Another what is it

[phil58490]

Not a Laser but ......

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Laser-sailing ... 43be269fe9

[trebor]

imagine that pointed bow "T" boning another boat, nasty

[Nigel]

It is a Man o'war designed by Rod McAlpine-Downie

Nigel

[davidh]

Nigel,

Spot on....... a Man O'War it is - the famous Chrysler boat.

I've been doing some more research recently on the topic and find it sad that Rod M-D remains under-rated as a designer. Not just for his catamarans - which were hugely successful, but his other boats as well. A conservative figure is that 150,000 boats built to his designs, which puts him up there with Proctor and Holt!

D

[Nigel]

Hi David,

I owned one for a while. Ripped the rudder pintles out of the transom on a windy day at Clywedog. Easy fix though.

The pointy bow looks great until you sail into a steep wave. The boat goes right through the middle of the wave and you get very wet and maybe washed out of the back

[Rupert]

Till my knees decided they needed needed a deeper cockpit, the Tonic was my favorite boat - very light, very tippy and accellerated like nothing else. Mad wishbone rig, but a great piece of design by Rod MacA-D, slightly let down by the build quality on early boats - a function of the light weight, I guess. In planing weather, before it got to "uncontrollable", when a gybe involved landing several yards from the boat, it was the fastest 12 foot beach boat out there. I imagine the Man o'war is fun, too, but the asking price for a boat with no sail is far too much.

[Nigel]

Mine was pretty stable. Performance was let down by the primitive rig. The gooseneck was very low and the boom angled upwards from it. No way to get any decent purchase on a kicker (which I do not think was fitted as standard). Vertical battens as well to allow the sail to be furled around the mast. Aluminium foils as standard. Long gone by the time I got it

They were originally foam filled so could get sodden and very heavy over the years. Mine seemed to have had all of that removed though.

The hull always reminded me of a Flying Fifteen sans the keel