What is behind the idea of a design age limit?

and what is happening with the CVRDA today?
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Max McCarthy
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What is behind the idea of a design age limit?

Post by Max McCarthy »

Dear all,

Just a disclaimer first of all; this is not a complaint, nor a suggestion, it is just a query (out of interest).

I have been thinking, and it occurred to me, that any boat built before 1985, is likely to be not particularly competitive, unless of course it has been modernised, and rebuilt, unless you happen to be very lucky. However, the design age must be at least 48 years ago. May I ask why? Is it just to separate the classes which may have be deemed to modern for the CVRDA? Although, this brings me on to my next point; I can see why you would allow a development class a special allowance to this rule, i.e. any moth or i14 built before 1985 is allowed to race, after all, they would be deemed uncompetitive on a modern basis. However, it just seems a little odd, to me, that you can allow this, yet not allow other (most likely uncompetitive boats) to compete, as well. For example; the contender, I am sure has plenty of old, possibly unloved, uncompetitive boats, however, it appears that these boats are not allowed to race within the CVRDA, the home for boats such like this, yet a 505 built up until 1985 is allowed to compete, it just seems a little odd....(please note, I am no expert on contenders or 505s for that matter, as a result I am not sure about how their construction has occurred (an varied) over the years, so their competitive 'lifetime' may be longer than I imagined, or shorter, respectively).

So my question is this; why? Why does this great organisation, (and believe me, I do think it is great, it is at least my favourite joint class, along with the international canoe class) allow what appears such a simple rule, to effectively segregate, some classes, and as a result, possibly reduce the number of people enjoying the CVRDA as we see it today?

I am interested in your thoughts....

Many thanks,

Max
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Ed
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Re: What is behind the idea of a design age limit?

Post by Ed »

Oh, there are many reason, and I am sure that reading some of the intro pages from the home page of the website will give some clues....

But as it is xmas, let me answer in a slightly facetious way:

"To keep lasers out of the CVRDA"

But I guess there are two questions:

Why have a cut-off date for designs and what date should it be.

I want to spend an hour or so of daylight doing some welding, so can't take long....

but you need a cut-off date or otherwise it is hard to define what you mean by 'classic'.

We could of chosen 1970...or maybe 1975, but 1965 seemed to catch the majority of boats that we defined as classic and it worked for us. Yes, it cuts out some boats that many would argue should be in. Lark, Contender, Unicorn, Marauder, Phantom.... but there were also classes that we definitely wanted to not have in. So it could be considered as an arbitrary choice, but we chose 65 and it stuck. Why exactly 65? To be honest.....I think it was mainly that 65 was the last year of the Dinghy Year books, and we could base the PY on those given in the 1965 DYB. It also seemed to be a watershed in Dinghy development, ownership and culture. The Dinghy Year Books seemed to sum up what we were trying to do and they covered 1958 to 65, which seemed like the core years of what the CVRDA was about.

Originally the 'old' wing was for any boat designed before 65 and built over 25 years before. The problem with this was that any development boat, could only be built before 1965 as by definition it had to be designed to be built, so we had to extend the 'designed/built' to more recent than 65 to allow the more modern boats to take part.

To be honest, most of us found the concept of a 25 year old cherub, 12, 14 or Merlin a much more interesting boat to play with than a 25 year old Laser.

I hope this helps.

I know that there is much discussion about 'what is a classic boat' and in the end you have to make a choice and define it with a set of rules and this we did. Plenty of people gripe about them, but to be honest, I have seen no-one come up with a system that works nearly as well as ours.

Finally, I would remind that our rules were (like PYs) only guides. The final rules and definition of what is 'in' and 'out' is and always has been down to the host club. Most clubs prefer to stick to a pretty vanilla definition based on CVRDA rules, but there are plenty of examples where host clubs have allowed specific boats ( Merlins, Maruaders, Tideways, Larks, Ospreys) to race even though they were not strictly 'in class' for the cvrda, because they felt that the boat/crew were working towards the same ideas as we were. Equally, this gives host clubs the right to look less favorably onto boats that might be strictly 'in class' but are really not playing the game. I can't think of any time when this has lead to boats being refused entry, but certainly to times where they were given handicaps that were considered by their crews to be 'punitive'.

light going....my welding kit calls.

cheers

eib
Ed Bremner
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roger
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Re: What is behind the idea of a design age limit?

Post by roger »

Ed I am pleased you answered that so well. I was trying put an answer together for Max but you, as usual, have made a much better job of it.
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Max McCarthy
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Re: What is behind the idea of a design age limit?

Post by Max McCarthy »

Hi Ed,

Thanks for clearing that up! I thought I might have had something to do with the laser, it seems to make sense to set clear and consise instructions to define what a classic boat is, on terms, that many people would agree on, and as you said they are only guidelines....

I agree with Roger, that you explained that very well, it seems to make a lot of sense now....

Cheers,

Max
AC 298 TimeWarp
Cherub 2627 - Sgt Murphy (nee Last Amber Dragon)
Farr 3.7 (slowly progressing build)
National 12 3337
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