas they know Dacron does work. Call them if you’d like to – PM me for their numbers.

On price – well there are cheap Dacrons and expensive Dacrons – same with Mylar. We would only use a high denier Dacron on this boat (it’s not a Quba for training centres) and the sailmakers have told us it would be a pretty similar price for the Dacron sail compared to Mylar (of similar type used in some of our other classes) – if anything slightly less for the Mylar sail. So it is not about price.    

Interestingly, at the Dinghy Show, whilst we expected to have to “defend” the Dacron sails all weekend, there was very little discussion. To the point that we may not go ahead with trying to make the Mylar option work. To be decided.

We only mentioned that the mast manufacturer makes lots of windsurfer masts and fishing rods to demonstrate they are volume suppliers, buying carbon at competitive prices, with cost efficient manufacturing, used to working to tight tolerances. We’re not using a windsurfer mast in the Aero – it has been specified and developed for our rig....

On weights – 30kg is the hull only weight – hadn’t occurred to me to weigh the fittings yet, but can, of course do that – there aren’t many. Sweepstake – 2kg?

Sailing weight is 49kg. The boat is in final development – that may or may not move a few kilos – no reason to expect it will (most of our boats got lighter going into production – this one won’t) – but the boat will still be light enough to make people laugh out loud when they lift it. Some of you will have seen that happening at the weekend.

There is nothing radical in the construction to give the light weight – just clear thinking to use every element of the design to lead in the right direction. This post is too long already – perhaps more full explanation another time!

Can’t help saying that it is sad for us to see some of the negativity here (we’re real people who many of you know), but guess that’s forum life. Fortunately offset by the fact that so many sailors “get it” – understand what we’ve done with the Aero - and are excited about it.

Originally posted by Blue One Thanks for clearing that up martin. Good luck with the aero.

Originally posted by Telltale Originally posted by MartinWadhams Can’t help saying that it is sad for us to see some of the negativity here (we’re real people who many of you know), but guess that’s forum life. Fortunately offset by the fact that so many sailors “get it” – understand what we’ve done with the Aero - and are excited about it. From where I sit there is NO NEGATIVITY, the boat looks great, people on here have sailed it and love it. I am sure RS will sell loads, it is just that some of us like to have a full picture, we have it now and I am sure we all look forward to seeing Hyde at al develop something that works in Mylar.  Please don't abandon that route, to have a boat that both sails well and looks cool and is affordable would do loads for the sport !!