X1 Dinghy

Originally posted by Ruscoe

   I'm feeling a bit better today, thanks for asking and on further review of my comments previously, have to apologetically agree they were maybe a tad harsh at the outset. I still feel 'riverboat' is a mistake even though it's a clear candidate for the Three Rivers race and so obviously a Broads boat.

It's nice to see new boats, but this must be the first in a long while to have a conventional pole thing to use to stick the big ballooney thing in the front which immediately erases it from my interest list.

So it's a revisionist craft to use on the Broads, if you've ever sailed there (which I have, lots of times thanks) in a lot of areas, only the top half of the sail gets any wind, the Rivers Bure, Yare, Ant, Thurne & Waveney are beset by Reeds in the lower reaches and trees the further upstream you sail.

There's a rich sailing heritage up there and I'm sure they'll all love a nice new boat, I'm not sure the sail plan and narrowness of the hull will take well to the more gusty stuff you get on Rivers like the Thames (yes I've also sailed the Thames thanks) where the buildings produce some nasty viscious 'tumbling' gusts, but I still hope it's successful even though they have been in my mind a tad silly. Theoretically one should applaud an honest approach, but the term 'commercially naive' so often becomes the epitaph to idealistic ventures.