Really thinking for next summer. My lad has done a few watersport taster sessions this summer and really enjoyed the Dinghy sailing. It’s something I’ve toyed with getting (back) into. In my late teens / early mid 20s I crewed and helmed on a number of different dinghies and cats but I’m 20+ years out of the game.

Want something that would be nice for myself and son (he’ll be 11) next year to sail and progress in. Apparently he was in a Laser Pico (one instructor and 2 kids) which looks like a lovely little dinghy.

There’s the competitive part of me that wants to consider a Fireball or a Hobie or something but I don’t want to put him off. I guess something bigger / dryer like a Wayfarer maybe another consideration. I just have no idea.

There’s a saying “if it flies or floats then rent it” or something

I’d just rent a few different types, see what you like. If you properly get into it then join a sailing club and go from there.

I’ve just done similar – but wife plus me, not a little un. I went wayfarer and bought an outboard for it too as access from slipway to sea pretty much requires it here. I can sail it singlehanded and do wee overnighters (thinking bikepacking but in a boat) and sail with my wife or other friends and relatives. Singlehanded launching is a bit of a mission but doable.

I guess it depends what is going to float your boat, a wet and wild thrill seeking or more steady adventure. I don’t think I can be bothered to race this time around but the right wayfarer can be competitive in club racing – woodies (wooden early ones) or mk4s for the win. Mine is a mk2 ex school tank of a thing that will never win a race or a beauty contest but was v cheap a hopefully easy to move on if I get the bug and want something better/newer.

A wayfarer is a lovely boat for most sailing activities, however pretty heavy to move around on shore for one adult and an 11 year old.
If not intending to do a lot of offshore sailing then perhaps an Enterprise or for more excitement a 470?
Although it was many years ago I learned to sail in an Enterprise that my father built, then moved on to a Seafly (also built by dad) which is a really good boat but not common, then moved onto a Wayfarer before going Solo ( did you see what a I did there?)

I have two boys 9 and 12 who both sail and they have friends of same age who do.

Get something they will be able to helm. Be prepared to get wet when they bin it. 🙂

I have an RS Vision as a family boat – it’s not been afloat this year because the boys are racing / playing around in single handed boats (big one is racing a Topper and youngest is learning in an Optimist).

In my view if you’re going double handed it needs to be the following…

Suitable for your combined weight and a bit more as they grow in a decent breeze

Capable of being helmed by the offspring (that means no boats with heavy steering and high mainsheet loads – Wayfarer and Vision I’m looking at you)

Be a bit “fun”

If you’re doing this you’re going to be joining a sailing club so see what the youth sailors sail there. If it’s Toppers get him a Topper because that will help his development more than anything else.

But pushed for time now but happy to post back again later and share a bit more experience and I’ll even ask eldest when he gets home what he thinks for you.

World of difference between pottering about on a lake and going to the island for a picnic or club racing.
Which of these are more likely to appeal to you/him?
Go and have a chat with folks at a local club, I’m sure you could blag a go in a couple, see what appeals.
When I was your wee one’s age my dad got me and my sister a Mirror, perfectly good boat but she wanted to potter about and I wanted to race. Then I discovered bikes…
It needn’t cost a fortune either, that Mirror was a few hundred and even I now I have bike wheels which cost more than dad’s Flying Fifteen

What has the local club got?

Having a boat (or better, borrowing a boat) that all your mates have and you can race or muck about with is more interesting and important than what dad wants or a bunch of strangers on ‘tinternet suggest.

Matt_OAB +1

If you want to race, get whatever is sailed locally.

If you don’t want to race, get a plastic wayfarer.

And for reference, my boats owned or blagged growing up were…

Heron

Graduate

Topper

Laser

Tempest ( 😎 )

Lark (stooodent)

Hornet

Mrs-oab and I also thoroughly enjoyed blasting around Loch Ken on the centres old 470 or (twin trapeze and home made assymetric) Flying Dutchman…

A mirror miracle is a nice little boat.

Pretty. And a spinnaker. But nice and easy to cruise in.

Then get a 29er obviously.

The good news is that you wont be short of choice for that kind of thing OP.

The questions will be ones of practicalities, as others have said above. Price is going to be a factor.

Fireball, hobie (405, or a catamaran?) or pico as your starting options list is pretty wide though 😂 which makes me think perhaps you are thinking about taking it places, rather than being at one particular club? If you are trailering it, weight and size will be a factor in how easy it is. Rooftop, even more so.

Worthwhile working out if your lad will want to race and that will start to narrow down options to some classes suitable for him before you really invest in anything fancy. Until then, rent if you can, or get something pretty generic that can take a beating. RS200 was our last “everything” boat and I loved it, but it isn’t really cruisy or cheap or super tough.

I race a 2000 at the local club sometimes. Great boat for learning to sail in but maybe not so great for racing as I have had average results in it.

+1 for an enterprise. Quite popular boats and not too large.

Decide where you want to sail and that will help decide. Wayfarer would be fantastic for exploring estuaries in Cornwall or Essex but be rubbish on a Berkshire gravel pit.
Look for a local club and see what they have, some have club boats that you can use (or cheaply rent). It’s more fun racing in a fleet.
I haven’t really sailed for years but when I was a kid we had a fireball that my older sister loved but I hated then we changed club and went from reservoir to the river Severn so got a ‘yaughting world dayboat’ which was obscure but great for the choppy estuary and didn’t mind being moored on the mud bank all summer.
Where we are now there a few yaughties on the sea or the local reservoir race some kind of RS two hander, international canoes and some other beasts.
Laser radial or topper were the youth single hander regulars. Pico may get small quickly. 470 with and 11 year old might be too much boat unless he is huge!

I was in your position, having raced Mirror, Lark, Enterprise, 420, 470 etc as a kid / youth. I ended up with an RS200 to sail with my son (11 at the time and had been sailing Picos and Toppers for a couple of years) – not too complicated (no trapzee etc), easy to take to the coast / other sailing clubs, v low maintenance, but has the asymetric ‘wow factor’ in even a moderate breeze. When he was 13 he could helm it with a friend of similar age crewing. There are always a few others around so you get a race. Only issue is you can’t reef it so hard going for a light crew above a 4. It’s tippy so def not a ‘family picnic’ sort of boat. Moving it on now as he prefers singlehanders at the moment. If you are both light then a Feva would be a good alternative.

So agree with the posters above – depends v much on what type of sailing you want to do. Assuming you are going 2nd hand, don’t sweat the decision – get something near the bottom of the price range for that class so it won’t depreciate much, try it, and move it on when ready to try something else.

OP I’ve been thinking similarly but my kids younger still. I looked at the options but landed on a Wayfarer being the best bet- but only wanting a picnic type boat to saunter about in with enough cockpit space, no expectations of racing.

no expectations of racing.

Like cycling, sailing is ALWAYS racing. You might not have a start line but as soon as youre within sight of another boat it’s ALWAYS a race.

And if you don’t think it’s a race, then the other boat is winning 😉

Lol at tinas.

That’ll be why I normally only think I’m racing when I’m crewing 🙂

My tip:
Find your preferred club (it may not be the closest but the most friendly or have a youth development section etc.)

Speak to them about the fleet that sail at the club and chose one of those classes.

You need to have people around to give you advice about the boat you have. And also you never know how well you’re sailing unless you have at least one “competitor” boat to compare yourself against.

And cruising around on inland water really gets dull quickly. Racing is the way to improve and keep things exciting.

OP where are you?

There’s a fair few dinghy sailors on here maybe we can help you with local club options/know what fleets are about?

I’m at our class national championship just now in Penzance – we sail a Scorpion which we bought when I was 13 and my sister was 11. It’s good for young crews as you can change settings at the pull of a rope to reduce how powerful the sails are. This meant even though we were small and weak we could be competitive. It’s a lot of fun, I’m in my thirties now and still do it.

Other options that may be suitable will probably come from the Laser, Topper or RS ranges. Each brand makes a range of boats and you basically pick what suits you best. A Laser 2000 is their entry level but is probably too serious. An RS Feva or Vario would probably be great. These are potentially easier to sail for young kids than older classes like my Scorpion as they use an Asymmetric spinnaker which launches with one string rather than training one of your kids to put out a spinnaker pole. Alternatively, find whatever thing like that your local club sails and join in for better advice and training as people above have mentioned.

We used to sail an Enterprise and it’s a lot of sail for an adult helm and child crew to control easily. You can easily be overpowered. Wayfarers are or a similar design to an Enterprise but they’re not racing boats by any stretch of the imagination, just going out having a picnic and a jolly type things.

we sail a Scorpion

Nice boats.

How’s the racing going.

To me, where you are going to keep it has a big factor in what you get. E.g. what will fit in the garage; can you keep it in a dinghy park with mast up; how long will it take to rig; is a mast on a trailer going to get in the way of your STW-compulsory van etc. In that regard the topper Cruz with its unstayed cat ketch rig was way better than it’s sales would suggest.

If a wayfarer is too much for adult + 11yr-old on land (I’d say it depends where you launch and your trailer set up – but it could be); then it’s baby sister a wanderer was developer for specifically that use case. I don’t think GP14 has been mentioned and would be a credible alternative for General Purpose use.

If moving on land and launching is not a complication then I think a drascombe (or similar) is often overlooked for family pottering in favour of boats that are really race boats and won’t be sailed the way the designer really intended anyway. Drascombe owners have generally accepted the trailer is going in the sea.

Cheers all. I’m in Dorset. My old stomping ground was Portland Harbour. I also use to crew on a Flying Dutchman out of Weymouth Harbour. But Poole and Portland are pretty much equidistant. Lots of good suggestions and ideas to consider. I did start looking at a few clubs and storage around Portland.

Preferably I think I’d like to leave the dinghy at a club / hard standing rather than trailer. Agree it would be good to get a boat where there is a fleet for advice / racing maybe.

Scorpions are nice boats – iirc, thier waterline is narrow and they accelerate really quickly too….

There is a friendly and active Scorpion fleet at Weymouth at Castle Cove sailing club if you fancy giving one a try. And it’s a fantastic place to sail – safely in the harbour with kids or further out to sea as they get older.

Our racing isn’t going so well – we snapped something crucial today and I’ve spent most of the afternoon fixing it. Boats, bikes, all of them can be a faff…

How about a Tasar. Fast and light. No complications like a trapeze or spinaker so time to concentrate on the basics. Designed for a husband/ wife or parent and child combination. The class is progressive so you can tinker with it too.

We picked up an RS Vision for a similar usecase to you – my kids are 10 – 13. My reasoning was it’s big enough to accommodate us, but they can helm it easily enough and crew the jib. Being rotomoulded it’s no drama if it gets spanked into the beach and being a dead class, it’s already rock bottom price wise so I’ll get my money back when it’s time to move it on.
Once they’ve done they’re RYA1, they’ll be on club picos and I’ll probably get a laser for myself and punt the vision on

The class is progressive so you can tinker with it too.

Should that not read: the class is progressive so you can spend a fortune trying to keep up or making modifications that have no benefit?

Stay away from Larks – they seem to prefer being upside down. Great fun for the limited time they were the right way up thou. 🙂

I’m in a similar (ha ha) boat; I chose Mrs Udder over big boat racing about 12 years ago, but Udderlet 1 has now got to the point where they should probably start racing to make decent progress in the dinghy sailing they do, so it’s back to small boats for me. We’ve joined a local club, my dad’s found him a super cheap Topper that we’ve reconditioned and I’ve gone back to the class I last raced in – the Europe. Dinghy makes more sense for me now as I’ve been unable to commit to a big boat campaign I was invited to, and I hate letting crewmates and skippers down.
Our club also rents out a small fleet of dinghies, so you can always try before you take the plunge, and if you can demonstrate competence and make friends in the boat park, you may also be able to try out a few different classes by borrowing boats.
Bear in mind some of the newer classes are great, but also expensive, ie Laser vs RS Aero – I’d have an Aero over the Laser any day, and the Aero is all-round a far better experience, but they’re about £7,000 for a new one, 6 for an older one.
I looked at a few two-handers before going the singlehander route, by the way, but then realised sailing with your dad is not the coolest, and certainly isn’t as flexible. The problem then is that you have to get two boats, which is how we ended up with three (ahem) boats…

@stuf

Stay away from Larks – they seem to prefer being upside down. Great fun for the limited time they were the right way up thou

Back in the day the biggest problem was stopping them from falling to bits, although they’ve fixed that since. Still, as you say, a massive hoot to sail. 🙂

Should that not read: the class is progressive so you can spend a fortune trying to keep up or making modifications that have no benefit?

That’s why I’m never more than 6 feet away from a Harken catalogue.

My experience if it’s of any help:

In order of ownership:
Enterprise….fun but a little tippy.
Mirror….slow and stable. Sloooooow!
Pico….great fun. Zero maintenance and simple. Bit small for 2 full sized folk.
Vision. Prob best all rounder I’ve had. Mine had a problem so I got rid.

I’ve just got a ‘new’ (1980) Wayfarer. Fantastic to sail but its actually too heavy for the slipway (Poole) for my g/f as we’ve discovered, so will move on soon and go back to drawing board. Might look for a Vision or similar again for next season.