It was initially very frustrating and then actually quite encouraging to discover there was nowhere to park on the hill at Alexandra Palace. Arriving at 11 o'clock in the morning on Saturday, just an hour after the London Dinghy Sailing Show had opened, and we were being sent back down the way we'd come, to see if there was anywhere to park in the surrounding area outside the Palace. A pain in the bum at the time, but great news for the health of the Show.

A 9 per cent increase in attendance figures for the Show speaks volumes for the growing popularity of our sport, and also to the organisers' ability to get the message out. The RYA did a good PR job for the event this year, with a lot of coverage on the Friday before. I'm sure the beautiful weather gets people out a little more willingly, and perhaps news of Shirley Robertson's double bump even helped bump up attendances.

I must confess I never seem to get very far through the doors of the Dinghy Show, as I end up chit-chatting all day, so hopefully other parts of the magazine have dealt a little more comprehensively with the boats and other exhibits on display. What was very obvious, however, was the buzz of genuine enthusiasm around the Show. It's quite clear that both exhibitors and visitors share a huge passion for dinghy sailing in a way that never comes across in the monolithic London Boat Show, too big, too commercial and too impersonal for its own good in that anaemic white building called ExCel.
 
One interesting trend that the Show revealed was a growth in small skiffs, with the display of the 29erXX on the Ovington stand, the continued renaissance of the twin-trapeze Cherub, and most surprisingly a bold move to launch a 12-foot skiff class in the UK. Former Cherub sailors Bob Clements and Alan Atterbury believe the 12-foot skiff deserves a wider audience than Australasia, and they were manning a stand with some awesome video footage of the 12-foot skiff showing on a flat screen.

Having done a couple of weekends in a 12-foot skiff on Sydney Harbour about a year ago, they didn't need to do the hard sell on me. I'm already a paid-up fan of the 12. Before I'd actually sailed one I had made the unfounded assumption that many make about the 12-footer, that it is a stupid toy for adrenalin-heads. In some respects the experience didn't change my view - it really was stupidly good fun! But what was surprising was how controllable the boat was. Bob and Alan's stand had a few pictures of the boat with the bow up in the air and the hull looking as though it was going to exit the water and come back down with a big crash. I found the reality was that the boat does sail around for much of the time with its bow in the air, but it really is quite stable.

There are many classic pictures of the 18-foot skiff with a similar bows-up attitude. This is a very good attribute for a boat to have, because as long as the bow stays up and out of the water you're pretty safe. It's when the bow suddenly digs in that you're in trouble, but the 12's hull design and the long bowsprit mean that doesn't happen very often. You'll see a lot more pictures of the 49er cartwheeling than you will of the 12-foot skiff, and I think that's a function of their different hullshapes and length of bowsprits. There are many times I've been left wondering if a longer bowsprit would make the 49er a more leisurely ride downwind.

But this isn't to say the 12 is without its demands. Of course it goes without saying that with such a short boat at your disposal, you really should step back as far as you can for the downwind ride. I was a little bit casual on one of the bear-aways in moderate breeze and still had another step to take back, but didn't bother taking it. Such casual stupidity is punished in the 12, as I discovered when I was thrown unceremoniously over the handlebars. So there are a few cardinal rules to observe, but the basic truth is that the boat is not as scary it looks.

Unfortunately the extraordinary images of boats charging along at alarming angles is what may put off most sailors from giving it a go. It just looks too extreme for conservative tastes, and of course it's never going to be a mainstream class, but I hope its whacky image doesn't prevent Alan and Bob from getting their project off the ground. Bob says they have a sponsor waiting in the wings with the clout to generate a televised race circuit, although the first hurdle is to build the fleet. The dynamic duo are going to import one of the best boats from the Australasian circuit to operate as a demo boat and enthuse potential owners with the idea. And they are going to import a mould from New Zealand, which will enable them to build hulls to the same proven shape that accounts for most of the existing fleet in Australia and New Zealand.

 

Having had preliminary discussions with well-known Cherub and foil builder from the Isle of Wight, Andy Paterson, they reckon it will be possible to build a carbon hull for around £5,000. Bear in mind though that a top 12-foot campaign involves three rigs (two masts and one extender stump), along with the associated sails. So the final, on-the-water price will be more in the region of £12-13,000. So it wouldn't be possible to describe the 12-footer as a cheap boat, but as the Aussie sailors pointed out to me last year, the fact that you have a rig for all weathers means that none of the sails wears out that quickly. So the initial investment may be high, but ongoing costs are not too painful.

The obvious fleet to team up with while Bob and Alan are looking to gain interest and critical mass is the Cherub fleet. There are some great synergies here because it is possible to pop Cherubs and 12-footers out of the same mould. It is really in the rigs that the boats differ, not least in the fact that there are no rules whatsoever to limit the sail area in the 12-foot skiff. The biggest rig that anyone dares carry in light airs is a 30-foot mast and a 17-foot bowsprit. Others have tried bigger, but soon learn the error of their ways when 4 knots suddenly gusts to 14.

The Cherub, on the other hand, operates on one limited-size rig, as the class wants to maintain its status as a lightweight's skiff. And this is where the Cherubs and the 12-footer could sit happily alongside each other without fear of poaching sailors. While the Cherub is ideal for a total crew weight of 18 to 20 stone, the 12-footer really needs 24 stone or more to get the best out of her powerful rigs. So a joint open-meeting circuit might be the way forward for both classes. In fact Bob and Alan say one Cherub owner is planning on buying a set of 12-footer rigs to put on his Cherub to go and have a blast with them.

Meanwhile another twin-trapeze skiff has arrived on the scene, which is the 29erXX. I sailed this a year ago in Sydney with the 29er World Champion Jacqui Bonnitcha and it was quite a beast then. Since those development days, Julian Bethwaite has toned down the rig somewhat, and now the twin-trapeze version is not significantly bigger in upwind sail plan than the conventional 29er, just an extra 2.5 square metres. The gennaker adds another 4.5 square metres, but none of the enhancements are excessive. Bethwaite would like the boat to be considered as a twin-trapeze skiff for girls, with a combined weight of 120kg.

If ever ISAF's prayers for Olympic survival have been answered all at once, then the 29erXX must be it. In a time when sailing is coming under pressure to make itself more appealing to TV, to make itself more accessible (ie cheaper), and to attract more women into the sport, then surely the 29erXX ticks all those boxes. It would make the perfect complement to the 49er in the Games too.

In the past, Julian's er... shall we say... robust form of diplomacy has not earned him as many friends around the table at ISAF committee meetings as perhaps his talents deserve. But since it's almost 10 years now that the 49er was admitted as an Olympic class, he's probably been around long enough now for people to realise that his bark is worse than his bite. Julian just can't understand why it has taken the rest of the world to catch on to the joy of skiffs, but I think we are all catching up with his way of seeing things, and hopefully the powers that be in ISAF are too. The 29erXX is a Get-out-of-jail-free card and collect-£200 card all rolled into one. I hope ISAF see fit to use it before the International Olympic Committee come along and confiscate all their hotels from Mayfair and Park Lane.

The great thing about the XX is that it really is just a standard 29er with a bigger rig, so it is a relatively cheap upgrade for existing owners of what was already a very reasonably priced skiff. One observation that Paul Brotherton made, however, was that the reverse-raked transom - which has become the hallmark of a number of 9er designs - means that the crew cannot get their weight all the way back to the transom. His concern is that in a breeze it won't be possible for crews to keep the nose out as effectively as they might, and he wonders if there should be a bolt-on addition to the transom that would extend the trapezing gunnel back to level with the transom.

Unlike the 12-foot skiffs with their bows-up attitude, the Bethwaite breed of 9er boats are flat in the rocker which makes them immensely powerful and efficient upwind but can make them a bit frisky downwind in waves, so Paul's suggestion might be worth considering. I asked Paul's 29er crew Mari Shepherd if she would consider an Olympic campaign if the 29erXX was accepted, and she said yes. Jacqui Bonnitcha said the same thing a few weeks ago in my interview with her. So from a straw poll of two, my rigorously conducted survey proves that the 29erXX would be a resounding success!