Jaycb wrote:Having just re-read this thread, I have to say it's a shame that the DX is not to be allowed. Similarly, I noted in the last magazine that the new battens have been abandoned.
This class is becoming an antique boat preservation club - it makes no financial sense for anyone to buy a new Sprint at over £7000, unless they're a previous owner who's heavily into competion. Anyone new to the sport with that sort of money to throw around has plenty of more modern, cheaper alternatives - you can pick up a brand new Topaz with genaker for a fraction of the price of a new Sprint.
Ray and Steve have tried to inject some new life into the class with a more modern sail, and fibrefoam battens were trialled (presumably due to the appalling fibreglass ones), but nothing has come of it. On this forum I've suggested making cheaper copies of the existing sails class-legal only to be ignored. My suspicion is that there is an entrenched "don't do anything to upset Windsport" attitude in this association and it's stifling us.
These are my own personal views and not of the committee:
I've sort of been trying to stay out of this but I think its time to air my views.
I don't think there is an attitude of not upsetting the windsport applecart. In the case of the battens windsport had proposed the fibrefoam alternates but worked with the SA company making the fibreglass ones to improve their quality control and manufacturing.
I'm all for the DX sails since for the heavier sailor (which I'm definately am at 1 stone per foot of boat!) they would appear to add life to the boat so thanks to Ray and Steve for their efforts. But I think by saying that they can form a seperate class association and stage their own events and activities this will actually help the DX owners since they will be able to take part in single format racing against their peers which lets face it is what we want. Would I buy them?, Yes but not this year since I have other large expenses coming up!
From the sprint 15 point of view if we accepted the DX sail into the association and then it started to win all the TT events then some would think "if I want to win at these TT's then I need to buy these additional sails for £800 or so in addition to the ones I already have!" Obviously not all of us can afford such things and thus there would be an impact on TT attendance.
Also some of the new classes can sometimes be a flash in the pan and never reach a critical mass to survive beyond a few years and fade away (e.g Dart Sting). Other boats have gone through these sail improvements and caused themselves to fail (hurricane is a case in point as Bob C. has previously stated) for precisely the reason stated above.
However if you take the laser and rooster 8.1 example (also by Bob) then this would seem to be successful allowing both varients of laser to survive independantly of one another. Those wanting the extra sail area can simply add the new lower mast and sail and when they want to goto a normal laser event just take their normal sails and lower mast. Thus we can do exactly the same with our 15's just put up the DX sails for DX events and normal sails for the TT's. The best of both worlds IMO.
Martin S.