Suggestions for a boat to replace a ageing fleet.

Probably not, as long as said boat is cheap simple and forgiving

 

Hi Doug Lord

I think that CT249 has a good point, and it is virtually impossible to satisfy all sailors with one type of small keelboat.

Many new sailors are attracted to boats that look safe and simple, with very few "ropes". Many young sailors only wants to get involved with boats that are "cool" and very fast. Many older and experienced sailors only want to sail on boats which are beautiful and fast (this is our target market for Scandinavian Cruisers). Many experienced sailors only want to sail in large one-design fleets, regardless of type, where they can race on an equal footing, without the high cost of an "arms race".

It is actually a very difficult deliberation to select suitable club boats, as they must also meet budget, maintenance, durability, space, safety and other goals, and still attract new and young sailors, i.e. be "cool".

Your brilliant choice today may look foolish in 5 years time (or less)!

There are many examples of yacht clubs having purchased a small fleet of a new one-design boat, only to find that they are not being used by the members, and then they stop maintaining them, and once the sails looks worn and the hardware is not maintained in perfect condition, then the fleet is dead.

That is why I keep coming back to my first point about having 150 Flying Scott's and how hard it will be to ever replace such a large fleet. If you just buy another similar boat, then you will not attract the new and young sailors.

I therefore think that the only way forward is to select a few different new small keelboats, to attract different segments of the sailing population, i.e. the latest cool high-performance sports boat, a modern classic, a basic trainer, etc. The club(s) should also take a close look at the active privately owned one-design classes in the area. It would make sense for the clubs to buy the same one-design boats as the private owners.

Best regards

Nis

Nis Peter Lorentzen
Founder
Scandinavian Cruisers

P.S.: Here is our new Scandinavian Cruiser 30:

[/url] Scandinavian Cruiser 30 by nispeterlorentzen, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

Doug;

There's nothing wrong with encouraging kids or adults to sail more exciting boats, as long as you also encourage those who want to sail other types as well. Overly encouraging fast boats is not a recipe for success. This has been proven through time and across disciplines.

Ironically, the boat that is being replaced (the FS) is a classic example of this. Sandy Douglass had designed faster boats before, but the slower, more accessible FS sold better. It, and other slow-but-easy boats, created the dinghy boom. That boom (in the UK, anyway) appears to have started to collapse at exactly the time the mass market moved to faster boats, possibly because the strong interest in fast boats caused the sport and industry to ignore the simple boats that had attracted new blood.

I think Nis' point is very valid - particularly in today's market, there is no "one size fits all" solution. IMHO the key would be to try to find multi-purpose classes (i.e. those that can be sailed in different configurations, with inherent compromises) or to integrate the different classes in other ways (like the RS or Laser multi-class regattas).

 

==========
Well, I'm not convinced of that at all.
But what I am convinced of is that your boat is one of the most beautiful new small boats to come on the scene in years! I wish you well!

PS-both the 20 and 30!

 

I think Scandanavia and CT both have a point, that moving to a boat that is to complicated, or too fast can be a serious detriment to a boat being used for so many different purposes. It is a real balancing act trying to find a boat that meets everyones needs, and has the characteristics we are looking for. Which is why we briefly discussed having one built, likely with two rigs that could be swaped out for racing and training. The decision was that this just adds a whole new level of cost, maintenance, and eqipment that also doesn't fit into the plan well.

CT while I think you make a good point, it is only true so far. There are definatly boats that are too fast, too complicated, and would never work for what we want to do. On the other hand I think having a boat that noone ever wants to sail because it is too slow runs the same risk. It is the ends of the bell curve that need to be avoided, and while the FS was a great boat in its day, it is now on the very slow, yet still mildly complicated side of things.

Secondly the FS has some issues related to its OD class that make it a poor race boat. For instance to get proper main sail shape you have to crank the vang down until the boom is bent like a banana, leading to on average one broken boom every two years per boat (in a competative OD mode). This could be corrected by allowing changes to the sail design, but the class isn't willing to allow this.

 

From what I have read about some of the boats you have mentioned the open 5.7 sounds pretty close, it looks kind of cool, is reasonably simple and reasonably docile. There is also the seascape 18, from your requirements though the big open deck of the open 5.7 would be ideal

 

Sounds right to me, Stumble. I was just referring to the fact that there's a lot of people these days who advocate everyone being pushed to the high performance end of the bell curve, whereas (as you say) it's the middle of the curve where most people want to be.

In some ways, the fact that it's quite hard to find your replacement boat may be an example of the fact that the fast end of the curve has been pushed too much.

The Viper looks good, though! Wonder how it goes as a learners' boat with a smaller set of sails?

 

Cheezy,

Thanks for the hint about the Seascape 18, I need to research it more, but it looks promising.

CT 249,

I would actually argue that the problem with finding what we need has less to do with pushing towards the fast end of the bell curve, and more to do with the market place for sailboats. Designers in many cases are forced to design boats around what buyers think they want a boat for, instead of what they will actually use it for.

For instance I have raced on many boats owned by people that had visions of using the boat in radically different ways than an outside observer would have guessed. One owner though he was going to cruise his J-130... todate he has never slept on it except 1night/year during a long distance race. Another traded in a Melgus-24 because he wanted to be able to go cruising, and has to date never taken the new boat out except to go racing.

The reality is that in the size we are looking at, most people want the posibility (if only a dream) that the boat could be used for weekend cruising, and so the number of true daysailors goes down. This seems to be even more true whn looking at boats over 30 foot. The Morris 36 for instance is the first modern boat over 30 foot I have been able to find that is actually designed to be daysailed. Everyone seems to build boats this size to sail around the world, or at least to the Carribean even though most people know they will never get close to this fantasy.

 

Another avenue that may be worth looking at would be the i550, this might be a stretch having to organise someone to build them and not everyone is keen on wooden hulls but the performance/functionality of the boat kind of fits

 

Cheesy,

The I550 was actually excluded early on because of its lack of a true OD class. These boats are really built to a box rule, and the variances in the boats allowed by its class rules will result in an arms race to the top. Not that this is a bad thing per se, but it doesn't fit with the requirements we have.