Now, of all the multitude of dinghy classes that we can sail in this country, why on earth would anyone want to import another class into the country? The 12-foot skiffs, which have been going a couple of years now in the UK, you can understand. They are one of the most extreme boats around. More responsive and more affordable than an 18-footer, crazier than an International 14.
But a plain old hiking boat for two people? We've got classes coming out of our ears. However, none of them quite fitted the bill for Toby Peacock. A Bristol-based naval architect who sails at Chew Valley Sailing Club, he fancied the look of a popular Australian 14-foot doublehander designed by Frank Bethwaite, called the NS14. The ‘NS', by the way, stands for Northbridge Senior, Northbridge being a sailing club where the class originated, and Senior because it was designed for people over a certain age, ie to keep those talented pesky kids out of it!
So I asked Toby why the NS14, as opposed to the myriad of boats already available in the UK? "I really wanted a boat to sail with my wife that was easy to sail, but fast, rewarding and a proper race boat (not an unresponsive, heavy, and untunable 'family' boat). Like many people today we have lots of demands on our time, so sailing every weekend is more of a dream than a reality. So I didn't want a boat that would take regular commitment to just stay upright (so no huge rigs or symmetric kites) and Sarah didn't want to trapeze.
"I suppose, in a nutshell, I wanted something exciting and rewarding, whilst Sarah wanted something safe and fun. Looking at the boats available I probably would have settled on a Tasar (the RS400 is too big and the RS200 is very ordinary), but I decided upon a NS14 after being heavily influenced by Frank Bethwaite's book High Performance Sailing. In it he dedicates a large amount of space to describing the research and development that he undertook for the NS14 rig before spinning off the one-design Tasar.
"I came to the conclusion that the Tasar is just an old-fashioned NS14, so I figured I may as well get the latest technology. The Bethwaites left the class 30 years ago but the development has continued with new minds building on the earlier work."
Initially, Toby planned to bring his skills as a naval architect to bear on the project, and he designed his own hull. When he started investigating the practicalities of building the thing, however, he decided to buy the boat in kit form instead. It cost him £5300.
"I bought my boat from Landenberger Sailing in Germany. Landy is an Australian sailmaker (and former Tornado Olympic silver medallist and Moth world champ) who moved to Germany and took a few NS14s out with him to try and start the class in Europe. A limited number of ready-to-sail boats (four) are available for £6050 including tax (subject to Euro/Sterling exchange rates) - which is an absolute bargain. And Fed Ex have quoted a delivery to UK of £386 +VAT."
Landenberger's specification includes:
- A Flight 25 hull of lightweight foam sandwich construction (64kg fully fitted)
- A Flightspar Mk 3 over-rotating wing mast
- Beautifully profiled, lightweight daggerboard and dagger-style rudder
- Adjustable jib fairleads
- Jib barber haulers
- 2:1 shroud tracks (shrouds slide backward and forward to set rig tension and let boom further out on a run)
- Ronstan fittings
- Boom sheeting
- Landenberger Pentex sails (6.9sq m fully battened square-head mainsail with tapered Fibre-Foam battens and fully 'soft' battened jib of 2.4sq m with zipped luff) and zipped sail bag.
Toby describes the Landenberger boat as very Aussie in its simplicity. Having assembled his kit boat over the summer, the NS14 has already caused quite a stir at Chew Valley, and a good deal of interest in the YachtsandYachting.com forum, and it appears there are some other possible buyers in the UK.
I was wondering what the NS14 could offer that the National 12 can't, because it does seem very similar in a lot of ways - a highly-developed, non-spinnaker hiking boat for a boy/girl team. But for Toby it was a weight thing. Whereas the National 12 favours crews under 20 stone all-up, he reckons the NS14 crew weight is more in the region of 21 to 24 stone.
He is tempted to try a small asymmetric kite the boat, although he doesn't want to split the class in too many directions and cause uncertainty about the direction of the class, so he will leave that for a year at least, to monitor the performance without spinnaker more completely.
The other question is how to handicap the NS14. "With regards to the PY - the PY system in Australia is not well used and is therefore a bit unreliable (there's not much handicap racing there). In addition the NS14 is a limited development class so evolves quicker than its PY can keep pace. Anyhow, in Australia they sail off 108 compared to a Tasar's 107.5. Scaling that to UK numbers would give a yardstick of 1028 - not bad for a boat with such small sails.
"However, I have spoken with one of the top designers and one of the top sailors and they agree that a modern NS14 is actually about 5% quicker than a Tasar around a course. That would equate to a PY of about 971! I'm not sure I'll reach that level, but suspect that 985ish is realistic, certainly sub-1000."
Toby has only sailed the boat six or seven times so far, although he has been mighty impressed with its performance to date. With its six-foot max beam, it is dynamite fast on a beam reach. Toby has also set up a website at: www.sailns14.org, and he is keen to hear from anyone interested in the class. You can email him at: info@sailns14.org.
Small class syndrome
Talking of Aussie-inspired classes, I'm a big fan of what the Bladerider is doing for helping get the wacky world of foiling into the public eye. The ‘garden shed' enthusiasts and small boatbuilders deserve credit for getting foiling as far as it's got, but with the support of a commercially-based organisation like Bladerider, it has the chance to break out into a much wider world. Foiling has an opportunity to go mainstream.
However, Bladerider is making itself mighty unpopular with other International Moth sailors by patenting a couple of parts of its neat Moth-inspired package. One patent is on how the hiking racks plug into the hull, and another is on how the T-foils can be dismantled for more convenient and space-saving transportation. One Moth sailor tells me he can think of examples where people have already used very similar solutions on non-Bladerider Moths before now. If that is the case, then someone should be able to dispute the patents, but as to whether they'd have the capacity or inclination to do so is another matter.
While it is right that companies should be able to protect their investment in developing new ideas, I'm not sure that doing so in the arena of a development class like the Moth is really very cricket - although contrary to what some of Bladerider's detractors claim, there have been previous examples of patents in the Moth class. I feel sorry for Rohan Veal, who as an employee of Bladerider but as the most high profile pioneer of Moth foiling for a few years before that, must feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. His online comment is: "In reality it is probably nothing that any weekend warrior needs to worry about it, but rather it seems that our company was just protecting itself from other mass producers from using the same ideas without seeking permission first (however I'm sure they could get around the patent if they really wanted to or simply just ask to use it they were extremely uncreative)."
All this said, I wonder if Bladerider has taken out these patents as a two-fingered salute to a few vocal detractors in the mainstream Moth fleet. Some are openly hostile to Bladerider, and I know of two Bladerider owners who won't be going to the Moth Worlds in Weymouth next year because of the bad feeling that exists in some quarters.
I have spoken to a number of people in the Moth fleet about this, and can't get very clear answers on the rights and wrongs of this whole patent spat. What I can ascertain is that there is a lot of jealousy and backstabbing going on when there would be such opportunities there for the class if everyone could settle their differences.
Which is a shame. Because the Bladerider owes its whole business success to the foiling technology pioneered by the Moth class, while the Moth class stands to gain new players in the fleet who would never have come into foiling were it not for the professionally presented package that is the Bladerider Moth. The relationship between the Moth class and the Bladerider is a mutually beneficial one.
Trouble is, some people can't see beyond their noses. And people who can't see beyond their own noses really shouldn't be out there sailing high-speed boats in excess of 25 knots. Time for some people to take a longer view on these things.
