Roll tacks - January 2003, #3

It seems that issue of how to attract new blood into the sport has struck a chord, judging by the number of emails that have poured into Rolltacks since I raised the subject two issues ago.

There have been some useful suggestions on how to grow interest in the dinghy scene, beginning with John Wigmore from Rutland, who believes club racing is in crisis. "I feel there are two reasons for this decline:

1) There are now too many different classes of boat so clubs are having to resort to handicap racing.

2) The open meeting circuit takes many of the keen helms away from club racing in the summer.

"I have two suggestions to make:

1) That clubs should become more selective in the classes they accept.

2) In order to encourage the less skilful helmsmen, a personal handicap system should be introduced at club level.

"Such a system existed at Midland Sailing Club in Birmingham when I first started sailing many years ago. Novice helms were given a 10% allowance, which was reduced after each win. The majority of club sailors are unlikely to win an open meeting, or a national championship - but they must be encouraged to continue sailing. I wonder how many golf clubs would survive if all their members had to play off the same handicap as the professionals?"

The first suggestion is a tough one. I believe that German sailing clubs are required to maintain fleets only of established racing classes, which is great for guaranteeing good racing but means the new boats just don't get a look-in. In France, the vast majority of dinghies are owned by the sailing clubs, so it is easy to go sailing, but I would suspect there is less loyalty to the sport when people don't have a personal investment in it. Plus which, there is little choice available. You either sail what's provided or you sail a boat all by yourself.

The trend of personal ownership in this country, and the strong base of boat builders and chandleries who are always promoting the latest thing, means we are the most progressive dinghy sailing country in the world, with far greater uptake of the latest generation of fast dinghies. But as John points out, the downside is diluted fleets with only a few of each class represented at your average sailing club.

Does anyone know of any sailing club out there that does actually restrict the types of boat that are allowed to race on its water? It would be interesting to hear if the idea works or not.

As for a handicapping system, this sounds like an excellent idea. John raises the example of golf and I think it is a fair comparison. Again, if anyone knows of a similar system currently in operation, please get in touch, and we'll publish details of it. The Fireball fleet was one of the first to subdivide its fleet at the National Championships into Gold, Silver and Bronze fleets, a concept that has gained appeal in many other classes. But I'm not aware of any such handicapping system at club level.

While we're on the subject of encouraging new blood, I'm not really meant to talk about big boats in this column, but when someone is offering newcomers a way into the sport, I think I'm allowed to break the rules.

Peter Innes-Ker of the Sigma 33 Association is inviting any beginners along to take part in an open day on the Solent on Saturday 26th April. Peter says: "The Sigma 33 Association is always looking for ways to recruit more crew, particularly for our Solent-based racing. Whilst this is no longer quite the cutting edge stuff it may have been 10 years ago, we still muster reasonable fleets and enjoy the excitement of close, one-design racing."

Peter says the open day will kick off with a be a bit of classroom work on how to race a Sigma 33, followed by some on-the-water practice, with coaching from a bunch of experts. He stresses that no previous experience is necessary, although a degree of fitness is advisable. Anyone interested should email Peter on innesker@msn.com.

Back to the dinghy scene, and Stu xxxx accuses Yachts & Yachting of having been biased towards the newer dinghy classes at the expense of the older, established ones, and he could well be right. What I would say in the magazine's defence is that the newer classes tend to be backed by professional (ie paid, full time) support, and so there is generally more information forthcoming from those classes. It really is up to the class associations to come up with the stories that are going to grab the media's attention. Already, just a month into writing this column, I'm getting a sense of the more proactive classes out there.

Stu has drawn my attention to the Classic and Vintage Racing Dinghy Association, and if racing old classics is your thing, then www.cvrda.org is well worth a visit. Stu regrets the fact that the modern plastic boats mean kids are missing out on the joys of painting, varnishing and maintaining wooden boats.

One 'home build' fleet that is thriving, however, is the Cherub class, and veteran sailor and class publicist Jim Champ points out that the age that people are building their boats has actually come down, with a number of teenagers now getting their hands dirty with epoxy, carbon and foam. As Jim says: "This has the advantage that the class's traditional secondary role as a nursery for the marine industry is more effective than ever." He's dead right, as anyone from the International 14 fleet will know, where we've seen designers like Ian Howlett move into the America's Cup arena (he was one of the ones not to get sacked from Prada, I believe). And the king of fast 14s for the last five or six years, Paul Bieker, was snapped by the Oracle BMW Challenge to bring his free thinking into their design camp. It was Bieker who pioneered the concept of the winged rudder, which played a strong part in the Americans winning the last two International 14 world championships.

You have to admit, these Yanks are getting quite good at this skiff sailing. Howard Hamlin has just won his second consecutive JJ Giltinan trophy (the unofficial 18-foot skiff world championship), edging out the yellow RMW machine, sailed by Rob Greenhalgh along with brother Pete and middleman Dan Johnson. I saw the final heat of last year's event when Hamlin couldn't quite believe he'd done it then. I bet he was even more surprised to do it a second time. It couldn't happen to a nicer bloke, though.

Hamlin, now knocking on 50, has been a late developer, and really only came to prominence since he won the 505 World Championships back in 1999. He and crew Mike Martin came pretty close again in the recent Worlds in Fremantle, just pipped to the post by that other skiff legend Chris Nicholson and his brother Darren.

Selden Masts probably didn't care too much who won the Five-Ohs, as it seems this is a class where you can have any mast you like as long as it's a Proctor (Proctor is now a Selden brand). The company's performance products manager Chips Howarth explained the effect of introducing the big kite to the venerable old class. "The trend in the 505 Class for the last 10 years has been to use the Proctor D section. Most mainsails have been cut to suit this section and in the nineties, it won eight of the World Championships in the decade.

"But in 2002, the class introduced the big kite which hoists effectively one metre higher up the mast. As Ian Barker outlined in the World Championships report [Y&Y issue xxxx], you sail angles downwind with the crew wiring once the wind is over 8 knots. At this angle, the kite load induces some sideways bend on a significant length of unsupported top section. This has prompted people to look for a mast that performs like the 'D' upwind but with increased sideways stiffness for offwind to resist the kite load. The Cumulus section offers this, being approximately 14% stiffer sideways."

Chips adds that the Cumulus has been more successful than people might have realised. "It actually won the 2000 World Championships when Krister Bergstrom sneakily used one and told everyone it was a 'D'!"

Chips has enjoyed his own bit of success with the Cumulus, winning the Fireball Nationals last year with my old school chum and crew Vyv Townend. As well as the gear guide below, Vyv sent me an annual round-up of the Fireball written by Phil Popple. Not to be outdone by their 505 cousins with their fancy new spinnakers, it seems change is afoot in the Fireball fleet too, with Kevlar/Mylar sails coming in this year and with the prospect of carbon rigs up for debate in the near future. No doubt this has caused a few arguments between the traditionalists and the modernisers, but I think these changes help keep people interested in a class.

Plastic sails, particularly, are a great move because they last so much longer than Dacron sails. Yes, it's going to hurt in the short term, but give it a year and the hot shots will be putting their first sets of Mylars for sale on the secondhand market. Carbon masts, I'm not so sure about. Provided they can knock them out for not too much more than a metal section, then fine, but the class must find a way of restricting the costs. The Europes and Finns made a right hash of introducing carbon during the mid-nineties - with some sailors investing tens of thousands of pounds on development costs - and only now is it beginning to settle down.

That said, the British Finn Association has a different problem right now, and one that I imagine every class would want to have. It can't find enough Finns to match current demand, so Mike Woodhead has put out a request to any owners out there who have Finns that are languishing in garages or dinghy parks around the country. Somewhere, a masochist near you wants to buy your singlehanded instrument of torture. I don't know, maybe it's the Ben Ainslie fan club at work. Anyway, if you have a Finn for sale, Mike Woodhead would love to hear from you at this email address: woodhdpl@dialstart.net

Fireball Nationals 2002 - Gear Guide