"Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

an area to discuss dinghy developments
dronskiuk
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Location: Where Broadland meets the sea

Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by dronskiuk »

Rupert wrote:The funboat has caught on well in the UK, whereas the Escape range didn't. I nearly ended up demoing the first Escape design 20 years ago, as Wet and Windy wanted to get involved. Luckily it never happened, as they were not the nicest boat to sail. Fun in a blow, mind (the demo MXray was upside down all day) and the reefing system with the bent boom in a 2nd mast pot worked well. Never sailed the bathtub version pictured, though.
Were you at Andy's Escape demo day at Cheddar Rupert...blew 6-7 all day? :shock: The Laser yoofs were very complimentary about the Captiva's high wind ability, I think all of them tried it.

W & W took on the range but as a major Topper dealer Escapes were aimed at the recreational side of his clientele.... I can't remember how many he sold but probably 20-30? I always felt that the Escapes were aimed at the people who would have bought a 'retired' racing design which was utterly unsuitable recreationally for their purpose but constitutes about 80% of most dinghy parks..the Escape was the 'arrive and be sailing in 5 mins, minimal maintenance alternative.
dronskiuk
Posts: 180
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:23 pm
Location: Where Broadland meets the sea

Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by dronskiuk »

LASERTOURIST wrote:Still it's hard to understand why a Topper should cost twice the price of the smaller escape, basically both hulls are a bucketful of soft plaastic granules thrown in a big industrial mould (enormous tool cost but very little commodity and manpower cost) and the foils and rig are basically on the same cost bracket..

Topper and Laser Performance are just feeding greedy owners / share holders or paying big debts caused by a crazy and unsuccessful diversification (Blaze Boss , Cruz L5000 Vortex ...etc)
In fairness to Topper this is not so...Escape were roto-moulded but the Topper was thermo-formed and welded, the tooling is much more expensive but I'm guessing it was probably amortised in the 70s! :D
dronskiuk
Posts: 180
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:23 pm
Location: Where Broadland meets the sea

Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by dronskiuk »

Rupert wrote:Like this
Thank you...Briefly (I have driven to Trowbridge, Benson and back to Lowestoft since this 4am this morning)...

The disk was divided as you can just see in the picture and centrally mounted with a windex style spindle arrow.

The arrow, of course, pointed to where the wind was coming from.

The disk was divided in to colour segments...45 degrees either side of the front facing part was designated 'Stop' ...nice and easy - if you were heading so that the arrow was there you weren't moving!

The next segment covered beam reach to as close as you could sail (bear in mind this was not slide rule stuff)

Then the reach to broad reach was another colour

Finally the rear quadrant had a picture of a duck...duck geddit? Simple for the American target audience as that's when the boom comes whistling across! :roll:

OK, all very clever but then this was all replicated on deck behind the boom (or mast in the case of the Simple Rig) and on the mast were the arrows that you can see...red and green for port/starboard.

When the windex arrow pointed to a colour on the foredeck disk all you had to do to sail was line up the arrow on the boom with the colour on the side the arrow was pointing to by pulling in or letting out the mainsheet....and you were sailing!

That simple...you didn't know how or why but that can be explained in due course but on your first attempt you could feel that your actions were influencing the movement of the boat. I really think it is ingenious...I've taught sailing and windsurfing for wages over the years but this is by far the simplest method of imparting the knowledge effectively in the early stages...when I'm less tired I'll tell the story of getting my 6 year old daughter going.
ent228
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Location: Stoke Gabriel, On the Dart, South Devon

Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by ent228 »

Great description, a really good idea for those early stages, I'll knock up one for a club bug this summer and see how it goes....
Rupert
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Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by Rupert »

It was at Chew, but the conditions sound the same! Andy must have taken them on after I left, as when I was there we didn't sell any, and the effect of the Topper dealer thing wasn't clear as to whether we could take the boat on.
Rupert
LASERTOURIST
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Joined: Wed May 30, 2007 9:54 pm
Location: France

Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by LASERTOURIST »

I've been teaching sailing for quite a long time (some forty years)...the idea of the Windex and indicator is certainly clever, sail setting is indeed a problem for a beginner..but but I think the real first hurdle is the tiller /and helmsman position in the boat....

A tiller is counter intuitive for people accstomed to a bicycle or a car and they easyly get confused, specially on a monohull dinghy (implying some sort of tiller extension that most beginnners will catch at the end because there is a grip handle there and nobody told them that the grip is only for full hiking position ....and will start to go around in circles..and capsize ...and have he boom hit their heads ....etc)

Easy catamarans (New cat 12 and 14's, that lind of stuff wth moderate sailplan and soft plastic hulls) are more beginner friendly...with youth camps (tight on money and not particularly interested in sailing) we have to make them do something an get some enjoyement in a one and only short 2 and a half hour session, so we have a loop, toggle and lines system on every boat so that we can tie a line of catamarans behind a rescue boat , train fashion, and then we tow them to windward....

During the towed part they can experiment with the rudder and zigzag a bit so they have some basic control over the direction....after some time they are let loose and start to go downwind ...On those catamarans stability is not a big issue until the wind is over 15 Kts so stabilty problem solved ( or rather hidden under the carpet ) some turning around two buoys across the wind give minimum practice of gybing / tacking and then it's zigzagging downwind back to the beach and time to discover that the mainsheet is not exactly a gas pedal (no you dont go faster by pullling more and more ... better ease the sheet and open the angle of attack).

Uncontrolled gybing is not much of a problem on those cats (no boom , softsail so no head bruises).

Beaching downwind is not much of a problem either rugged soft plastic hulls, kick up rudders...

The real problem is that on this kind of cats you can get away with mistakes that would capsize even an over reefed Pico ten times so you get a treacherous feeling of confidence , because in stronger conditions or on a more powerful and trickier cat (Hobie 16 is a good example) you will discover to your disadvantage that a capsized catamaran is a much bigger problem than a capsized Pico...
dronskiuk
Posts: 180
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:23 pm
Location: Where Broadland meets the sea

Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by dronskiuk »

Rupert wrote:It was at Chew, but the conditions sound the same! Andy must have taken them on after I left, as when I was there we didn't sell any, and the effect of the Topper dealer thing wasn't clear as to whether we could take the boat on.
I hadn't realised you worked with him - this would have been 98/99 I think? I still have pics of whitecaps on the reservoir, there was a National 12 Open on at the same time.
Rupert
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Joined: Thu Sep 16, 2004 8:40 pm
Location: Cotswold Water Park

Re: "Ugliest dinghy ever" contest

Post by Rupert »

I was at W&W earlier than that - 1995-96.
Rupert
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