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Might be a while before I'm out in some of the boats you all mention above !
But I'm already planning to leave work early and head up to the sailing club this pm / evening for a bit of extra practice in 1 of their hire boats. - I'm only 15 minutes away, so it would be rude not to.
My introduction to sailing was on 14th August 1979 - the day of the '79 Fastnet disaster. The family had just bought an Orkney Skua and took it to Anglesey with us on holiday. My dad had apparently sailed before in his youth and we had some family friends with us who sailed and were members of a sailing club. Probably not the perfect conditions for a first sailing experience but the old skua was not fast but with its steel centre plate, modestly sized rig and heritage in proper nails conditions could pretty much withstand anything. I think we owned it 25yrs and never managed to capsized it.
It started a lifetime of boats and misadventure for us as a family. My parents got bigger boats and dad ended up with his offshore yachtmaster tickets. I did the usual slew of singlehanders (and some quirky ones - a catapult catamaran that I think was very underrated as a concept and seriously shifted set up as a singled handed trapeze boat), running a sailing centre in the med, crewing the Sydney to Hobart and blagging my way to trim the spinnaker on some mega race machine owned by a stupidly rich guy organising the Sydney Olympics sailing at the time in the Annual Australia day race in the the harbour. Probably the most stressful 3 hours of my life having a Les Patterson sound/lookalike screaming in my ear.
I sill windsurf and sea kayak and sup. But dad is now gone and I feel I need a proper boat in my life again.
And it also started with something that looked like this:-
I only every owned one cat. An A Class Unicorn. 18ft long, hulls 1ft wide at the widest point and tapered to a razor sharp bow. Pitchpoled that many a time. Lot of fun when you're on the wire.
Enterprise....then Yamaha, Bultaco, fantic etc to Gas Gas, Then Marin, Whyte, Sonder, Cotic!
There was a period when on of the paint companies (IYE?) used a photo of a 505 with both guys on the wire as their ad. Looked totally amazing. We all wanted one. Not a boat for inland sailing, even on Farmoor.
505 is a single trapeze class? Do you mean I14? They are twin wire and have been for a long, long time now. Interestingly I have sailed both at Farmoor over the years. In fact joined as a winter member a few years back in my D-One
We've done the Birkett a lot. It's a great weekend, you can fit in a bike ride after if you're not too exhausted. It's mad, everything from kid's boats all the way up to yachts. The dangerous ones are the Tempests - big and unwieldy and determined they have right of way even on port. We've had a few crash into us when they've been in the wrong. The whole race is carnage - last time we were there, there was no wind and the entire field arrived at the first mark at the same time and there was so little wind that no one had control and just ploughed into each other. We were lucky and skirted round the outside but a few boats were out of the race with big holes, from crashes that must have happend at half a knot!
We sail a Scorpion, a 14ft fast and narrow symmetric spinnaker boat. It's very wet.
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I'm sure it was a 505 with twin trapezes. I seem to remember it being tried in a couple of winter series. I certainly looked like a 505 from the back with the semi open transom.
I'll see if I can fid a photo. Definitely not a 14. And we are talking back in the early 70's, I think the 14s had only recently introduced a trapeze. And the double I thought was as recent as the 80s.
Might have been one of the early examples of this:
https://parkerint505.wordpress.com/
Ah ok, so I believe there was a trial with win wires on a 505. 14’s went twin string in early 80’s I believe. Happy to be picked up on that. Either way our club at the time had a fleet of both single string versions in fact we had one of the biggest fleet in the county and a POW winner....nothing strange there but for it being a very, very narrow river! Completely unsuitable for boats of their speed. But they were races week in week out. We tried our modern 14 there a few years back and did about £1000 damage in about 30 seconds. Ha
POW's on now...
Not seen that since the 80's. Always a joy to attend. That and looking at Merlin Rockets at the same venue. Both 14ft and expensive but a world apart.
POW’s on now…
Think it starts Sunday or Monday through to Friday? My mate is racing, so looking forward to daily updates from the very front of the coal face
Just tried to work out what I've owned in order:
1st Boat : All wood OK class, K473??? Bought cheap fixed up and sailed before buying
All glass OK. Built and given dispensation by the class as it was the first boat to use carbon for stiffening the panels. In this case ICI Graphil, which was a 2 inch wide glass tape with a tow of carbon down the centre. Didn't do a lot really.
10Sq M sailing canoe. A cold moulded all wood Nethercote back when it was one design hull for a while. Loads of power, small jib, huge sliding seat. Single hander with a roll rate like a Folland Gnat.
Unicorn Cat A class cat. Bought on a whim when in Brightlingsea on a vist. Not a great decision. Lovely boat but needed more skill/balls than I had.
Toy 16ft. Designed by Tony Allen of Holt Allen fame it was a sort of scowlike narrow single hander - think: a rounded off Fireball meets a Topper. Had a Solo class fully battened rig on it. And a sliding seat.
Contender. I built this in 1975/6 from the last of the Marinepacks kits that Freddy Gale imported from Australia. Beautiful 16ft singlehanded trapeze boat that looked like a Flying Dutchman hull. You built a light ply single chine hull over a ply space frame (All pre cut) and then planed the chine with light wood and rounded it off to get a smooth hull. Beautiful boat with Needlespars, Mountefield sails and a lot of custom bits I machined and welded up like a continuous trapeze system and an easil adjustable lower shroud array so I could make the mast do anything, Especially with the massively power kicker I made up.
Somewhere around the Contender period, maybe 1978 I bought half a dozen cosmetic defect Toppers from Dunhill in Basingstoke who where marketing them at the time. I sold five on at a profit and kept one for days when it was too calm or too windy for windsurfing. I think I gave that one to my kid bro.
But in spring 1976 I discovered windsurfing so that all the above went out the window.
Sailed lots of other stuff too over the years. Fireflies at Uni and crewed Merlins on the Thames at Putney. Scorpions and Flying Juniors at my local club. Even did a short campaign crewing a 470 for an old clubmate who was a future world champion in a couple of singlehanded classes. I wasn't at his standard.
It’s a fab hobby. I’m recovering from the GP14 Nationals at Abersoch last week - so much fun and not all of it on the water!
Once you’re competent with sailing about you’ll quickly find floating about a little boring, so I’d say make sure you’re looking at racing as soon as possible. It’s the quickest way to improve.
And if that’s what you’re going to do, then look at the dinghies sailed at your club before splashing the cash; there’s no point in buying a Phantom if everyone else sails Lasers - you want to be in the same dinghy as everyone else so you can see your improvement (the whole PY menagerie thing leaves me a bit cold).
This is a good place to look for kit (floating or otherwise - there’s often wetsuits and clothing on there too):
I'm just getting back into dinghy sailing after a almost 20 year hiatus.. Used to love racing lasers! First time back tonight and in my head I can remember everything, so really hope it's like riding a bike.
Quick question for folk that have been doing it none-stop since the 90s... Has the RYA certification changed? It looks like there's level 1-3 now, but I swear my old (long lost) RYA logbook used to have way more levels than that...but maybe I'm mis-remembering! I contacted the RYA and they don't have a central database of any certificates folk have, so keep them safe 🙂
It looks like there’s level 1-3 now, but I swear my old (long lost) RYA logbook used to have way more levels than that…but maybe I’m mis-remembering!
I've a vague idea they went up to 5 which was racing. I did 2 and 3 (missed out 1 which was very basic).
Edit: I've just dug out my logbook from '95 and there were 5 levels: Start sailing, Basic Skills, Improving Techniques, Racing Techniques and Advanced Skills. The last was all about strong winds, spinnakers and trapezes. I imagine they've since merged a few sections.
I have a white badge, which was pretty good about 15 years ago, but I don't think they do that anymore either.
My first sailing experience was not in an Optimist or Topper but a Flying Dutchman.
Nico wins!
In ownership terms I started in Mirrors, then a Laser to which I added a Solo, then another newer Laser (all sold during divorce/life readjustment a good few years ago) and now remarried with young family we've now got an RS Vision. Bit of a slow old bath tub but it allows me to take my wife and youngest son (7) racing or day sailing while the 10 year old cuts his teeth in his first full year of Toppers. I nearly bought a Laser EPS when I left uni. Whatever became of them!
Along the way I also sailed Larks, Enterprise and Fireball at school and crewed an Iso for a couple of years. First time I raced the Iso I was 16 and my parents dropped me in a layby to meet some 40 year old bloke we'd never met before to drive off 100 miles with him for a 2 day open meeting. Imagine suggesting that now!
Also done a few years in slightly bigger boats (Bull 7000 for a few years was great fun) and been fortunate enough to have had some interesting day charters on a few proper offshore boats.
Now I'm hankering for a Finn or another Laser (the former just looks really interesting and technically challenging and the latter because it's like a comfy old glove). Purchase prices are putting me off the Finn though!
Come on then, tell me about RS aeros. - Not sure they are recommended as a beginners boat, but I like a challenge and they look great.
Great boat, very light which might make it a bit fragile if you're not nimble getting ashore in a blow. In terms of sailing it's no different to any other racy hiking singlehander.
Id maybe consider a £500 laser for a year first. Not as fun but you can learn what the controll lines do and it'll tolerate being rammed up the beach when you get it wrong coming back on a lee shore without completely trashing the hull beyond amateur repair.
My dad's after an Aero now I live 4 hours drive away so can't make weekend racing at the club. He's very experienced, he's been doing it for 50 years, but is now in his late 60s and just about to have a triple heart bypass so needs something that's exciting but not mad. The main advantage for him is that you can fit different rigs to it so you can set it up for different conditions and your weight easily.
While I'm not particularly a fan of lasers, I'd agree with thisisnotaspoon. You can get a feel for it, if you have a beginner mistake that results in damage it won't cost you a fortune and you can also fit different rigs for different conditons.
Cheers guys, - You've kinda confirmed my thoughts when I'm feeling sensible. But, but, but.
While I’m not particularly a fan of lasers
Is anyone (other than ILCA)? For the first 30 years they were horrible ergonomics, badly built, expensive, poorly designed sail and epic weather helm when heeled even slightly.
They're still most of that, but now at least they're cheap to buy.
They're the 26" steep and twitchy XC bike of the sailing world.
Their saving grace is they punish bad habits like healing to leeward. If you can join a club and get a laser to midddle of the fleet then whatever you buy next will feel easy!
The other advantage of a £500 laser is it leaves you with the £3k change you would have spent on an aero to spend at Rooster on winter sailing gear! By the time you've bought several different weights of hikers, tops, spray tops, hats, gloves, socks, boots, base layers etc it can get expensive.
Come on then, tell me about RS aeros. – Not sure they are recommended as a beginners boat, but I like a challenge and they look great.
36 of the buggers at HISC, from the smallest rig to the largest. Mixed fleet from brilliant to just starting out. Peasy to rig, flexible to depower and all control lines run easy and simple. If you start with the smaller rig, when happy just get another top section and large rig on it.
Expensive IMO, but it’s your choice and a great boat to go bouncing around on.
Start steady, learn the basics of trim because that’s important, then tight reaching where it’s “lively” but on a run when squared off they’re the same as any other single sail single hander.... most tend to broad reach em’ on a run unless it’s really light. But that’s RS boats all across the range.
Build quality is good, foils aren’t bad and the fittings seem to stay in place so reliability wise they’re pretty good.
RS built the pre-courser the 100, kinda similar but slightly bigger and a bit heavier.. built as a replacement trial for the Dinghy selection at the Oly’s but didn’t get chosen, so the market fell out of that... that’s another good similar boat and probably quite a lot cheaper than an Aero.
HTHs
Are you thinking rs300 bikebouy? The 100 has an asymetric. And both are quite a bit higher out of the water with narrow waterlines and wings.
If you wanted something high performance but really forgiving, have a look at a Blaze. They're really flat underneath (it's an i14 with the rocker taken out) which makes them tricky to get the best from in light winds and dead downwind, but once planing they're a bit of a handicap bandit. Negative is the rig is the exact opposite of most other classes (stayed rig with no tension) so you have to learn what a good sail shape looks like rather than relying on a simplistic "pull this line to that mark on the deck when the wind blows x knots" tuning by numbers approach.
Thanks bikebuoy. I know there are plenty of lasers up at the club, which means there's a good chance I could compete directly with others in races if I went down that route. I'm going to try and get a feel from other club members of how many aeros are regularly raced as well. The other appealing factor of the rs is the weight. - I've got a camper with a pop top and would have no concerns about carrying the rs around up there when we went away. The heavier laser would obviously stress the roof a bit more.
This may all, however, become hypothetical when the cost of an rs is discussed with my wife !
Well, it's your choice but the best option if you intend to race is definitely go to the club and ask around.
We have such massive fleets that most of the folks get a bit bamboozled by the choice, for instance whilst the Laser is massively popular, and we have about 40, no-one sails them in club racing. It's not the handicap, it's just a "thing" We group all our single handers, except Solos, into a slow HC fleet and we ave about 25 or so most races... mainly RS Aeros has to be said.
No not he rs300, that's the old moth shape from about 20 years ago.. nice boat, becoming more popular at our club, bit retro now 🤪
Yes the 100 has the Assy rig, no-one used it at the club though... I think they disliked the boat.. we have 1 but it doesn't go out.
The most popular fleet by some margin is the Solo, and that gets 30-40 out most weekends, not a "old mans" dinghy like some think, it's quite technical and the class racing is very close...
The best thing about 300's, people buy them because theyre not a blaze, then buy a blaze.
Aero's usp is its weight, but in reality a laser hull is also pretty light and car topable, <70kg with a trolley. Both are a two person job so there's not really such a huge benefit.
Or get the wife involved and get a 200. Get her to steer whilst you play with the kite.
Yeah, get a 200 - two person sailing is loads more fun.
It's all about line honours so I'm learning 49er. It's a blast. Bit of a diary here:
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?/topic/202833-49er-learning-curve/
The faff compared to bikes though is something else.
I'd love to put a 14 together, but geography, cost, time and space are all against me.
If you want line honours then surely you need to be foiling these day's?
Although my experience with moths at handicap events is they sit on the shore as it's either too windy or not enough wind.
The best thing about 300’s, people buy them because theyre not a blaze, then buy a blaze.
Thats really not the case, I owned 3 Rs300’s and frankly it’s a million times better boat than the blaze! I think my very good mate and former helm who won the blaze nationals in 2018 would agree!
As for Aero, they have created a real storm. Which is not unusual for RS. Its a very popular boat at present, very fast and simple. designed by Clive Everest (who also designed the 300) Personally (I am biased) I preferred the D-Zero. Which is like a much calmer Rs300 in a point and go kind of way. But like I say I’m biased as I helped set up the class association and am good mates with the designer!
I dont dispute that the 300 is a nice boat or that a blaze doesnt have faults. But then like most boats there's conditions that suit either of them.
Dont hate us just because we take home all the chocolates when its blowing a bit! That big flat hull and scaffolding has its uses when all the canoe bodied lightweights that disappear over the horizon in light winds have retired to the bar to watch!
To be honest I don’t hate on the blaze, not keen on some of the prominent characters in the class but that’s not for consumption on here. I have to say I never had a time when a 300 wasn’t faster than a blaze and most of the blaze fleet were not every launching at a particular windy Bloody Mary a few years back. Like I say my mate was Blaze national champ in 2018, he is an exceptional sailor. But still prefers a 300 if pushed. Just his local club had a fleet at the time. He sold it for a solo...because the competition was better.
Cockerill??
Small world.
No it’s not Steve, don’t think he is or was sailing a blaze at that time. He used to sail a 300 back in the day, believe he is tossing around in an aero sporadically now? But i have been out of the game for a few years now, excluding a dusting of the old hikers in a solo earlier this year...
Still, small world eh.
Isn’t it ever!
2018 would have been Devon which makes your mate Charlie?
That was some interesting racing, I remember reaching up and down the start looking for a gap in the penultimate race, finding one, then realising the whole fleet was effectively pinned there by the tide! Took about 50 tacks up the beach to reach the windward mark! He did well to do so consistently, the rest of the usual suspects were doing well but for every top three in one race would pick the wrong side and be in the bottom half the next.
For the benefit of the OP we should probably point out that dinghy sailing is very tribal. Pick a class, buy a boat and defend your choice to the death before buying whatever RS is pushing this year and dropping the next, then buy a solo or OK and tell anyone its for the tactical racing. Get bored and buy a moth, musto or 49er, realise they only really work in certain conditions/locations, buy whatever RS is now pushing, buy a 300 or a 600 if you're really brave, sell it and buy a blaze, sell that and buy a 100/D1 because you dont like knee pads and do like something to keep you entertained downwind before finally getting a 12, 400 or Merlin depending on how much you like pies, beer and bits of string.
Its all pointless though as the handicap system makes a 50 year old sideboard/coffin with a handkerchief for a sail (aka a Solo) just as competitive as an Aero. And the need to make money selling the latest and shinyest boats means dinghy parks are stuffed with classes abandoned by Laser, topper and RS over the years means there are more classes out there than sailors. But the Aero (RS's latest boat) will absolutely, definitley take off and become the one design that everyone races for the next 20 years or more, absolutely definitely.
It is Charlie yes, he is an exceptional (multi class champ) but no real surprise, his father is a former POW winner. He has always been very, very good. In fact it was him, who got me back out in July to sail his Solo at an open.
I could talk all day about whats wrong with dinghy sailing. Unfortunately some of the politics, tribalism and questionably corrupt business and Olympic selection processes ruin (for me) what is ultimately an exceptional pass time. I stepped away a few years ago as the nonsense that comes with the sport was ruining the enjoyment. The Moribund sailing clubs and class that litter the country, too fixed in their ways and not willing to change to suit modern lifestyles. Hamstrung because dinghy sailors, by and large are cheap. A second hand market where people believe its their right to make a profit on a used boat. A sport where people find it acceptable to commit insurance fraud to obtain new kit. Obvious gerrymandering of the handicap system by builders. A self policing sport, where everyone is too polite to point out the cheating if it breaks from the club/class pecking order. A sport where its governing body rapes and pillages is long standing class Associations to attend a "Show" in central London with exhibition rates taxing the class coffers, only to be branded a "Dead" class if you cant afford to pay for the stand. Unfortunately i allowed myself to become too entwined with the sport and its infrastructure to see it first hand. I would always urge others to really take time to consider the correct sailing club and equipment for them. But remember one of the purest joys in life is sailing a boat and not to get too bogged down with club racing, national and international racing like I did. Really the sport needs some consolidation...IMO
....So if you are looking at a Laser, please don't waste your life loosing into whats happening with that class from a politics perspective. Just enjoy it for what it was meant to be. A simple, cheap, fun to sail boat.
Well said, my clubs doing OK, but I sent a stropy letter last week as the racing format just doesnt work if you're under 65 anymore. The racing is split arround lunch which basicly wipes out your sunday for 2x 45min races. They could bump them back a couple of hours to a 1pm start and still be off the water by 3 in winter. But no..... the oldies bladders cant take 2 hours in a wetsuit but can give up a whole day.
Next season i think i'll just do open meetings. With a bit of planning between an active class and the sailjuice type events you can still do 20+ weekends a year, and if you discount the class events its probably not that much more than the club fees.
🤪
Same old arguments I see.
Not really encouraging newbies into the sport with the above comments 🤣
Buy something that suits your ability, ask at your local club what people sail and it that suits you, buy one of them.
Then go get wet.
🤷♂️
I'm still having plenty of fun in club' training Picos at the moment. Planning on heading up to the club this pm to tag onto the back of the 'slow racing fleet' race (if that's the right terminology) to see how its done / get in the way !
FWIW I spent some time trying to sail an Aero last year. I just couldn’t. It was 15mins of sailing and 75mins of swimming - mainly down to how light it is. I weigh 90kg, the aero all-up is 30. Just getting back in after a capsize was tremendously difficult for me.
The whole class thing is a minefield. My advice is; pick your club, sail the class they sail, do the opens/national events for that class. The moment you try and run menagerie or racing that requires a PY conversion it loses the point as far as I’m concerned.
I've got an old wooden Phantom sat in the garage at the mo drying out.
Needs a couple of deck panels replacing and a repair round the transom, then a lick of paint and a varnish.
It's going to be a winter project, so hopefully back on the water for the spring.