Boats and crew numbers for club racing. Sym vs Asym

MissFitz

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I regularly crew on a J109. They reckon eight crew effective minimum & 10 in a blow for weight. The eight positions are: helm, tactician, three on trim (release, winch, tail), pit, mast, bow. Anyone over that is ballast & we can manage with less in light conditions.

(To clarify, not suggesting this is the definitive arrangement, just the way one boat operates.)

Ooops, missed out mainsheet, that's embarrassing. Means we can actually find jobs for nine but eight is fine if pit tails. Or releases, depending on size/strength of crew member.
 

H4B

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Why has no one ever designed a boat that rates around .950 , can compete with 4 up? (With a single rudder and draught of < 1.8m) or have they ? And I've missed it/ not yet found it.
 

rwoofer

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25 years ago I used to race an IOR two tonner with 12 crew:

Helmsman, Port Runners, Starboard runners, Navigator, Tactician, Main Trimmer, Genoa Trimmer, 2 x Coffee Grinders, Pit, Mast and Foredeck

No-one just there as rail meat in those days.Sometimes could have done with more as well.
 

roblpm

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25 years ago I used to race an IOR two tonner with 12 crew:

Helmsman, Port Runners, Starboard runners, Navigator, Tactician, Main Trimmer, Genoa Trimmer, 2 x Coffee Grinders, Pit, Mast and Foredeck

No-one just there as rail meat in those days.Sometimes could have done with more as well.

Crikey.......

Hard enough getting 5-6.

Who were all the people?!

Its easy enough to get people to come occasionally. Much harder to find people who want to sail say 20 Wednesday evenings in a row.
 

roblpm

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The J/92 is quite close. Rates 0.968 ish. You'd need more crew for big events but you'd manage club racing with 4.

Yes a guy at our club is doing pretty well with a J92. A good buy for mixing it with more expensive boats like the J109s and J97e at our club I think. For cruising not so good......!! Though maybe similar to the Corbys?? Corby 29 on appollo duck £35k.
 

Triassic

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Just out of curiosity where do you put all these crew members overnight, or do these monohull types only do one day events....? :)
 

roblpm

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Hmmmm. I think if i ever get round to doing more serious racing than the club racing I fail at at the moment I will be buying a sunfast 3200 or the like and seeking out 2 handed races! I run a small business and all this crew stuff is too much like work!!
 

mrming

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Hmmmm. I think if i ever get round to doing more serious racing than the club racing I fail at at the moment I will be buying a sunfast 3200 or the like and seeking out 2 handed races! I run a small business and all this crew stuff is too much like work!!

I thought that at first but it does get easier. We're in our 4th season of racing our little boat (4 crew) and the crew pool has gradually settled down to people who are both good and want to come racing. We've also got much better at handling the boat short handed if necessary, so it doesn't matter if we have the odd race with 3 or even 2 crew. Our boat is small but quite sporty and so it's no picnic for the crew. She does go well however. Heavy weather was a bit brown trousers for the first year or two but we have it figured out now and it turns out the boat is suprisingly tough and capable. :D
 

MissFitz

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Hmmmm. I think if i ever get round to doing more serious racing than the club racing I fail at at the moment I will be buying a sunfast 3200 or the like and seeking out 2 handed races! I run a small business and all this crew stuff is too much like work!!

Find a young & enthusiastic crew member who wants to do it all for you. Seems to work for several of the boats round here. Ditto with maintenance. Delegation is key!
 

Judders

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Just out of curiosity where do you put all these crew members overnight, or do these monohull types only do one day events....? :)

That is often the reason we are limited to six for JOG weekends like Yarmouth or Poole and don't go for seven even if it's windy. Even then it's, er, 'cozy'.
 

roblpm

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I thought that at first but it does get easier. We're in our 4th season of racing our little boat (4 crew) and the crew pool has gradually settled down to people who are both good and want to come racing. We've also got much better at handling the boat short handed if necessary, so it doesn't matter if we have the odd race with 3 or even 2 crew. Our boat is small but quite sporty and so it's no picnic for the crew. She does go well however. Heavy weather was a bit brown trousers for the first year or two but we have it figured out now and it turns out the boat is suprisingly tough and capable. :D

Good stuff. But fully crewed you are 4. Which is a great number!

Flaming who knows everything is telling us that to win we need to pack our boats out with rail meat in anything but light winds. My boat ia fairly light with a lifting keel so a bit tender and we sail in a windy place. So even though we only need 5 to do the crew roles I am now thinking 6 will maybe be better in anything over 15 knots.

You are right in one sense as we are in our third season and we now have 4 regulars and a few more. So a few more seasons and i think we may have worked it out.
 

rwoofer

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Crikey.......

Hard enough getting 5-6.

Who were all the people?!

Its easy enough to get people to come occasionally. Much harder to find people who want to sail say 20 Wednesday evenings in a row.

People just seem to have more time on those days. These days it would be much harder and I imagine most boats needing that amount of crew would probably have a professional core to start from.
 
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