The RS100 Owners Thread

There's a bargain for sale here - £3300!!!

The S'Nova has a lot going for it .... good fleets, reasonable hull etc etc.  The weak link if there is one is the rig/sail.  We had very similar issues just after the Blaze was launched, it was not then as easy to depower as many neeeded, and had the delightful tendancy to get into that 'stable but stalled' orientation if care not taken... from memeory this was always a right pain when trying to hover in the last minute before the start gun !  Added to that the battens did not allow easy 'feathering' upwind in gusty conditons as the luff was held up in the breeze .... when in fact you wanted it to partially collapse when you eased the main quickly.

However the cure is easy - just develop a semi-soft version of the sail.  You might sacrifice a tad in the light stuff for a hell of a lot of benefit the rest of the time.  It would work and is relatively easy to retro-apply to the fleet ... if they wanted it and went for it.   

The 'tough' can usually get most rigs to do what they want or can overcome any minor vice ... but they are rarely the majority. 

Now before some get a bit over-excited and start all that 'frothing at the mouth' stuff I'm NOT saying bad manners of the type described are inevitable with all fully battened sails.   (There are pelnty of ther variables involved).  But one of the more recent trends seems to have been away from fully battened to semi-battened (a mix of full width and leech ones) from the RS800 down.

Mike L.

Great display of Bytes sailing in WIND at Haversham last weekend!

Originally posted by Rupert I like the SN hull, but I don't think I could live with the rig - it appears very hard to read in light winds, and then very overpowered in strong stuff, judging by the ones sailing at our club, and from sharing Northampton with them in the Lightning.

That's spot on with my experience of sailing one for a couple of seasons. Lovely hull shape, loved sailing it most of the time until I was tee-boned by an out of control enterprise when I was stuck in irons.

Edited by Blue One - 23 Oct 14 at 12:07pm

The supernova sail material is quite rigid, but the battens make it hold shape in the light.