I was thinking of giving it a try my self and laser radial which i have doesnt seem to be the best boat for the job  for next winter.

As we have been thinking about a renovation project but want something that can actually be raced but doesnt have to be ultra modern.

Are any of these any good

Graduate

Europe

Streaker

GP 14

 

 

Is it the best handicap boat for my local club - no. Is it the best handicap boat for me - probably not. Does it get me out on the water for some competitive racing - most definitely yes and I can switch between 8.1 for handicap racing and the standard rig for fleet racing.

How much have I spent on the boat since....very little aside from a few bits of rope.

Would I have been better of buying a £500 shed of a Laser and pimping it.....no it would have cost me the same/more.

You need to balance what sort of sailing you are going to do the most and what you want out of your sailing. Not forgetting what you are likely to achieve. 

I would love to go and do the entire sailjuice series but I simply don't have the time so I concentrate on what is going to give me my competitive 'fix' and also the most enjoyment.

IMO what are are asking for at the moment is a little unrealistic given your budget.

Where was this? We are looking for one at the minute but on a limited budget 

I can see Graham as the Clarkson type figure, buying as many old wooden boats for his money as he can just so that he can sink them or burn them.

Cheapest was £23 for a dinghy park abandoned Lark which was only lacking sails and rudder. Added those and sold on to a student looking for a cheap boat.

I didn't hear your deafening response to my offer to rehome your C2.. http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8897&PN=7&title=exciting-dinghy-for-lightweights - here

 

Also, fully understand and appreciate not everyone has 5K for a weekend toy. In my explanation to my my Wife when negotiating the acquisition of my plaything and spending (our) spare cash, 'total ownership cost' was the thing that clinched the deal !

 

As one who has been down the 'buy an old boat and do it up' route I know that it can be done and for middle of the range club level sailing, you can indeed make the project into a qualified success. From bitter experience I'd say that the starting point has to be the quality of the hull, as a wreck is a wreck and shall ever be so, amen! (as wing-wang found out to her cost with a naff Bell kit Mirror 14 Hull). But if the hull itself is in fair condition, class websites and fleabay can solve many of the other questions about gear, be that foils, sails or spars.

 

The genre of boat being considered also plays a part: it's much easier to do this with a single hander, as there is not that much in the way of rope/fittings and 'add ons' (not to mention the jib and spinnaker) that is needed.  The obvious boat of choice would have to be the Laser, for the simple reason that has already been indentified - you do indeed find them in the elephants grave-yard at the back of the dinghy park.

 

But back to the thinking for a prospective Y&Y article..... the trick is to set out the ground rules first (as in how much do you spend on the donor boat and what the budget is to do this up) and then determine what the specifics of 'success' would be. If it is just a boat to thrash around in then it's easy. If you want a boat capable of winning a race at club level, that's still do-able (see Jim C's comment a page or so back about finding a boat that goes well in one set of conditions) but...how about...setting the criteria as 'an ability to win a club series'......now that is a hard one.

 

I'll keep watching this thread for further ideas and comments but yes, in principle, everything is possible - that is, a budget boat could be done - and the work needed used as the basis for an article!

 

D

Ps - in hindsight, last year I was at a club to report on an event and they were scrapping an enterprise in pretty damn good condition. At some point it had blown over, so the gunwale was messed a bit but nothing that a day of work couldn't solve. But in the blow over, the mast had been broken and replaced on insurance with a nice new stick that on examination (the gooseneck is a good place to check on previous use) cannot have been used more than once ot twice - yet was about to be cut up with an angle grinder. So there would have been a classic opportunity.... these boats are out there! 

We need articles about challenging things, exciting stuff, new things, that Farr 3.7 lad, we need some intrigue! What happened to the Aura and why did Mr Ovington come back from the Trials peeved off, what skullduggery went on down there?

What about those blokes who didn't get to go to the 1980 Olympics and their quest?

There's lots more exciting things going on here other than these water pikeys, I heard the local village are getting a petition together to evict Wing Wang for trashing the neighbourhood with all her wooden crap...

No wonder no-one reads the stuffy thing..

How about a how to burn your boat without causing a fifty car pile up on the M5 article?

What happened to that chicken powered Project X?

It's prolonging the old tut image of sailing that damages the image imv, there should be, no there probably are nice lakes in Switzerland with convenient facilities for self determination for all old wooden boat restorers

While im talking if anyone has a rejonvation project or old boat they might want to sell. Put it up on here and ill see if im interested.

 

NOTHING would give me greater pleasure than to open the huge can of worms that is the 'dinghy sailing scene of today' and write about some of the real stories that are there...but will stay un-reported for the simple reason that nobody would publish it.  Back in the days of Dinghy  Sailing Mag I did lift the lid (albeit just a tad) and got a great deal of grief for my sins, so to really 'tell it like it is' just ain't going to happen! Anyone who thinks that 'all is well' in dinghy sailing just because we 'may' win a few medals at Weymouth is missing a big chunk of a much larger truth, but the sport has long since lost it's voice, only those who are allowed to speak now do so, with the result that sailing is all the poorer!

 

In the absence of being able to write the 'warts and all' stuff, the idea of a controlled 'experiment' has merits.. and if it brings people back into grassroots sailing then it can do no harm. What's the atlternative? Yet another picture of a foiling Moth, or some wonderous boat with sail area measured in square miles that the likes of me and thee can only wonder at (and would never be able to right post capsize).

 

At the Dinghy Show I spent a long time with 'Old Arn' on the Alto stand (we go back many a long year to when we were both in five-Os) as I was looking at the bones of an article on sailing for the 'older' sailor - a boat that a reasonably 'still got all the marbles, limbs and the wish to do so' could provide a great sailing experience for a 'silver sailor' (many of the criteria we discussed would have warmed your cockles...for they are not so far from the thinking behind your V-twin ideas).

 

Now given your last email, I should expect the next one from you being a rant about developing sailing's equivalent of the zimmer frame... yet just like suggesting that an article on a budget boat could be a good idea, so could the 'silver sailor' piece work. From what I see of the sport, sadly there are all too many of us who are  'real' people - growing older and not the superfit sailing demigods where you clearly seek yourself ranked!

 

D

What I'd do with £500... probably buy an old wooden phantom, try and scrounge a fat head main and mast from an older 14 crew and whack a wire on it.  It would be as quick as a Contender, but far more stable, whilst retaining the lightwind characteristics that even 'old woodies' still offer in handicap racing.  I'd probably then look to put a kite on it at some point down the line, but this wouldn't be 'phase 1'.

Of course you'll be faced with the 'what PY should I have question' from some quarters, the answer is simple, buy this T-shirt-

Your task Jim should you choose to accept it is to find me a cheap or swap for something I sell, Byte C11..

There's a great one on Apollo Duck but it's in Co Galway, it would double it's cost going to fetch it and that Wing Wang won't sell me hers and is very curt with me right now, I must have hit a nerve with my assertions of water pikeys in her close..

Since we've started our 'season' we didn't go out last thursday, looking at the sea just now unless it calms it'll be unlikely we'll be out tonight, we didn't get out Sunday, or the Sunday before that...

Contrast that with my winter excursions down to the lake, 6 visits = 6 sails and it was sunny, the lake is always sunny. The Sea particularly off our beach is unreliable and given time allotted = thurs eve, sun morn, it is often wasted. Now they do a wed evening series down the lake, and over easter they raced every day, so a little Byte with a rig I'm sure I'll quickly get to know and if its at all like I think it is i.e. negative bend curve at head to twist off, it'll depower well for gusty days, so I'll likely get more use out of it.

edit misread what you told me to sell, the Asbo hmm it would  break my heart, as it is I've got to get it out of the boat park...

FTFY...

by the way, Oldarn- my advise to sell it was to get it back out on the water again, it shouldn't sit there unsailed whilst Graeme pulls the last remaining hairs out fixing up that V-Tub.