New Boats 2005

I work at as an instructor at an inland sailing club and in the three / four years i've worked there its been amazin at class changes.

The phantom has really taken off in last few years, and i dont think that'll die any time soon, they cant make enough of them!

how about the topaz, what a flop. my club bought three tres' and now i'm stuck trying to teach performance sailing in 'em.

Also how about the Hobie 405? wasn't that a 'RYA official training class'? that took less than one season to die!!

As for class changing - i do it twice a season, it gives you a excuse for poor results!!

Having recently changed to a Laser 2 I could be biased of course, but the Laser centre still lists and sells all spares, so they're not difficult at all to obtain new ( although I concede masts may be a different story )

With 22 boats at last years nationals the attendance may be down on many other classes but it's still quite good. Taking my club in isolation there are 3 of them, while there are no merlins or fireballs, for example, which makes it a better supported class in this instance. And the potential is there for the three boats to interact with each other and attract new interest.

And my point was 25 years isn't exactly "come & gone"...

On the subject of new classes damaging sailing, Every single class was new once for heavens sake!

If new boats didn't come along:

only I14s, Cherubs and Int. Canoes would have assymetric kites,

only I14s and Cherubs would have twin wires

the Contender would be the only trapeze single hander

Catamarans would not exist

How can sailing develop if new classes don't come along and mass market the good stuff from the development classes?  Not everybody wants to sail a Cherub or I14, N12, Merlin or Moth, but loads of people like assymetric kites, single & twin wiring, efficient hiking boats etc.

HOWEVER - a class ceasing to exist because the manufacturer is ready to move on and make some money off the fashion thing is not brilliant.  The only solution I can see is if manufacturer's were to agree that once they had had enough of supporting a class, they would donate the moulds to the Class Association along with the necessary rights, then classes could continue to exist for as long as people were enthusiastic enough to sail them...

Rant over, soapbox put away.

So you aren't allowed to change classes now?