Starting up a new, non-elitist, friendly thread

[Jimbo42]

[andymck]

Had a chat to Grazza at the dinghy show about this. You cant narrow the boats without putting a load out of class.  Therefore all you can do is rquire greater righting moment to keep them upright. This either means greater sail area, or increasing the weight at the top of the mast. I think a return to metal masts would be, I think, a retrograde step. This leaves you with the choice of greater sail area, or more powerful sails.

I never did quite understand why the fully battened sails tried in the nineties were not adopted, they last longer, are easier to "pop" than a single top batten, and are easily depowered for the lighter crews.

The other alternative is the current trend for partially fully battened rig, I have 2 full length battens and two short battens lower down on my Solution single hander, which allows again more high up sail area. I must admit its taken a bit of rig fiddling to get it sorted, but now is not a handful even in over 20 knots of wind.

Grazza's concern was the controlability downwind, and the risk of nosediving. I think this would just insigate a change in hull design, as seen with the 18 footers when they went away from the B18 to the Murray design . They are now increasing the sail area used again, with square topped no1 rigs, which behave differently, and are being used at higher wind strengths than before.

My wife and I proably come in at 20-20.5 stone, and the reason we dont have a twelve at the moment is the all up weight. I am hoping to change that soon, but I would be reluctant to splash out on a new DB boat knowing that we were unlikely to be competative, we sail inland with mainly lighter winds.

Looking at the newer generation of single handers, I would also think about getting rid of some of those correctors. People are getting hooked on the really light weight displacemnt boats, such as the modern Phantom, and Solution, as they plane so early due to their low hull weights, and are fairly easy to sail.

Just some thoughts.

AndyMck

[DavidW]

Sailing with Adele I'm sailing very light for me at just 21.5 stone!  Inland in light winds this hasn't proved to be too much of a hindrance with a win at Ranelagh at the weekend (against the slight weight of  Fran & Clare circa 17st I'd guess) and a 2nd at South Cerney. Tipping the scales a just over 20 st isn't heavy and certainly shouldn't give you cause to feel you're too heavy for a Twelve. Light weather inland sailing is more about making the most of the wind that's available than every last ounce of boat speed.

Meds sails with a similar weight to me an has proven that this is not uncompetitive. It does get a lot more difficult to et near the front once your over 23st all up - though I've still managed some respectable inland results with more than this.

Cheers

[Jimbo41]

Being optimistic, we'll be sailing at BW with 23st all up, so probably won't make the top 15 OR 20 even. Saying that, it's being there that counts. I think BW is for all abilities, weights and attitudes. Salcombe, the week after and I'm sailing with my daughter Emma crew weight estimated (at the age of 10, she's already not allowing me in the bathroom when she's on the scales ) at 20 Stone. Of course, Salcombe is a completely different type of race to the BW configuration.

Thanks David for your words of wisdom,

Jim (Enlightened)