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Wow! Pinnell & Bax get behind the Alto. |
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Lukepiewalker
Really should get out more Joined: 24 May 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 1340 |
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Topic: Wow! Pinnell & Bax get behind the Alto. Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 3:09pm |
Don't forget the influence of sailing schools.
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Ex-Finn GBR533 "Pie Hard"
Ex-National 12 3253 "Seawitch" Ex-National 12 2961 "Curved Air" Ex-Mirror 59096 "Voodoo Chile" |
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ellistine
Really should get out more Joined: 06 Mar 08 Online Status: Offline Posts: 762 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 3:16pm |
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Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 3:24pm |
I agree with the sentiment, but I'm not sure the 3000 is the best example for that, given that it used to be the Laser 3000, but presumably they dropped it cos they couldn't sell enough? RS really are remarkable success though, seeing as they started from nothing only 15 years ago. |
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G.R.F.
Really should get out more Joined: 10 Aug 08 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 4028 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 3:34pm |
There's not a lot of 'free thinking' going on in the sailboat world is there?
If the Blaze for instance had permitted the use of the trapeze, there would be two maybe three in our club right now, instead there are a couple of Contenders and one rarely used. If the 505 Class had been a touch more radical, by now they'd all be racing souped up Alto's or something similar rather than watching their class slowly fade away or confined to old boats showing up now and again. Sailors don't buy unless there's a 'class' the class wont change anything for fear of increased expense so the only way for anything new is the risk of a new boat. RS's great strength, other than it's vertical supply chain is it's control of its class, so immediately wether you need it or not it's there to back the purchase. The Choice of moment to launch the Alto was a tad unfortunate, it wasn't helped by lack of co-operation between the designer and the builder to my mind and if it fails to take, the world will have lost an excellent boat for casual desk jockeys like myself and others who might know their way around, but don't have the practise hours to throw at something high performance. You have only to watch that video to see how casually those two guys sailed it in what looked to be a fairly stiff breeze and I doubt they had a lot of practice before hand, it must have been a demo boat. I'd have been made up with a 6th straight of of the box like that fair winded PY or not (what did they sail off I wonder). I love mine and despite all the hassle I've had, would still have done the same thing over, it's given me hours of pleasure and enabled us to better results in lots of cases than we'd have ever achieved with the 500 which still remains a tricky boat if you're not that experienced..imho |
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Medway Maniac
Really should get out more Joined: 13 May 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 2788 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 3:36pm |
The Laser 3000 badly needed the makeover that Vandercraft have now given the design. Fortunately, most of the mods are retro-fittable to Lasers - just the gnav missing here:
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G.R.F.
Really should get out more Joined: 10 Aug 08 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 4028 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 3:58pm |
Hah, not quite. RS is the former London Dinghy Centre that according to their figures dates back to 1957. They acquired Racing Sailboats that originally traded in Battersea Park Road in the seventies and early eighties and moved to Este Road, the combining of Londons Biggest dinghy retailers and mailing list gave them the initial success. Building boats to their own design rather than relying on the questionable supply and pathetic margins offered by the likes of Topper and Laser was their genius move and they haven't looked back since. Now they're a supplier in their own right which they can probably be sympathetic in knowing what it's like on the other side of the coin. As I see it, the only thing that could counter that sort of marketing strength, would be the coming together of a few of the Independant builders to set up a stable of boats that can be reliably supplied quickly and co-operate on the marketing thereof. Imagine a Boat show stand with say the V3000, Phantom, Solution, Alto, Blaze, and Halo, sharing the marketing costs and advertised under the AIBB(Association of Independant Boat Builders) or some similar acronym with packaged finance schemes and sharing mould times if they get a run on a particular model. It wouldn't happen though, they'd never all get on.. Edited by G.R.F. |
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RS400atC
Really should get out more Joined: 04 Dec 08 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3011 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 4:53pm |
[ A few independent builders do a lot of the work for RS. As I understand it, RS provide the tooling money and take the risks. And do the marketing. I fundamentally disagree with you about old classes moving on. If you make the existing fleet too blatantly obsolete, you destroy a lot of value and possibly end up with a second class fleet like the penultimate 14's. The great thing about 'dinosaur' classes like the fireball and 505 is that I can buy an oldish one, get some new/used sails and race in the fleet while I'm learning, at a very reasonable cost. OK I will not win the nationals, but I won't anyway 'cos I don't have the talent. If people stop buying new ones, so be it, the existing ones can carry on racing. Not everyone is able or happy to buy a new boat. Why alienate the 2/3 who will not buy into a new boat?. 'Balls and Five-Ohs remain highly competitive. Anyone who can get in the top ten nationally deserves a lot of respect and will probably hold their own in other classes. These classes are doing OK as they are, and don't need a facelift, they still get a lot of people racing. I don't object to basing a new class on an old class, epsecially if retro fitting boats is possible, but it should not leave the bulk of the old fleet in the wilderness. Like the 600ff might absorb all the non foiling 600's or the foilers might move onto a different hull and the standard 600 have a resurgance, or both classes continue happily in parallel. |
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Rupert
Really should get out more Joined: 11 Aug 04 Location: Whitefriars sc Online Status: Offline Posts: 8956 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 6:13pm |
Didn't RS take on the B14 for a while? Can't have been such a rip roaring sucess that they and the class remained forever joined, seeing as they are now built by someone else (Ovi's?). RS are very good at what they do, expanding on the early chandlery sucess to expand into boatbuilding, but that is not the be all and end all of dinghies in the UK.
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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
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Phil eltringham
Really should get out more Joined: 16 Mar 04 Location: England/Hitchin Online Status: Offline Posts: 1105 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 23 Jul 09 at 8:19pm |
RS began marketing the B14 for Rondar (who continued to build it for them), and introduced it to europe, it succeeded for a while, but didn't gain a big enough momentum on the mainland to survive. Ovis took over the class at the request of the class association because when RS introduced the 800 anyone phoning up asking for a B14 was sold an 800 instead. RS were trying to kill off the competition to their new baby from the inside. Can't say I blame them from an econiomic point of view, but it was a bit cold. Net result however is the Ovi boats last longer, are easier to use, and the fleet in France is growing again, we all know the 800 has succeeded, so everyone is happy |
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FLAT IS FAST!
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Paramedic
Really should get out more Joined: 27 Jan 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 929 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 24 Jul 09 at 8:17pm |
Didn't they do it in the form of the B14 E which was single wire?
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