Sydney Hobart One Design.

Now that sounds great, what are you calling this rule.... the big box?
How about a 30'Beam x 50'Length x 70'Air draft.......
Jeff

 

Yes... but more of a development class than a one design.

 

How about a maximum length rule only

but

The winner is the boat that delivers the most people, fastest, for the least amount of money.

So, 15 people in 3 days for a boat that costs $60k

beats a boat with 8 people, in 2 days that costs $70k

The large crew/passenger numbers means a bigger spend in Tasmania when they get there

 

Crowded YW Diamonds will win!

 

IMHO Box Rule... OD gets outdated and doesn't encourage innovation. Innovation breeds a 2nd hand market and opens up opportunities for more cheaper boats (maybe). Get the OD class wrong or too old and no one buys into it.

* 10.10m x 3.3m x 2.4m 14m mast, 1m bowsprit. Such dimensions would hopefully encourage an all rounder and less pizza slice/pure grandprix style boat.
* no hollows in any dimension below sheerline (taught tape method)
* Must sleep 4 adults comfortably, with at least one double bunk min 1.5x1.9m dimension
* Reasonable head room (5'6-5'8 say, over 2 or 3 m^2)
* No or limited Carbon or ti in the hull or fittings, unless commonly available.
* Fixed ballast, but stacking allowed. Stackable weight incl sails should be declared and limited to 200kg's. Can not include safety equipment which must be stowed appropriately.
* should be capable of competing in cat 1 events including scantlings and stability
* Max 2 jibs, 3 spins, 1 main, storm jib, trysail. 2 new sails / year allowed

Grandfather in a bunch of existing boats eg the JPK's, MAT's, Sunfast 3200, figaro, Corby 33. Plus being a box rule means you can easily include most super 30's out there for the lower safety cats (3/4)

Mixture of first past the post and handicap racing. As long as they're all around the box size, doesn't matter what handicap really. Combination of round the cans and offshore racing... proto and production classes. Events that coastal hop along with abillity to do the major classics

Although, despite the strength of the Mini and Class40's, you'd have to question why other such rules eg, MG30, GP33 Classe950 etc... haven't taken off in the past

*shrug*

 

It still ends up being cheque book racing....

 

Classes are by $$$

No sane person is going to spend 2X on a boat than can be claimed for X at the finish line.

Anyone in the top 20% of finishers can claim your boat in "as raced" condition for x$$$$

The value of X determines the approximate size/speed of the boats.

Promotes design and economy and kills the chequebook wars.

R

 

Yeah... no. The object is a level playing field so that the sailors do the talking not the designers or budget.

 

Lasers or Hobie 16's

It would have to be a single manufacturer boat with *all* parts supplied buy the manufacturer.

All One Design Classes from Optimist Dinghies up that allow more than one builder end up being budget wars.

In distance racing it is seldom sailing skill that wins. It is finding the weather that best suits your boat's polars.

The goal of winning due to sailing skill is cool. Works at the dinghy level. Works at the Extreme 40 level. It has never worked in big offshore boats.

If the boats are not owned and maintained buy the class they will no longer be the same. One crew will invest more hours with 3000 grit paper than another. The top boats will have new sails more often than the others. No one has ever been able to stop the budget wars.

Come to think of it even Lasers and Hobie 16's are not immune to budget wars. The pointy end of the fleets are in new or newer boats and have new or newer sails. At worlds all boats and sails are supplied, but that does not prevent the budget war in the qualifying process.

I think the British Steel Challenge was as close to an offshore One-Design racing class as has happening in my lifetime. Not a big media deal, but it was the sailors not the boat that mattered.

 

This...

One of the reasons Lasers and Hobies are so popular is I can go buy a 2nd hand one pretty cheaply and get into the class and be reasonably competitive. I did just that, but I know what it takes to go beyond winning at a club level and the first hurdle is time and money. Cheque book racing is what drives opportunities for 2nd hand markets, or perhaps the other way around; 2nd hand markets drive opportunities for Cheque book racing. IMHO you need to be able to cater for both ends of the market or the class dies (albeit sometimes very slowly)

There are lots of people all racing around on ex IOR one offs quite happily that were once bleeding edge. One of them just won the S2H. Give the old boats somewhere to go to with a rule that encourages people to want them 2nd hand, and embrace the cheque books I say!

but don't kid yourself, if you want to be competitive, you better have that wallet open regardless of the class or how one design it is. I was once quoted it costs 80% the cost of new to get a 2nd hand keel boat up to the podium. Cat 1 safety gear alone for the hobart would cost more than I paid for my boat. If that sort of cost is not a barrier to you then a cost constrained one design class isn't going to make it any better or worse, just open a different opportunity.

 

I thought the Sydney 38's were doing this already?

 

No, no it wouldn't. There are many one designs that don't have a single manufacturer.

If the class rules are tight that would be severely limited.

I include the whole crew when I am referring to skill... navigation and reading the weather ARE a skill of offshore sailing, at least where I live. Interesting you should draw a line.

Point to an example where it has been tried and failed.

They will be close enough that things like that will not be the difference over 680 nautical miles.

Sure, but it is relative and the budgets will be nothing like we see in the current format.

The world heard about it when sailing was a pretty marginal sport?!

So let me get this right. You guys don't like the big budget canters, long for simpler times when the small guys could mount a decent offshore campaign yet you don't like the idea of a very tightly defined offshore class with the goal of controlling cost and for most intents and purposes levelling the filed?

What do you want? Besides banning all boats you can't afford.

 

To a limited degree, but nothing that is really going to be internationally acceptable... I think that wider scope, like some of the dinghy classes, is desirable. North Shore 38's where a de facto one design before them but in the end they are limited to the manufacturers goals. Define the critical criteria like weight, hull shape rig etc and really who cares what is inside the hull or the deck shape... so long as the boat "measures" These boats are typically dual purpose, allow for that in the rule and you might have a winner.

Somehow I don't think that these guys actually really want to compete on a level playing field. Mostly they are mediocre sailors in my experience and would run a mile at the thought of bashing an egg-shell around the course with their peers... it may just show them up. Much easier to hide behind the boat!

For this reason I know an offshore one design is never going to get sponsorship... I just thought I would see what the objections would be.

 

And they are budget classes to a greater extent than Lasers or Hobies. When someone finds a new sail shape or rudder shape or whatever your choice is to buy the new stuff or not be competitive.

Severely limited does not get the result of an equal playing field for sailors. It usually just makes getting that limited advantage much more expensive.

Nice try. Micro weather systems introduce a element of luck that is independent of skill. In the last AC sailed in lead mines the choices made to find better breeze had a greater effect on the outcome of races than sailing skill. On ocean courses choosing/guessing right has a larger effect on speed over the course than hull shape, sail shape, or trimming skill.

There are a number of OD classes that have come and gone. The Farr/Mumm 30's and 36's, Farr 40's ... several NYYC one designs. They all start out relatively equal then become money pit wars. Box rules are worse than One Designs. But if the stated goal is to remove the equipment from the sailing skill no One Design in history has succeed. The Grand Mistral (Farr 80) OD class was going to be the professional OD boat for offshore ... you can pick one up for $300,000 USD.

If the design is heavy you might be correct. D/L 300+ When ultralight displacement is allowed all it takes is one lucky squall to gain separation on the fleet and gain a lead. Then some boats are sailing a different race than others. With heavy boats that are limited to hull speed the chances of jumping into a big lead in one micro climate event is much reduced.

It sounds like you still want to let money talk, just less money than is spent today?

That was the goal of the OD fleets I mentioned. You don't need a new boat. Just get the Farr 40's to write tighter rules and you have a very competitive cost controlled class.

I have never said I don't like the big budget boats. I just don't buy the hype that they are good for the sport. They are great entertainment for the great unwashed masses, just as the J-Boats were. Stupidly rich people spending stupidly large amounts of money to win a pickle dish. I *like* that.

LOL No one suggested banning anything. Personally I would not want a supermaxi if you gave it away. It is not about can't afford. It is about not wanting. It is about not believing that the latest, most expensive tech boats are doing anything to increase the number of people sailing, the number of boats sold, making local clubs stronger, or supporting professional sailing. They get people on internet forums to drool and froth at the mouth while people are out sailing the boats they like with their friends. 99.9% of those boats do not have canting keels, water ballast, or foils (keels and rudders excepted).

This entire discussion springs from the unsupported statements that the big budget boats add to the value of events like the S-H. No one has shown any evidence that there is a benefit to the event or to the local economy from the 5 big boats in the S-H.

 

Look, you've been told already about putting up straw man arguments. Don't do it. If you can't argue on the merits of your case, posting stuff like this demonstrates that your position is too weak for you to support.

This isn't amateur hour here. A lot of us graduated from Usenet newsgroups where every sort of crap argument was practised with great enthusiasm. We (mostly) don't do it here because it lowers the tone of the discussion, not because we can't.

Grow up and stop trying to attribute motives to others unless you can quote original sources. Otherwise I and others *will* start giving you negative rep points.

PDW