Dart 15 Forums

Tony Ray wrote:

At Bexhill SC we now have 3 Dart 15's plus one more to join us hopefully next spring. Most of our races are in a cat handicap fleet mainly us 15's & Dart 18's we find it hard to beat them on handicap & are considering proposing a club handicap do any other 15er's have this problem

Dartful Codger II replied:

Hi Tony,
At Beaver, the problem is quite the reverse. When we sail the early bird handicap race with Dart 18s, Spitfires etc., the Dart 15s always win quite easily, and probably for two main reasons :-
1 We sail on flat inland water .
2 We sail comparatively small courses, since our 'pond' is only 80 acres. This means legs of no more than 300yds max .
The significance of the above is as follows :-
1 Flat water is better for D15s since they do not have as much front buoyancy. Most of the extra length on a Dart 18 is forward of the front beam which makes it perform much better on the sea through waves and chop, has obviously a longer water line and will thus give better performance in these conditions .
2. Sailing smaller courses means more tacking /gybing , which is generally performed quicker in a D15 , especially when una-rigged, and can probably make better use of wind-shifts . Also, off-wind, a D15 will sail more directly downwind than an 18 and will therefore take a much shorter route to the next mark without the speed penalty that an 18 would carry, sailing in the same direction .
All this is saying that you cannot change the water you sail on i.e. the sea , so an 18 will always have the advantage there, as any longer boat would, but you could make the courses more compact and do more laps, and avoid windward-leeward courses altogether. Small trapezoidal or reverse 'P' should be fine, with laps taking no more than 20 minutes or so in a moderate breeze .
P.S. I don't think we win at Beaver because we are better sailors, since at least three of the opposition are ex. D15 sailors themselves, one an ex. National champion .
Conclusion : With a fairly flat sea , a small course and max. wind strength force 5 , you should have no trouble beating the big boys . Once it gets lumpy / more windy / bigger course set , then you're probably not going to be competitive - horses for courses really .
Food for thought. Cheers Paul Smith