Does the Minisail sail at its fastest if sailed flat like a Laser, or heeled like a scow?

Would your answer be different for beating and for reaching/running?

Any ideas as to why?  e.g. would the use of larger/better foils change your answer?

 

Never sailed one with a sliding seat so don't know how that changed it, but upwind was really hard work.

In conclusion then, the Monaco is pretty much like a 'normal' dinghy, but a Sprite some way towards a scow.  

The tunnel-hull scow Moths were certainly sailed heeled, at least upwind, despite only having a centreboard, which was why I thought that use of a longer 'board might influence things. Of course, if your hull will tolerate heel without increasing the drag, you can use the extra righting moment obtained as the centre of buoyancy moves to leeward to carry more sail area.

Watching some of our lot in a Streaker, Laser and Alto sailing to windward the other day in a gusty wind, I noticed they were all averaging 20 degrees of heel anyway.  They clearly needed scows!

Our local guys seem to go well sailing flat.  You need to come up and have a sail with them.  Medway Dinghy Regatta on 12/13 July should see a good turnout of Altos if last year is anything to go by, when they cleaned up in the Fast H'cap:

http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/170840/Medway-Dinghy-Regatta-2013" rel="nofollow - http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/170840/Medway-Dinghy-Regatta-2013

Rupert - you need a fleet of Minisails to race against (as if you didn't wish for that already)

I remember as a scrawny teenager absolutely flying off the wind, but upwind seeming disproportionately slow and hard work. Does the seat make upwind better?

With the seat, however, you might still find you are underpowered, given that the Lightning is a narrow hiking boat.  The whole rig will sit lower as well, won't it?  Not a bad thing for performance in a blow, but it might leaving you wanting more in lighter stuff.  An Aero 9m rig would be interesting...

Actually, build a Minisail using 3mm ply, suitably stiffened with webs and stringers (the Aussies got down to 1.5mm in their scow Moths!) and you'd be around the same weight as an Aero, and with a light crew and the seat or carbon (Fire?) racks, I'd reckon quicker.  Wouldn't that be satisfying?!

My last scow Moth (a late '80s boat I got many years later) had a 1.5mm foredeck, I think. I recall repairing a hole by simply grabbing a veneer and some scissors, cutting out a Moth logo in the ply, and gluing it down. The scissors went through the veneer as if it was thin cardboard. Sadly we never really got it going as I got it for my wife and she got into windsurfing.

I tend to think a good scow would be Contender pace at times but their yardstick here may have been distorted because they were set from light wind regattas when the few Magnums of the era did extremely well.

I have been looking through my mag collection which includes scow Moth articles back to the early '60s and I do tend to think that the scows were sailed at a lower angle of heel than many people think today. That was certainly my recollection but I raced them a loooooooooooong while ago.

Scows remain brilliant boats, though. In many ways I think the scows were possibly better for sailing here as a whole than the later Moths are, fantastic as they may be.

 

The nice thing about a scow is that it is so stable anybody can get in and start sailing it, even if making it go fast is another matter.  That cannot be said of the skinny Moths, and the pool of potential sailors for the class must have shrunk accordingly.

All you need now is to switch to off-the-boom sheeting like the Blazes mostly have.  Try hanging the ratchet block well forward off the kicker attachment to avoid it pulling the boom too much to windward as it does if you mount it further aft.

And you might need a bigger rig to use with the seat, but I'm intrigued to learn how the heeling moment compares with the original rig.  Looks like the wind was bit light there to get a full picture.

rude boys and their boats huh?!?

How right you are.  Indeed, it is exactly what I thought at the time.  The rig was a complete disgrace for a racing boat, even by '70's standards - or even by '60's standards, to be fair.

If only Richmond Marine had learnt from the Laser and from their customers who'd stuck racks on, and uprated the Minisail properly instead of making a half-hearted effort, it might even be an Olympic class now (not that we'd wish that on it).

But the low beam/righting moment will always be a limiting factor.  So on with the racks/seat and an Aero or D-Zero rig!