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420 light air performance

Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: Dinghy classes
Forum Name: Dinghy development
Forum Discription: The latest moves in the dinghy market
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13963
Printed Date: 28 Mar 24 at 10:54am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com


Topic: 420 light air performance
Posted By: CT249
Subject: 420 light air performance
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 6:09am
How does a well sailed 420 go on the water against equally well sailed Lasers in confined waters and light winds? I know the 420 prefers a breeze, but can it hang in with say a Radial in 5-8 knots or glassy patches or will it be left minutes astern?

I’ve seen a couple up against Lasers recently but both have had very heavy adult crews with no real dinghy experience and the static rig tune etc has been way off the pace, so they aren’t proper yardsticks. I’m trying to do a long-term plan for our little club and need to look for a boat for teens. It’s either Aus Cherubs ( even more one-dimensional than a 420), a minor local ply boat similar in performance to 420s but
Dying as a class, or perhaps Tasars.

Cheers.



Replies:
Posted By: andy h
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 10:28am
Neither the 420 nor the Laser are real drifting machines in all honesty.  I've no first-hand experience of Tasars, but maybe some modern NS14s go better than Tasars in light winds?  Not sure if a development class would tick all your boxes.

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Europe AUS53 & FF 3615
National 12 3344, Europe 397 and Mirror 53962 all gone with regret


Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 12:09pm
By UK standards none of those boats are great in light airs. When I was doing the major open handicap events the 420 was mostly only reckoned to be competitive in F6 and above.


Posted By: Mark Aged 42
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 12:10pm
Good boat might ne Feva


Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 1:46pm
Originally posted by CT249

How does a well sailed 420 go on the water against equally well sailed Lasers in confined waters and light winds? I know the 420 prefers a breeze, but can it hang in with say a Radial in 5-8 knots or glassy patches or will it be left minutes astern?

I’ve seen a couple up against Lasers recently but both have had very heavy adult crews with no real dinghy experience and the static rig tune etc has been way off the pace, so they aren’t proper yardsticks. I’m trying to do a long-term plan for our little club and need to look for a boat for teens. It’s either Aus Cherubs ( even more one-dimensional than a 420), a minor local ply boat similar in performance to 420s but
Dying as a class, or perhaps Tasars.

Cheers.
I don't think many people in the UK have ever sailed 420s in light air, confined waters racing.
They've generally been a niche boat for young olympic hopefuls. You might get some useful info from the Americans on Sailing Anarchy as 420s  and Club 420s are AIUI, commonplace over there.
  FWIW, I'd say they are similar LWL and a reasonable hull shape but will be carrying two bodies to the radial's one. So it will suffer upwind but not so much downwind where the kite comes into it.


Posted By: rich96
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 1:53pm
A standard Laser is ok in the light (but also ok in the medium and ok and the heavy stuff) - obviously a good alround shape 9 (as you know) 

420 - truly awful when not trapezing against similar handicapped boats

Tasar sticky (as you will know) in light

420 must be one of the slowest (in light) and fastest (in breeze) against its handicap of the traditional boats  ?


Posted By: drifter
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 3:32pm
I think the 470 is even more extreme. More hull to stick in the light stuff, more length for windy stuff. I can remember lapping 420s and keeping up with 470s in light winds in my old rules Graduate. Now there's a light wind boat, especially a new hull and big rig!

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Stewart


Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 3:41pm
Did the RS200 ever make it down under? Less binary through the wind range, and good fun for teens, who will, I assume, enjoy being spat out the back when gybing in breeze.

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686


Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 3:42pm
Otherwise, just go for 420s, ignore other boats in drifters and see how they do as a OD fleet.

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686


Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 05 Aug 22 at 11:21pm
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Posted By: CT249
Date Posted: 07 Aug 22 at 11:18am
Sorry, I didn't give enough information. I'm not looking for a boat that will do particularly well in light airs, but just wondering if 420s would hang in with our Laser fleet in light winds, or straggle well behind.

Because we are the only club in an area with a population of about 25,000 people in an area of of over 3300 square miles, I'm trying to work out a way to cater for a wide variety of sailors while promoting classes that mainly fit into a fairly narrow speed band. We are also trying to foster classes that are economical and fairly widely popular down here. I don't want the club to go back to having such a wide spread of speeds that no one gets a good race, which seems to have caused it to shrink dramatically years ago.

The speed range I'm looking at covers from 1021/1022 (Tasar & Flying 15) to 1148-ish (Radial and a local 16' 3-person trainer) which brings in a bunch of the biggest classes from Windsurfers to trailerable yachts. We have a Laser fleet as the foundation but given the small population it's unlikely that we will develop other ODs so promoting a band of classes seems to be the best way to create reasonable racing.

Outside of the above, we have a fleet of very mixed cats, and hopefully we can grow a Junior sub-divison of Optis, with kids then progressing into Laser Radials and 4s.

There's a few 200s and Fevas in Oz but they don't seem to have organised racing, at least within 800 miles.  We already have some Tasars but if NS14s came along we'd be happy to race them alongside Tasars, which have the same yardstick. 

Almost none of our classes are light-wind flyers by UK standards, so there's nothing that really monsters the Lasers, Tasars etc. We get lots of wind in the spring so I was only wondering if the 420 would straggle badly in the light autumn winds.

I was thinking Cherub but the Aussie boats really stick in the light whereas as A2Z notes, the 420 can still roll tack (and run square) which is important on a lake with 600m beats and surrounding hills. 

I hadn't realised that the 420s in the UK mainly sail in squads, and it's a good idea to check the US C420 guys. Thanks



Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 07 Aug 22 at 1:04pm
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Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 07 Aug 22 at 8:35pm
Originally posted by A2Z

Given the 420 has a PY of 1105, a Laser is 1100 and a Radial is 1147, I think you’ll find the 420 is fine.  It may drop behind the Lasers a touch below 8kts but will still likely be ahead of the radials.  People have a misconception that they are bad in light wind because they are good in strong wind. They outperform their handicap in 15kts+ and therefore probably underperform against it in less than 8kts, but they still sail just fine.  In fact I wouldn’t be too if they can beat a Tasar over the water in this light winds. 


I suspect the serious 420 sailors going out in strong breeze might not get involved in PY, so the 400-odd PY results of 420s in 2018 might largely be older boats sailing in moderate conditions in run-of-the-mill club races. I suspect  a shiny new high budget 420 is a lot faster than the average old one? More so in breeze? But it's older ones driving the PY?  There are a lot of old 420s around but they are not ever so active in UK club fleets. A good few belong to schools and so on?  I really think on small water, they won't be out of touch, but ideally you'd concentrate on racing other 420s. Sounds like a cheap route into good racing which will teach a lot of skills. But I tend to be cynical about racing disparate boats and a trapeze 2-up kite boat is always going to be disparate with a Laser IMHO. As in the course will affect the outcome. If you're prepared to enjoy the racing despite that, it's not a problem.


Posted By: turnturtle
Date Posted: 14 Aug 22 at 8:52am
Sticky, slow and frustrating - doesn’t point

Laser on the other hand isn’t ‘that bad’ if you’re not carrying a payload over 80kg


Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 14 Aug 22 at 5:35pm
If the boats are convenient, just use them and see what happens. I'll be interested in what happens.
I like the idea of trying to create a "band", so you don't get Tera v Osprey, as we do on our lake. But in the end, people sail what they enjoy.

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686


Posted By: Oatsandbeans
Date Posted: 14 Aug 22 at 5:47pm
Sounds like the perfect boat to build your light airs technique in



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