What on earth?

an area to discuss dinghy developments
Rupert
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Re: What on earth?

Post by Rupert »

Laser 2 I quite like. Having trouble disagreeing with the others, but the thing is, I know people who are very fond of both boats, and possibly those same people really detest Cherubs and Finns, and would certainly find it odd that anyone should want to own a Puffin in this day and age?

Boats that really didn't work is a different topic. I really can't see that the Speed Dream concept is a good one, but they are talking about an Ocean Racer now - just so long as I don't have to sail it... The 59er also seems to have hit a wall - the people it was designed for not having the agility or knees to sail it, and having the 505 to sail instead, maybe?

The Bell Flyer not only was aiming at the market that had long since gone, I think - that of kit racing machines, but also appeared to get the wrong end of the stick as to what assy sailing was all about, design wise. A shame, really.
Rupert
Rupert
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Re: What on earth?

Post by Rupert »

What I would put the Iso, Buzz and Blaze down for is the worst bloody mainsail ever put on a boat. It was like someone had seen a picture of a fully battened sail, and then drawn one for themselves. Like a barn door. Luckily, the Blaze put it right soon enough to save what is an otherwise lovely boat.
Rupert
clibb
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Re: What on earth?

Post by clibb »

Back sometime in the 70's, when Simon Relph first opened Leigh Dinghy Stores near Pennington Flash, he was an agent for the Wizard. I remember going to his store and seeing two of these boats on display on the pavement outside his shop. I'm sure he would be good source of detail for the Dinghy Database.

Nick
davidh
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Re: What on earth?

Post by davidh »

Good idea Clibb, Simon might well still have some details (and might even have tried sailing one).

I'm almost regretting the comments that I made earlier about my pensive thinking back to the days of DSM, for some of the comments made have saddened me. I'd already done the top ten UK dinghy designs (then the top ten iconic dinghies in Y&Y) so a look at the top 10 failures is not such a fanciful though - but only under some very strict conditions. Firstly, the list has to be the product of a number of individual inputs, so person animus (as in, the Solo, one of the UKs most consistently successful 'national' dinghies) gets outed just because someone doesn't like them. Then the list has to be the product of a severely applied intellectual exercise, so that any criteria that are applied are done so 'across the piece' This second point is important, because what WOULD qualify as a failed class? As an example, did the Laser II fail, or did other boats just do better at fulfilling that 'established' criteria. We talked about the Mirror 14 'failing' yet in so many ways the boat was a huge success, but measured against the success of the Laser II you could question either, both or neither. So the setting of that criteria is crucial to any meaningful look at the genre of 'failed' boats.

Finally, there has to be a detailed and constructive (with the stress on the constructive) description as to why any particular boat should have been consigned to the elephants graveyard of history. I have no problems with any boat being 'offered up' for the list, but let's all hear the reasons why and then we can form our own judgement. You may well feel that the laser 5000, or ISO, Laser II or Solo are the spawn of satan, but you have to be ready to defend the choice in a way that people can understand and 'share' the view!

Personally, I can think of other boats that would figure more on any list than those mentioned so far!

D
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Nessa
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Re: What on earth?

Post by Nessa »

The Bonito is a truly horrible boat.

I had quite a lot of fun in a laser 2, until I started crewing 470s and realised what I had been missing. There are still plenty of active laser 2s all over the country.
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Nessa
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Re: What on earth?

Post by Nessa »

Oh sorry, forgot the why bit about the Bonito. Too long a leech on the main, too short a daggerboard, spars like scaffolding poles, hull too flat. It will not point at all, so trying to go upwind is horribly depressing.
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Max McCarthy
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Re: What on earth?

Post by Max McCarthy »

Nessa,

Speaking of the Bonito, I believe, that from my copy of 'Boat World Guide No.1' it says the Bonito is 'a single handed racer with an exciting performance' it also goes on to say 'gives an excellent windward performance'.

So, it might be a lot more fun to (instead of a 'top 10 failures') the 'top 10 most exaggerative adverts for sailing dinghies'? In a thread of course....

Just a thought.....

Max
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davidh
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Re: What on earth?

Post by davidh »

Nessa.... your second post is perfect. Funnily enough I was sat here doodling 'names' on a pad and a few of the beach boats appeared on there. Funnily enough, you would not struggle here in the UK to find plenty of people who would happily add the 470 to the bucket list, and could easily set out plenty of reasons why ( a shame as I think the 470 is a great boat)!

D
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Rupert
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Re: What on earth?

Post by Rupert »

So, failed in the UK, or in the world? 470 certainly can't be accused of the latter.

There are several boats (the Pisces and Hit come straight to mind) that didn't fail because there was anything more "wrong" with them than with any other boat, but they were designed at a point where the Laser had become the boat to have, so hardly anyone was interested.

Now, the Swallow (the 12 foot beach boat) was a strange boat. Very heavy, and suffering from many of the same problems as the Bonito. And really, really ugly. More like Whale than Swallow. Looking at them, it is easily possible to see why the Laser was such a success.

Howabout the Nimbus? I never sailed one, but as a concept (small version of the Lightning, light, pretty hull) it was excellent. It came smack up against the Topper, and never sold well at all. The rig never looked very good, and lack of volume may have meant it was no good for small adults, so the target market was kids only, and at the time, the Topper ruled. Someone who has sailed one might know of more specific faults.

The Concept 302. Big in Viking countries, nothing here at all. I sailed one on the river at BASC years ago, and I can't remember much about it. OK, but just too gimmicky, with windsurfer type toestraps and a 1st gen kite of very odd shape.

Escape dinghy (the original one) was like an upside down boat. Curved on the top, flat on the bottom. Loved it, coz the only sail I had was in a force 6, and it was a hoot. Loved the boom coming down in front of the mast in to its own hole, so you could reef really easily, and no kicker needed. Mind, you had to reef, as with full rig in a blow it was totally unbalanced, a real pig. And in light winds, so under powered it barely moved. Big in the USA, I think. Wet & Windy was looking at the idea of being an agent, but it was just too American, and we can see from the Sunfish how well Yank boats sell in the UK.

There, my view on things off the top of my head. Hopefully not going to upset too many!
Rupert
JimC
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Re: What on earth?

Post by JimC »

Kinda harsh to accuse a boat that sold over 10,000 boats in a 25 year lifespan like the Laser II of being a failure...

The 470 never struck me as a bad boat, just a rather sliced white bread kinda thing.
LASERTOURIST
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Re: What on earth?

Post by LASERTOURIST »

Well , the E bay boat reminds me of another 70's oddity from this side of the channel...

It was called the Rostral and never went further than a handful of boats.
It had been designed by a (sensible and successful) racing canoe designer called Alain Feuillette, who had never been a sailing expert but was enticed in the adventure by someone who had vaguely heard about IC 10 (that never really"caught" in France, as the sliding board seemed unduly complicated compared with the trapeze).

It was a huge and narrow canoe (5 M long , less than one metre beam) with a sort of wave piercing bow (long before wave piercing bows came in use on multihulls) and bulges/ sponsons on the sides (above the waterline) but no proper wings or racks.

Quite a spread of canvas (i Think it used the sailpan of the Lanaverre Jet , basically a 505 rig with a somewhat shorter boom and a keel stepped mast).

I didn't sail the beast personally but a friend of mine did and described it as a freak.

The wetted surface was reduced and it was fast in light airs and planed well in a breeze but the instability was awful.


Dogs boats have been discussed on this forum...IMHO the "Wishbone crossovers between dinghies and windsurfs " are the most infamous dinghies ever built (out of a marketing idea, snatching a chunk of the then huge windsurfers crowd, not out of the idea of designing a functional and seaworthy boat.

The Beneteau Wizz By Finot (a hugely succesful designer of Vendée globe racers and blue water cruising boats) was the best known and the most agressively marketed, but there were imitators (The Skeltic By Kelt , with a windsurf mast step for alternative use as an overgrown beginners board, the Bic 410 in ABS thermo formed plastic -a Kleenex boat-and the lesser known Club 2)....they contributed to the sharf fall of dinghy sales (people quitting winbdsurf went for catamarans instead).

The problem is , as always the the devil lies in the details: a good design is next to nothing without caredful refinig of details on a prototype before cranking the production boats and a basically less-than brilliant hull design with a low retail price and a good de-bugging /trials and modification period before the start of the production run will sell rather well.
LASERTOURIST
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Re: What on earth?

Post by LASERTOURIST »

As for the 470 it was not intended at first as a racing machine , it was a described by Cornu as "le bateau du juste milieu" (The right comporomise boat) and the target was couples (and indeed it was a mixed dinghy in the olympics) the first 470's in the mid 60's had an unclutterrd cockpit (transom mainsheet ) except for a stupid winch for the jib sheet atop the CB case (ratchet blocks were still a rare exotica) and a very simple and efficient set of controls.

The sailplan was kept relatively modest (the boat is undercanvassed and the Jet by Lanaverre , basically a streched, racier, 420 extended to 4,75 M , using a 505 mast with a somewhat shortened boom and a bigger spinnaker than the 470 was faster even though nowdays the 470 benefited from all the fiddling and tweaking of thirty years of olympic status) .

Trouble is the olympic status transformed the 470 in an expensive racer with thousands of spaghettis and cleats to make the best of it's underpowered sailplan.

To get an idea of the 470 before it went olympic look at the oldest sailing 470 shown at the La rochelle Worlds...IMHO they should have allowed minimum "improvements" to the boat (like the XD kit on lasers) in order to keep the boat both cheap and widespread.

http://worlds.470.org/eventsites/conten ... tid=159445
LASERTOURIST
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Re: What on earth?

Post by LASERTOURIST »

As for the Laser 2 , it is indeed a good boat, but never really caught up in France , probably because France had already a reasonably modern trainer , the 420, while in England most trainers in the late 70's /early eighties were Plywoood era boats (Enterprises and GP14 mostly, plus a few wanderers and a lot of other classes) sometimes cleverly converted to GRP production , but never intended for it in the first place.

The 420 is quite in the same league and more or less filled the same market slot .
When the Laser 2 reached our shores the 420 had cornered the market , granted , but the Laser 2 had some design choices that didn't help.

The Laser 2 was meant to be cartoppable (like the laser) ....that was before car roofs became less dinghy-and-roof-rack friendly with the disappearance of the side rain rails for aerodynamic and fuel saving reasons.

It was not a bad idea (I had to cartop a 420 and it proved difficult , even with my extra wide roof bars while the Laser 2 I cartopped once was much easier to strap down)...but it led to design choices

This called for a reduced weight and a rather narrow beam (roof bars length is a limitation) and as a self bailing double bottomed cockpit was considered a must have, and added a few pounds to the boat , it in turn called for a reduced freeboard to keep the weight in the cartoppable limit....of course it made the Laser 2 a much wetter boat than tke 420

Of course car topping also called for a Two parts mast, deck stepped , which in turn , led to the strange "diamonds" plus shrouds rig instead of the simpler conventional spreaders and (optional ) mast gate system of the 420 . (Both 420 and 470 had no mast gate until the late 60's)

All told the 420 is much roomier than the Laser 2 , specially the original 420's , without traveller rail and centre main ...those had a really roomy cockpit and plenty of leg space .

The 420 was an attempt to squeeze the then revolutionary 505 / Coronet in only 14 Ft to make a modern and maintenance free - fibreglass trainer (as compared with the cheap but crude plywood Vaurien)...this shows in the design with a somewhat inflated shape (The very full, bulbous nose is almost a pram bow and the rather broad hull shows the same kind of transversal section as the 505 and the transom is quite wide to boot ...remember the trapeze was introduced only late and only for youth racing at first.

I think many successful dinghies have gone very far from their original program (generally they get infected the "racing bacteria" and go into lots of costly improvements ) and it is a good idea to consider what they were, and what was the idea behind the design at the beginning of the production run.
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Re: What on earth?

Post by JimC »

LASERTOURIST wrote:..but it led to design choices
Hmm, I think your rationale is up the chute.
The Laser II was based on Bethwaite's worlds winning Cherub and took a lot of its design cues from there...

Light weight is good in itself, there's no need to bring car topping in the equation. The parent design had a 50kg hull.

And the "strange" rig is actually an eminently sensible one. Spreaders on a trapeze boat are fundamentally a bad idea because as soon as the crew gets on the wire the spreader stops working. In the old days you'd even get the situation where the crew would get on the wire, the tension would come off the windward shroud, the mast would bend and crew would have to get in again. Repeat ad tedium up the moderate wind beat. The result is the suicidal rig tension used by 470s. The LII mast, by contrast has no such problem. Its just good design.

Its also documented that another of the key design inputs was the number pf boats you could fit in a standard shipping container.

But I think a lot of the appearance was just to make the boat look as much like a Laser as was possible without stuffing up the parent design too much. The sophisticated Tasar had failed to sell in large numbers, the mass market targeted LII hit the spot precisely.
Michael4
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Re: What on earth?

Post by Michael4 »

I'd add the Marlin to the list of 'why bother?' dinghies.

I don't really know why I bought one (now long gone) and I didn't enjoy it much either...

If there is anyone out there who will stand in its defence I'll be impressed.

Michael
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