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Keelboat for lightweights |
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Medway Maniac 
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Joined: 13 May 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 2788 |
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 Topic: Keelboat for lightweightsPosted: 22 May 08 at 11:12am |
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Can anybody name a performance (i.e. not Squib) keelboat that can be sailed competitively with an all-up crew weight of 120-125kg? ff's and K6's look great (neglecting the latter's delight in weed-collecting), but they do seem to need lard aplenty on the gunwale.
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Contender 541
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Joined: 05 Dec 05 Location: Burton on Trent Online Status: Offline Posts: 1402 |
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Posted: 22 May 08 at 11:17am |
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I Flying Fifteens with an all up weight of about 28 stone (170KG) and as a consequence we go well in a blow I would think that at 20 Stone you would be a little light, but that said I sail against plenty of Father / Son / Daughter combinations that are going to be in that range. The Flying Fifteen can be depowered easily and has good fleets all over the country - go for it |
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When you find a big kettle of crazy it's probably best not to stir it - Pointy Haired Boss
Crew on 505 8780 |
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alstorer
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Joined: 02 Aug 07 Location: Cambridge Online Status: Offline Posts: 2899 |
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Posted: 22 May 08 at 12:52pm |
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Can't a K6 be sailed with three on board? Grab a friend!
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Oli
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Joined: 23 Mar 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1020 |
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Posted: 22 May 08 at 2:34pm |
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laser stratos keel?
Edited by slop_idol |
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Stefan Lloyd
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Posted: 22 May 08 at 4:38pm |
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They can and sometimes are, but there really isn't enough for 3 people to do. 2-up, you'd be way underweight in a K6 at 20 stone. Optimum is apparently 28-32. You'd be underweight in a FF too but far less so. FF is also better suited to shoal waters, as in the K6 if you hit the putty it's too deep to push off. I seriously evaluated both last year, sailed both, the K6 several times, and went for the FF. No regrets.
Edited by Stefan Lloyd |
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p white
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Joined: 04 Jul 07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2 |
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Posted: 23 May 08 at 6:14am |
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at 20 stone the Squib is by far your best bet, without doubt. Winning crew at the Championships last year in a breezy week was 8 stone! 97 BOATS at that championship,so what better boat!
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Medway Maniac
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Joined: 13 May 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 2788 |
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Posted: 23 May 08 at 9:11am |
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Thanks for the replies so far: they all pretty much confirm my thoughts hitherto that the ff is the most suitable, but still by no means ideal - if they'd let us use a trapeze it would be fine, and frankly I'd have thought that crews of all ages and fitness levels would find it easier to trapeze a stable boat like an ff than hike it. I knew someone would say Squib, but I did say 'performance'. I'm sure it's a worthy boat, but I'm looking for something more exciting that regularly planes, not just surfs. There have been likely candidates over the years - the Vulcan (a sort of mini-Tempest by the looks) and most recently the Orion SRD, which I've sailed and subject to a little final development would be great (faster and nicer to sail than a Laser 2000, without the desire to invert). But nothing as yet in production. |
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NickA
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Joined: 30 Mar 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 784 |
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Posted: 20 Jul 08 at 6:44pm |
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Think you need one of these (spotted in Kos harbour on Friday):
 Or even one of these:  Easy to single hand apparently and crew weight isn't an issue. Does 20 knts too.  .Come on now - you're not going all lead mine on us are you? |
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Javelin 558
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Medway Maniac
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Posted: 20 Jul 08 at 7:17pm |
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It's just that some days it would be nice not to have to worry about swimming, hauling yourself onto the board for the nth time (and wondering if you'll manage an (n+1)th time), crews going swim-about, and masts getting stuck in the mud. The Orion, for example, proves you can have a boat which meets those needs while still feeling, launching and recovering like a dinghy, and not requiring 30stone on the gunwale to be competitive... |
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Medway Maniac
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Posted: 23 Sep 08 at 10:48pm |
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Nothing if not persistent, we tried a Flying Fifteen last Sunday. Nice boat, pleasant to sail and very civilised with the furling jib and soft mainsail. But the gentle F.3 had us hiking hard and spilling wind on the beat - our 20 stone was already looking to be a bit on the light side had the wind filled in any more. Also the boat felt very big and heavy (but, fair enough, most things do compared to a V3000), and I couldn't help thinking that with modern building techniques you could make the boat much lighter, more responsive and rewarding to sail. Finally, the thought of launching/recovering all that weight when dry-sailing, and of trying to step that 9kg tin stick all seemed like a hassle too far just for a bit of peace of mind on a blowy day. The low freeboard was nice, however, and avoided that remote feeling you get with many big boats (and even on some skiffs with their high racks) So, boat manufacturers, here's what I want: a pretty 5.2m LOA hull, narrow on the waterline but wide overall with a low-freeboard (maybe a stretched, squashed, smooth-hulled Merlin would serve as a basis) - nobody said it had to be easy to sail fast, it must just be forgiving and self-righting when you get it wrong. You could build that down to under 90kg, plus, say 50kg for the keel, which needs to be heavily aft-raked, ff-style, for no weeding-up; the efficiency loss from raking would be minimal compared to a scrap of weed. Ideally, the keel should be at least partially liftable - probably of necessity through the foredeck due to the rake, passing underneath the deck-stepped mast. Add a nice carbon rig, about 13sq m main+jib and a not excessive kite so that the boat can still kite-reach on club courses. I guess ideally an asymmetric - the spec I've indicated should rate comfortably under PY 1000, which seems to be the speed at which they start to make sense. A symmetric kite wouldn't put me off, though. With all the ageing dinghy sailors in clubs these days who are fed up with swimming, there just has to be a niche... Maybe it would look a bit like this: |
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