Those nice people at Selden are offering to give your boat a free hardware fit out (all connect to the inaccessible show) 

Part of the blurb mentions ‘soft attachment blocks’ and got me thinking of recent hardware developments and what people’s experience of them is:

https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/246106/Win-a-complete-dinghy-hull-deck-hardware-fit-out" rel="nofollow - https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/246106/Win-a-complete-dinghy-hull-deck-hardware-fit-out

Clam cleats on main halyards are probably the one thing I've replaced on every boat that's had one (or two). But I wouldn't choose to go back to those hook racks and wire halyards.

Soft attach blocks are great sometimes, other times a more controlled fixing like a flip-flop block is better.

I'm not a huge fan of stuff like LF rings or soft shackles just for the sake of it.

Best upgrade in my experience is auto ratchet blocks, but they are not a new invention. Anyone want a tufnol one for a classic dinghy?

TBH, most of the gear which makes up a scary sum on a new boat has not changed all that much in about 40 years.

Classic. Pose-tastic tie on block, but it's just tied to a plain old deck saddle rivetted on.

Having said that, possibly the biggest change from 'state of the art when I were a lad' is dyneema. In 1980, splicing was something old blokes did on gaffers. Now we use it a lot to simplify the string. But easily spliced plait dyneema is not new. One of my favourite upgrades is a spiro/'rocket launcher' kite pole system, but that was available when Ford Sierras were new.

Another big step I thought was boats like the RS400, where the deck moulding and some of the fittings/fit out were actually sorted out in a joined-up way. Still a t lot new-ish boats which look like someone bought a bare hull and then went shopping for blocks and cleats. And wedges and shims!

What have we actually done this century? forgotten about hydraulic rig adjustment? (that is perhaps not a bad thing?)

The sheets and halyards fitted last Saturday are of course Dyneema... Still considering whether to go for Dyneema Shrouds..

I'd say we've come a little way since then!

Soft attach is only so useful when the hull isn't fitted out with sharp deck eyes. The picture in the advert possible doesn't show them in their best utilisation.  

But, pretty much anything within a system (like cascade) will all be soft attach on my boats. And if I can get a kind attachment point then soft attachment in my experience allows the block to align better with loads. It also gives you a bit more freedom to position the block the correct distance from a fitting where that is important (no need to stack shackles up).

Low friction rings I love. But again, have to choose when to use them. I have replaced all the little blocks in the control line take up with them. They have slightly more friction (under low loads) than bb block, but who cares in a take up, it's not me pulling it, it's elastic. Plus on the sea the maintenance of those tiny blocks was a hassle. Friction rings are less maintenance, cheap and lighter. 

Within a control system low friction blocks only really become helpful once you exceed the working limit of ball bearing blocks. Below that I think most people would still prefer a smooth ball bearing sheave.  So I don't actually use many LF rings on the 800 within systems because the loads aren't that high.  I also have allen's extreme high load block which is a hybrid ball bearing (for loader loads) and plain bearing ( which kicks in at higher loads) which protects the bearing from damage. 

I have replaced pretty much all bowline knots with soft shackles. It used to do my head in getting the spinnaker tack and halyard the exact distance from the mast / pole. But now I make a soft shackle the correct length and it's always spot on (and stronger, but strength of line isn't usually an issue on dinghies). 

The other place I like soft shackles is on the 2:1 halyard. It reduces friction slightly over a regular shackle, but also holds captive around the halyard so you can't lose the shackle, and as it has no pin, you can't lose that either... I think everyone has been there once or twice before, scrabbling around hands and knees looking for a shackle or pin that was just flicked out of your hand by a flog of a sail. 

Rigs have changed a  lot in the time I've been sailing.

Sails have improved with better cloth (if you can even call it that?).

Spars have adopted carbon. Even alloy masts work better because sections have improved and the hulls can handle the rig tension. FRP hulls improved a lot late last century. Another thing that's changed is (apart from teaching establishments) there are very few 'non racing dinghies', so virtually every new boat is built to race, even Mirrors, so the average standard of fit-out etc has gone up. The opposite has happened to some extent in yachts?

Your problem is, you just don't 'get' One Design racing.Neither do you accept the compromise which is PY. Most people who have spent a lot of time racing, prefer class racing, where the best sailor wins most often, first across the line.There is absolutely nothing to stop people racing one another under some sort of 'box rule'. But very few people want to invest £20k in a one-off boat and find it's uncompetitive after a handful of races. Very few people want one-trick hulls which specialise in strong winds/light winds/waves/flat water/whatever. Maybe there are people who would like it, but not many can afford that kind of spend.

But the killer is, who would you be racing against? a few people with wacky ideas, a few people who don't like racing the class boats? Whereas in either of mt boats, I can race against a whole variety of people who've shown what they can do in all sorts of boats. A lot of the time racing a Laser, the boat is irrelevant, it's all about skill, tactics, wind and tide. Comparing my skills and guesses with some other people's.. That's actually a sport. Going out racing to see who's spent the most on making their boat lighter or exploited some strange corner of a box rule probably wears thin quite quickly. People have ried racing faster craft, e.g. cats and boards, if you've all got the same 'better' kit, it just ends up meaning you sail a bigger course in same time. Doesn't necessarily make the racing any more fun. I don't see kites or cats or boards racing very much at amateur club level these days? Likewise with other 'equipment based sports', look at cycling. People get out and race mano-a-mano under a bunch of restrictive rules, when did you last see any streamiliner recumbants racing?

Totally agree 

When you get down to it, most successful 'equipment based racing' is probably a lot like dinghies, in that there's a lot of rules about the equipment, and 'classes' for different variations on those rules?  Otherwise you end up with lots of 'classes' for weight ot age etc.

As for split rings, there are several alternatives, all of which cost and weigh a lot more than a handful of spare split rings.

People who generally don't quibble about expense are sailing 505's, FD's, Yachts etc, usually sailing in clubs with similar and skill sets to match, they wouldn't want to sail against couple of hundred quid, couple of thousand quid boats and I don't blame them. Majority of clubs maximum value of boats will be less than 15 grand, most members will have other drains on their money. 

You can easily almost eliminate the split ring removal and help find some PY Zen, get a Laser iGRF

Then perhaps you are using the wrong parts then. I've sailed racing dinghies for over 40 years including some running very high rig loads and the only time I've had a mast come down is when the bottom section of my laser snapped at the deck. 

I have a degree of respect for your drive to innovate.

However on this point.

If you have had a mast fall down five or six times, statistically compared to other dinghy sailors that would point overwhelmingly to operator error on your part. 

Sailing kit was next with wetsuits becoming warmer for a given thickness and making a drysuit less of an essential for the winter if you don't like the cold.

Actual hardware like blocks, cleats etc hasn't really changed much as it? Yes we have soft attachment but its only the same sheave in a different housing. Low friction rings have only become mainstream in the last few years but these are only a rehash off a very standard round ferrule used in a different way. Both of these innovations are brilliant when used correctly but not really revolutionary. 

In fact I see a lot of "innovation" that I think is a change for the sake of it. T Terminals on the bottom of shrouds (Someone is going to lose a rig due to this) and bolting shrouds/fittings into carbon masts are my two particular pet hates. What is actually wrong with a pin/ring or an upper T terminal? 

I’ve been sailing for 35 years and it’s never happened to me and I’ve only ever seen it happen to other people three times and one of those was a Laser top section.

Fast pins are great when used correctly. If you can pull one out on a GP when it's under tension you really should be on TV.

the I14 - once the main UK development class - has never been considered accessible even in old days and now is a very niche market.

The International Moth adopted foiling and completely wrecked a fantastic and unique UK development class where home building and low cost competitive racing was in full swing. This has never been replaced, but the Low Riders are making a small comeback. 

The National 12 reduced its weight beyond what its current fleet could achieve and then followed it up with a game changing foil change obsoleting its whole fleet virtually overnight - its just sort of recovering back to where it was but again this was a huge thriving class in days gone by.

The only "development" class that really survives is the Merlin, as a result of accidentally embracing one design racing as Douglas loves to point out! But even here the cost is creeping back up partly as a result of the current world/europe situation but also partly driven by people seeking that 0.01% advantage and being prepared to spend hundreds on doing so. Again, the merlin has never been considered an affordable class, but new ones came closest in the early noughties, and these days a competitive inland boat will set you back about three grand.

Just the opinion of this observer, but innovation is a double edged sword. You need it for things to progress, but if you do it too quickly you destroy what the previous innovations created. And it takes far longer to build back up than it did to create the magic string.

Ball bearing blocks made a big impact when they became affordable.

Here is a bizarre one, combination trolley/trailers!

Not really hardware, but modern ropes and also clothing. 

The transition from wooden to FRP was painful. Timber, the original exotic material,  was and is still competitive when combined with the right design and build method. FRP was initially largely very poor in most cases, no durability (in terms of stiffness) but now much improved with newer sandwich construction and understanding of the lay of directional fibres. 

I reckon that takes us to the 2000's. Since then it has been tinkering at the edges and the introduction of carbon in rigs/structures for the few that can justify the cost. 

If you look at other industries then that is were the development starts, particularly with materials, but the biggest changes there have been in process control and quality. 

I guess the next development is a production 3d printed complete boat!

Modern spliceable line is a gift to the boat bimbler who has nothing left to do on a Saturday, and offers the opportunity to junk large quantities of line, when you realise that the newly fitted continuous system is 20mm too short ... at least the dogs now get fancy leads.

I take it back; you have obviously been a statistical outlier.

I have the nice shroud adjusters which don't completely let go of the shroud when the fast pin is out.

 

But I also cover the adjusters with some neoprene sleeves, you can also use push bike inner tube.  It's pretty difficult to get the fastpin out with the cover in place. Maybe some sort of rigid cover would lock the pin in place?   The risk is perhaps highest when people help pull boats up the beach?

Advantages

> no separate rings

> sheer area is full 6mm not 6mm minus area of fast pin mechanics 

PS - I use a 40 year old fast on my downhaul, never failed. I think it is critical to have a good gap between the side of the shroud plate and the locking pin to avoid any longitudinal stress on the locking pip 

Got back to shore with the mast intact and all pins in place. Was on the start line next day thanks to 8 inches of 4mm stud iron, nuts, washers and some PU glue (works on wet wood and was only local available at the local undertakers) 

I noticed a lot of t-foil rudders at the dinghy show and these are now on craft such as N12 where I understand they benefit all those wishing to actually survive a bear-away in F4+ by stopping the nose diving and enabling the crew to even contemplate gybing in waves as well.

Systems to control the rake / angle of attack (someone feel free to correct) seem very well sorted, there very neat examples on canoes, the rainbow N12 and so on.  So, here's the questions:

i) do t-foil rudders benefit in other ways than just avoiding nose-dives? presumably lifting the back of the boat is advantageous upwind as well?  If so, how?

ii) is there a speed cut-off where they don't or won't work or be so ineffective as to not make it worth the extra hardware to implement?

Obviously they are banned in most classes.

As regards the parameters for  T foils improving performance, I think that may depend on whether you're slapping aT foil on an existing hull, or designing a hull to work with a T foil. I think some boats switch back to a normal rudder for light airs?