Recent content by Chris 249

Yep, in 1935 there were six Js in the British season, because Astra and Candida had been modified to fit into the rule and were there with Valsheda, Endeavour, Shamrock and Yankee as well as Westward and Britannia which, as you point out, were built to different rules. There were 26 races in...

Without wanting to be too much of a pedant, the Js raced many more regattas in their heyday than the half dozen or less they do today. in the '30s the British Js could race 30 or more times per season. The current fleet has fewer boats (no more than six) doing far fewer races. While it may seem...

I know it's an old post, but I'm just sitting on my phone getting some relevant info from an extraordinarily good source so...... 1- GP motor racing is very strictly controlled - check the list of things they've banned. 2- There's no enough money to judge from all available information. 3- Why...

About the production cruiser/racer issue; how do you guys define a cruiser/racer? I'd have thought the J/112e, XP range, Sunfast 3600 (perhaps with some work on the roomy but bare interior), J/111, Dehler 38SQ, Italia 9.98, Grand Soliel 34, Dehler 34, etc was a fairly reasonable representation...

Flaming, isn't the interest in IRC racing in small to medium size "high performance" boats pretty much a Solent-specific issue? There doesn't seem to be much interest at all in boats like that doing high-level mixed-fleet rating racing in many places - in fact there doesn't seem to be much...

Sorry I misinterpreted your post, Flaming. Yes, the 24 hour record is an outlier as far as the rate of change. It's notable, though, that (1) there's been no change since 2009; (2) the size of the yachts holding the record has increased from 60ft to 130ft so a change in "class" rules has been...

The pace of change has arguably stayed the same or perhaps even slowed dramatically. Apologies for the long answer, but this is something that interests me and I think that we can say that using numbers shows that the common claim that the rate of changed has increased is incorrect. For the...

We've always done it differently. Stretch the foot between sheet and brace/guy, then blow the halyard. Keep the foot stretched out, but reach over or under the stretched-out foot or up the luff, grab the guts of the kite, and start dragging the kite down. The upper portions just stay above the...

I know it's an old post, but the fact is that the Finn class has been utterly hypocritical over the weight issue. For decades, they didn't give a damn about lightweight dinghy sailors. Until the 470 came in, the Olympics had no place for light sailors. I have old interviews where the issue was...

It's not a matter of being bothered to win a tin pot - it's just a feeling that it's wrong when people who sail a slower boat well don't get their just rewards and recognition. One other thing that's noticeable when you live somewhere where NHC-style racing is the most common form is that very...

From personal experience, what happens with an NHC type handicap in the long run is often that the people with small boats and budgets who sail well get sick of getting beaten on handicap by bigger, more expensive but poorly sailed boats. Under a NHC type system you could have a Sonata that...

Although it's commonly said that Herreshoff's boat in 1876 was banned, it's simply untrue. It was DSQd from ONE race, and given a special and equal prize instead. Cats were then welcomed as a class, and in fact were favoured over monos on some ways. In those days it was far from unknown to...

One of my former crew bought the 40'er he used to sail on a new headsail for the Hobart. Sadly we moved away before he could do the same for our boat! He's also a very good sailor (ex national champ skipper) and I think he was basically sailing master, so as with others here it was a case of...

Good points about the relevance of the hull, and where the tech may end up. You can put up a very logical, well-researched case that "mainstream" should come into it, because sports in which the top events use gear that is similar to that in local events are more popular. Therefore it is better...

I probably didn't express myself well - it wasn't just that the old AC boats were built to similar rules. It was that they were similar enough to the smaller mainstream boats that there was a very direct connection in design, technology and technique. For example, the J Class designers applied...