The Moth has blazed a trail, with very few concessions to stability, finances usability born out of it's development background. 

The Wazp is attempting to reduce the cost issue of the moth in a way in which the bladerider tried a few years ago. But to really open up the market you'd have to reduce price points by an order of magnitude, and even with larger volume I'm not sure it's possible. It seems as long as you can get a cheaper and faster second hand moth, why would you buy a wazp? 

Then you have the UFO. This is tackling head on the accessibility. It provides a stable launch platform (both from displacement to foiling, and literally launching from the beach). It looks like a catamaran, but it's actually foils with outriggers. 

Then you get on the foiling cats. You straight away have the launch pad stability. However, by having a lifting board on the windward hull you lose that catamaran leverage. It seems difficult to get a foiling cat faster than it's non-foiling equivalent: just ask the nacra class.  The A class is getting there though. The issue is it takes quite a lot of foil control to achieve. 

There's also some weird scow things aimed at stable foiling in low winds. I haven't seen any footage of them which doesn't make them look awful though. 

You have some foiling skiffs, like cherubs and 18s. The issue here is stability. Moths are hugely difficult but at least you're sat down. Get one or two people out on a wire and it enters a whole new level. 

If you're going to trapeze and foil you really need to move away from the traditional skiff platform, which the super foiler has done. This is more a commercial project for pro sailing series though, rather than improving accessibility. But that was once true of 18ft skiffs, and now the 29er is the most popular youth boat... so maybe with trickle down. 

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But then you have the ultimate question; is the future of sailing faster? We saw it with the 'skiff revolution'. The boats take a jump in speed which looms fun;  but the entry skill increases and speed also requires space, and suddenly you have to travel that bit further to find a suitable venue. And foiling doesn't only require space, but flat water too, further restricting venues. 

Maybe foiling isn't the answer; but it is interesting. 

When it was first introduced it was clearly pitched at the older crowd who wanted a boat they could still hike but that had a very controllable rig for when it got too windy and was easy to right and get back into. Interestingly more than half the sales have gone to a second niche which is middle aged people returning to competitive sailing post kids who are not 75- 80kg and hence will not fit into the traditional classes such as Laser or Solo. I agree that for this niche the Phantom, Blaze and possibly Supernova and OK are also options.

In its first year over 20 boats have been sold with one or two new boatseach month the run rate. Clearly its no RS or Hartley marketing machine but I have to admit it is more than I anticipated and I suspect that at the traveller events and nationals next year it will be 100% turn out based on the friendly and regularly used Facebook page - owners actually helping each other on-line and creating a community is interesting to see and refreshing from my previous experience with older classes!

Solo sailing seems to be doing really well - 80 forecast to be heading to Garda which was unheard of 10 or 15 years ago for what was ostensibly "national classes".  Even our local Laser fleet has grown in average attendance, which is no bad thing unless you really don't want yet another Laser in your ownership catalogue.

I could easily lament about  the 'foiling revolution', but I'm honest enough about it to accept that's just a little hyperbole and over-enthusiastic consumer reaction.... no different to those of us taken-in by asymmetric kites that became so popular a couple of decades ago.  In reality anyone selling foilers, or even really really using them, accept they are a niche product with a limited wind range and even more limited range of use when it comes to natural Geography. 

Given the gloom and doom that is perpetuated around the internet about the 'decline of sailing', I'd say a period of kit consolidation and broadly accessible boats with built-in legacy and heritage, isn't necessarily a bad place to be. 

I guess that's why investments in OKs (Ovis) and Contenders (Hartleys) are still of interest personally.  I could happily buy either given the right circumstances- good boats, good classes and great builders looking to support something established.  

The RS Aero basically is just more ergonomic than a laser.  Other than that its very similar in principle with small performance gains from the same leverage (central toe strap) and sail area. It would be nice if they could undercut the cost of a laser, but maybe with a more durable design they believe it will hold it's value better, so work out lower in the long run?

I would say that the Aero and D-zero are just modern Laser's aimed at the same people. That is why I highlighted the H2 because it is a different design approach and aimed at different people.

Without wanting to get into an argument over this I found the Aero very uncomfortable to sail. Floor was too high for my long legs meaning non hiking meant my knees felt like they were up under my chin and made it a strange experience to tack.

The performance gains (Aero 7 vs Laser) are down to a better rig and much lighter weight (and probably a better hull shape).

That is a whole other debate though. Take the D-Zero and compare it to the Aero 9. The Aero is lighter (some 10kgs hull weight) and has an extra 1sqm of sail but (currently) is only around 5py points faster (so close enough to race off scratch without too much complaining). Compare that to a Laser Std vs the Rooster 8.1 rig where there is the same sail area difference you have 50 points (or so) or PY difference. Admittedly the 8.1 results are skewed because they are only ever really sailed in lighter winds. once a Std is planing offwind most of the time the 8.1 is no quicker round the course.

So there is much more to development and progress than purely making stuff lighter (indeed look at the Supernova, this has shed around 15-20kgs in real terms but has somehow managed to get slower according to PY). 

This is why the D-Zero is the best of the new breed of the latest breed (IMO and yes I am biased). The ergonomics are very well thought out. The boom clearance is good, the controls work and have an element of freedom that allows those who are not gorillas to add in purchase, the hull is light enough and very responsive but not so light that you would worry about it blowing off the trolley.

As has been said I think a period of stability is a good thing, having the latest and greatest thing launch and branded 'sailing 2.0 (or 3.0 or 4.0) every year get boring. Traditional classes have also shown that evolution rather than revolution works very nicely too (look at the strength of the Solo).

As a note I saw a new Laser carbon top section a couple of weeks ago. Definitely a development for the class along with the Mk2 sail (which has made a big difference certainly at my local puddle in marginal conditions).

The Aero seems to have shifted a lot of units but then RS have a good network. 

Can't help think that the rig still looks dated on a new product ... D Zero just looks a nicer package ... then again BetaMax was the superior format but VHS prevailed ...

I've never sail the boats. I'm just regurgitating how it's been described. 
 

that's the best analogy and it's been kicking around from the outset....  at the end of the day, you can buy an Aero from a dealer more or less anywhere in the civilised world, plus they have supply chain for spare parts to keep it serviced and repaired as required.  

 I do also completely agree about the dacron sail, but that's probably a generation thing growing up in the 90's.... aspiring to plastic sails might be bit passé now.  

To paraphrase Steve Cockerill (badly).... you can always find a 'better boat', but that doesn't necessarily make it a better boat for you.  

https://vimeo.com/197833561" rel="nofollow - https://vimeo.com/197833561

http://foiler.weebly.com/news/she-flies" rel="nofollow - http://foiler.weebly.com/news/she-flies

The danger if you allow people to move their toe straps out, everyone will do just that and just have less leg supported by the hull. It might not be the best thing for everyone knees. 

There's lots about that in the fascinating book "The Economics of QWERTY" that claims that BetaMax wasn't actually the superior format for most users. For example, VHS had bigger cassettes which meant longer recording time so US viewers could record an entire football game at a time when conemporary BetaMax machines couldn't, and for most users that was more important than machine size or superior vision.

The relevance of the book is that it shows that many of the claims of path dependance in which we get locked into inferior standards are simply myths. IMHO that applies to the popular sailing classes, where some people deride the more popular boats or types of boats because of their supposed technical flaws and miss the fact that the most popular classes achieve that status because they simply work better for most people.

As some have said, the whole "foiling is the future" rubbish seems to fall into that sort of category. Okay, foilers are the 'superior format' if you're interested in going really fast on a boat, but they aren't a superior format for most people to enjoy their sport. 

Ahh, the Rs - poster child for the pitfalls of chasing development. Even before their home town suffered from an earthquake they were down to about 9 boats at their national titles and the number dropped when they started foiling. Considering there were once about 400 registered boats and they arguably led the entire dinghy design world at times, it's a very sad tale.

How tall are you? I'm 5'7" with a medium-length trunk and short legs and it doesn't seem worse than most other boats.

well said

Hull width can't be changed on most boats (racks/weight equalisation systems notwithstanding, but Blaze went to fixed width years ago, the only other hiking singlehanders I can think of are EPS and D-One, do they have adjustable racks?) 


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Spice 346 "Flat Broke"
Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish"

Is low freeboard the curse of modern dinghy design then?

If I were designing a SMOD I'd set it so the deck was wide enough / toe straps narrow enough that the leg was always supported to half way up the upper leg. I'd set the maximum top strap height so you had at least 10 cm of drop. Looking at the pictures of D-Zero and Aeros it seems this is what they have achieves, plus a slightly more ergonomic deck shape. 

The thing is, people will always loosen the toe straps so they can get out further because it's faster (often they tire quickly, and drop their bum and heal the boat, so might be quicker with shorter straps over time). Toppers used to have a max toe-strap height, and I think this is an area where class rules need to protect the sailors. 

How about you go look and sail both boats? I can probably get a a ride in a D-Zero if you drop me a PM.

The D-Zero is self draining but also has a small 'sump' just behind the daggerboard that allowsfor a more 'traditional' style of bailing.

In terms of the boom clearance the measurement from boom to floor is better than a Laser plus the boom doesn't bend when you pull the kicker on so it stays constant.

Maybe this is a good thing - after all a managed depreciation curve is common practice in other consumer product categories.

There's talk on Facebook about checking these newer designs over for stress cracks etc... I can't believe many recreational race dinghies have had that hard a life after just a couple of years- they aren't 'squad boats' or being jockeyed by sail lofts after all.  

Conversely I still perceive a two year old Laser as a 'new boat' when buying Lasers and have seen plenty with 15 years of weed growth come out of the nettles and perform very well at club level.   

A well managed depreciation curve is surely good for class development - even RS manages its own aftermarket where it can, so there must be a commercial reason.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to make declaration about a class as fact, which is maybe how it came across. I was trying to put in context for my questions to H2 (quoted below). I.e. you say the H2 is a development, this is what they're saying for the Aero (although as you point out could be said about the D-Zero), how does the H2 differ? 

It really seems like D-Zero and Aero are refinements of the Laser concept. More comfortable, and slightly faster, but aiming a creating an accessible class from club to international level with equipment gains neutralised by centralised manufacturing.

When the D-1 and 100 were launched it seemed much more about making a SMOD hiking boat which would sail angles like a skiff downwind. The message seemed to be; "single sail one person hiking boats are great, but the game would be much better if we were all apparent wind sailing downwind". The message with these boats seems to be more like "the game is actually  perfect, that's staying the same, but now you can play it in a boat with ergonomic deck layout and sails which respond to control more intuitively".

I was just making it up - sorry - been posting on here for a while and was wondering if anyone outside the little clique engaged with newcomers so I figured if I posted something weird I would see if anyone responded or whether it was just a policy to be ignored!! Good to see I was wrong

Was actually a major factor in deciding not to get a d-zero, phantom, aero for me. I wanted a boat that I could comfortably hike all day which meant more freeboard, double / adjustable toe straps that can be shifted to the length of my leg. I went looking for singlehanders with this set up and there are surprising few that do not need huge expanses of water (would argue that a Blaze on a small pond is a difficult proposition).

The two person boat focus seems to be on RS200’s, RS400’s and Merlins.  With these exceptions the more traditional two person boats appear to be losing numbers.

I don’t really see any trapeze boats booming, the slices of cake appear to be small, and the names in those classes look very familiar.

What I read into this, and I am as guilty as anyone, is that there is a shift toward dinghy racing being more of a “sporting activity” and away from being a “social activity”.  My club is very involved with Solo’s and Merlins and I would suggest that the BMI required to compete in these classes has changed considerably over the years, with “gym”, “coaching” and “diet” becoming new words in the competitive dinghy sailors vocabulary.

For me the factors that differentiated the H2 from the crop of "modern Lasers" (d-zero, aero etc) were as follows;

1. You can hike it without hurting yourself due to the higher freeboard and twin / adjustable toe straps.

2. It was designed for a wider competitive weight range. The larger wetted area and internal bouyancy means I do not have to be 75kg to compete. I spent years trying to get to 75kg when sailing Lasers through the squads - no amount of lettuce will ever make that happen.

3. The rig comes with much more adjustment allowing technical sailers to tweak to their hearts content

4. It is one of the few modern designs that do not require you to shuffle around on your knees off wind in the bottom of a soap dish.

5. Minor point - I like that you can have it in any colour you can imagine. I personally find modern grey boats very dull.

6. Its using modern materials so whilst a much bigger boat taking into account the freeboard and width it weighs 75kg fully rigged

The list I set out is why I see the H2 as a development / new whilst I accept that all of these things can be found elsewhere I am not aware of any boat that has been intentional in combining them into a singlehander. Put it another way - the direction of travel seems to have been to create a modern Laser and the H2 differs by not accepting this logic and offering something different.

Apparently reds and yellows are heavier than the 75kg as they need more gelcoat....or at least that is what I was told 

Good post, and one may say that when you add the 48 who did the Standard Masters nationals, the Laser nationals fleet is still a good size (between the Aero and the Solo).

The most fun thing about downwind sailing in a asymmetric is not reaching around at max speed, but that it turns the downwind legs from a procession, to the most tactical part of the race. The fact that once you get planing you can reach around everywhere at full speed is a nice side effect.   

Basically, what the asymmetric kite does, regardless of speed, it forces boats to create leverage. This is the same for Fevas, RS200s, RS400s, 29ers and 49ers. Now, granted, it will take more wind  for the 'high mode' to be the quickest for the slower boats. For 200's this is about 15 knots, a little less for 29er and about 8 knots for the 49er. 

The 200 class actually banned goose winging the spinnaker which was an early design feature to improve the racing. It's never been quicker to goose wing the jib. 

What I will say is that on very restricted and shifty waters it's hard to appreciate this and I can see why people would prefer to race with just white sails.  

I sailed a 400 on a pond for a while - total waste of time as you could not get the benefit downwind as you mention mozzy

Ho ho ho highlighted it for you .  

I never actually sailed with the kite goose wing system. I presume it was faster in some conditions otherwise like you say they wouldn't have banned it. 

Originally posted by Cirrus The 200 is equipped with an asymetric for sure but cannot always fully work in asymetric mode - it is too slow. (The 400 and faster on the other hand do ...)

I'm not sure what you mean by 'fully work' in asymetric mode. I can assure it does always fully work. There may be some very limited circumstances like RS400C mentioned where goose-winging with a jib pays (staying out of very strong tide, where you have very little room and in very light wind). But I've never seen it done, and certainly not in large fleet racing.

Like I said in my earlier post. The big benefit of asymmetric is not that they plane downwind, but that they make the downwind sailing more tactical. The 200 class made the decision that although gooswinging the spinnaker may be quicker VMG, especially on short leg round the cans, the racing wasn't as good. It's proved to be a pretty good decision. Ask the SB20 and J70; probably the two most popular sports boat fleets (melges 24, phuket, viper640, maybe even VXone?).  

Originally posted by turnturtle the 200 had something called the Square Running System... over to Mozzy for the history lesson, but  AIUI, the 200 was never intended to have kite in the first place...  they're great boats though, and it's early adopters did the right thing in binning off the SRS.

I think they added a spinnaker really as an after thought, something to make it look more skiff like which was seen as the next best thing. 

What was slightly fortuitous was that although the kite didn't turn the boat in to a skiff, it did mean fleets split on the run (if forced to all set their sails on one side), creating leverage and tactical options. This is a huge game changer in fleet racing. The class association realised this and some genius proposed that although it would make the boat slower around the cans in the club PY race, it would make it an epic rewarding big fleet racer. It's proof that faster (goosewinging the spinney) doesn't always provide better racing. 

A lot of the nineties designs tried to bring 18 foot skiff racing to the masses. The error they made was when they saw skiff racing they saw the speed. The result was fast, but heavy boats which were difficult to sail for the masses. Rather by accident the RS200 and RS400 brought the downwind tactics of skiff sailing to the public, but left the speed and boat handling issues behind. They're now the two most popular adult fleet racing boats in the country (number of sailors at nationals). 

That great knowledge. I'd been told the hull design had been finished on the 200, and then before production it was a last minute decision to add spinnaker. I never knew that came from the N12. 

I think in practice SRS wouldn't have added more downwind options, but just replaced the soaking mode. Still effectively giving the fleet two options, except now one option is very tactically conservative. 

OK what a faff. Just buy an Albacore and fit a flyaway pole. What's to stop you goosewinging an asymmetric kite these days anyway? 

And there is a video of that, here:

[TUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqOo8cQ2q2Y[/TUBE]

Er... the class rules; that's kinda what we've been saying for two page. Without the the SRS equipment it's immensely difficult, and for boats faster than a 200 slower anyway.

The SRS was a faff. Having an asymetric is far simpler than a flyaway pole. 

Personally I still wonder whether assys actually have significantly more downwind tactics, or whether the use of such tactics is just more publicised (aka Frank Bethwaite's articles on the "apparent wind revolution") and more obvious. When sailing classes that sometimes go straight downwind or by the lee, sometimes gybe through 90 or less at 20-30 knots and sometimes cover the full gamut in a few hundred metres I have yet to see any mode as being more or less tactical. One would suggest that those who suggest that conventional boats just sail straight downwind haven't been using the full range of downwind tactical options in such boats, and also ignoring the fact that the art of tacking downwind has been known for many years; since the 1930s at least and perhaps the 1800s.

We have Scows, Canoes, Cat's, Tri-Marans etc, surely their must be a totally new design in the pipeline somewhere ?

As long as the 'do nothing' option is a viable strategy then boats will struggle to create leverage. Sure there are very important tactics, but it's not as high priority as in a gybe downwind boat. There is a reason that in laser sailing there is a huge focus on kinetics to create a boat speed advantage on runs, with barely any talk of shifts or working over / linking gusts. 

Have a look at the 49er v 470 in sailing analytics to compare place changes on the runs. Your answers are there. 

The downside of the assymetric revolution is that these classes have killed off some good traditional beat and running type classes, and at the same time done damage to beat and running type clubs, notably river clubs or smaller stretches of water.  But that is progress I suppose  (irony).

If you're in a development class, where the aim is to design the fastest boat, then yes. If you're creating a one design then I don' think being a faster set up does justify it. 

Arguably the 'problem' is handicap racing and people selecting boats based on how they will perform on an arbitrary handicap rather then how good the class racing will be.   

Arguably what killed off some traditional beat and running type clubs was allowing the introduction of classes which weren't suited. There's a reason some of the closest racing is in local one designs. 

200s have great racing on w/l courses and being slow doesn't effect that. I wouldn't recommend a club with restricted water adopted them though; but that was never the point. 

One odd thing about assys and W/L courses is that the modern assy developed on classes that weren't restricted to W/L courses. It may be that it's only the SMOD versions that are really oriented towards W/L courses.

The success of the 200 etc though does demonstrate that such a style of boat gets people on the water, which is arguably by far the most important thing.

People think assy sailing is more tactical downwind because of the separation that it creates. Boats on opposite sides of the run are in quite different conditions; if the fleet square run down the middle they share the same conditions ... it is the separation that creates more place changing ... which make for more entertainment.

Put it this way, the large scale gust would have been out of the field of play DDW day (p.s 100 degree is a big gybing angle!!) so the tactical options are limited on the DDW days. Yes, squeezing out 10 m to a small catspaw can make you a gain on a group; but the same can be said for a gybe down wind boat where heading up to meet the gust can help you extend on a pack. But in addition to those small course variation you also have the option to gybe off and access a completely different bit of water.

But, more than gusts, consider shifts. Two Merlins split gybes for 200m, they create a separation of say 50m. Two 200s split gybes for 200m and create a separation of 100m. There is then a 10 degree shift... for which class was the tactics more important? The 200 will gain/lose twice as much ground. 

For boats that can run very deep (or by the lee), it becomes about selecting which gybe is favoured, and when there is a shift flipping over onto the favoured gybe. So shifts become more about boat speed than about creating leverage. The tactics are more 'boat on boat' in terms of breaking cover, rather than wind or tidal strategy. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I certainly don't think asymmetric is some Utopia of strategy, it's just very good for fleet racing on open courses. There are draw backs. For instance on constricted waters, where the legs are so short you hit the bank before even considering gybing for a shift or gust. 

Then it spreads the fleet out quicker as it adds another large opportunity for better sailors to pull ahead. In a tightly packed competitive fleet this is welcome. However, where there is a large range of skill it can lead to the fleets breaking up and back runners falling out of contention quicker which might not be desirable. 

I'm not ignoring those points, and I was just picking up on JimC's assertion that W/L course are only good for skiff type boats and not for 200s / 400s and that having kites on these boats is in some way redundant development. 

The 100 degrees is just a guess but since boats as fast as F18 cats (about the 4th fastest major small boat class in the world) seem to gybe through 90 degrees or wider, it doesn't seem to be a very wide angle.

Not necessarily,... I disagree quite a bit with you on this one. You are assuming that tradition symmetric kited boats always just point at the mark, from experience they don't they don't. I know Scorpions definitely don't. It depends, sails tend to work better in "aerofoil" mode rather than "stalled square running". In a Scorp, rounding the windward mark you have the choice of either running square (as you say) on whichever gybe or reaching off, unless it is blowing a fair bit, you dont tend to plane that well running square (sails aren't generating as much power to get over the bow wave, and the moment the rig puts on the hull forces the bow down). If you can get planing the increase in speed can easily offset the greater distance sailed (being able to gybe quick with the likes of twin poles really ads to this). Once you are then planing (once over that initial effort of getting the bow over the bow wave) you can then soak lower and possibly move to stalled/square mode while still planing heading back up if you come off the plane. A symmetric kite has more options available down wind so there is more to weigh up. Asymmetrics you either choose left or right, sail the long leg first, follow each other line astern. You can go low or high I guess, but if you go low you end up in other boats dirty air anyway.

Firstly, the top of the fleet were sailing the runs using it, rather than gybing, in stronger and stronger winds because it was proving faster to do so, which allegedly took some of the tactics/interest out of the racing.

Secondly, it was a faff, which was fine on a giant triangle/sausage type course on the sea, where all the major events were being held, with long legs, but where the SRS was really intended to help on puddles it wasn't doing so, because it was so much of a faff.

Unless the wind is dead steady in direction and strength then you will be out the back door sailing like that.  You have to pick out the shifts and pressure, much as you would on the upwind leg.

No doubt we will see some new trends in the class over the next ten years but my guess is, and in agreement with turnturtle, the development will be in the evolution of fitter more mature males! 

If you read my post you quoted I clearly don't  assume symetric boats run dead down wind.

However, if boats have a deep down wind best VMG option, that will create less leverage. That's a fact. That's how wind shifts work, the greater the separation between boats the larger the gains and losses per shift, same as upwind. That's not considering that sailing wider runs opens a larger area to hunt gusts and tide.

Now, what I'm not saying is that having hugely tactical runs is always best. I used to like the pretty much pure boat speed grunt off of reaches and run when I sailed toppers and lasers, and watching the top guys at the olympics is cool. 

But, to me, in big fleet racing, having that extra dimension downwind is fantastic. Especially in a two person boat where you have enough heads to put some proper thought in to it. Fitting asymetrics to slower boats, for me, was a significant development, even if it wasn't for 'go fast like a skiff' reasons intended. 

Is it right for all waters and fleet sizes? Certainly not. 

An affordable boat which offers the durability of polyethylene but the weight and aesthetic of FRP would also be a good direction to travel, since this would open the market for competitive club owned boats, which I see as the way forward.

Bringing the benefits of top end materials ... carbon spars, stress mapped sails would improve the experience though only by small increments.  North’s 3Di product may be a move in this direction.