HP30 class... Will it work?

[flaming]

Hot on the heels of the exciting, yet insanely expensive, Fast40 class, there has recently been an announcement of the formation of a "HP30" class.

In essence it's a bit of a weird announcement. They're not really proposing anything more than a new IRC class for boats hitting minimum DLR, maximum weight and maximum size criteria whilst also mandating an Aysmmetric. Nothing that any series organiser couldn't have done, and indeed are encouraged to do by IRC. (But don't... the slightly odd sportsboat class at Cowes notwithstanding).

But, I like the idea. Group boats that IRC hates together, and they're all equally disadvantaged so can have good racing. Good plan. Encourage more owners to buy this sort of boat, by giving them good racing with relatively evenly matched boats. Give the sailors of this sort of boat a "unified" voice, and a focus. And possibly most importantly, a calendar.

Interesting times....

https://www.facebook.com/HP30-Class-198578643828552/?fref=ts

 

[savageseadog]

Any idea of cost?

It's a great shame nothing has become a de facto one design for some years. The days of large one design fleets like the Sigma 33 have gone, we went onto a more limited Sigma 38 fleet and then what? There are too many manufacturers and designers all trying to create their own optimised racing machines. The biggest single market is the charter market but they don't want racy boats.

 

[flaming]

Any idea of cost?

.

Well at the bottom end the fareast 28 would satisfy the requirements, and there's an ex demo boat on for £35k

Farr280 would be quite a lot more...

 

[Ingwe]

I would like to be proved wrong, but I doubt that they will gain critical mass to make this take off. They have excluded all of the older fleets of boats that might have qualified eg Melges 32, Farr 30, Grand Surprise and J92.

So you are going to need to buy a brand new boat to play, the 28 to 30' range is sort of caught in the middle as you have all the expenses of having to be crained out, storage etc of a bigger boat, but you still don't really have any proper offshore ability especially with the low freeboard that these boats have, I suspect most would be owners would go a size smaller and go with a J70 and sail one design with far lower running costs or go a step bigger and go to a JPK 10.10 or Sunfast 3200 with the ability to go offshore as well as having good IRC ratings - but obviously without the ability to plane as easily.

 

[flaming]

I would like to be proved wrong, but I doubt that they will gain critical mass to make this take off. They have excluded all of the older fleets of boats that might have qualified eg Melges 32, Farr 30, Grand Surprise and J92.

To be honest though, other than the J92, how many of them are there in the UK? Not very many I'd guess.

And, nice though they are, the J92 is a very different animal to the Farr280, C&C 30 etc.

So you are going to need to buy a brand new boat to play, the 28 to 30' range is sort of caught in the middle as you have all the expenses of having to be crained out, storage etc of a bigger boat, but you still don't really have any proper offshore ability especially with the low freeboard that these boats have, I suspect most would be owners would go a size smaller and go with a J70 and sail one design with far lower running costs or go a step bigger and go to a JPK 10.10 or Sunfast 3200 with the ability to go offshore as well as having good IRC ratings - but obviously without the ability to plane as easily.

Agree with that, though there are plenty of Solent race boats up to 40 foot that never go offshore. Some people just like the teamwork aspect...

 

[ZSparc]

Rule change.
Melges 32 is now in. Should take over the class with those boats available at less than half the price of a farr 280

 

[dom]

Hot on the heels of the exciting, yet insanely expensive, Fast40 class, there has recently been an announcement of the formation of a "HP30" class.

They may be a little pricey but the Fast-40s do seem to have piqued people's interest enough for the class to gain critical mass, with a couple of pretty cools new boats to join this year!

The HP30 could be viewed either as big pricey dinghies, or as budget inshore excitement with a twist. It'll be interesting to see which way this swings.

 

[Keen_Ed]

If anybody thinks that the word budget is applicable, I think they're in for a rude awakening. Unless "very large" is added.

 

[flaming]

If anybody thinks that the word budget is applicable, I think they're in for a rude awakening. Unless "very large" is added.

In comparison to the bucket of cash needed for a Fast40+ season, I would suggest that an HP30 would probably qualify as "budget".

In comparison to most other things, not so much...

 

[Birdseye]

I wonder what the problem is in establishing a one design. Would it not be possible for the likes of RORC or even Cowes to nominate a model and manufacturer ( say the 3200) plus an approved sail maker etc, and then to arrange a series in somewhere with lots of keen racers like the Solent?

In other words is the problem that its the manufacturers trying to set up a one design?

 

[flaming]

I wonder what the problem is in establishing a one design. Would it not be possible for the likes of RORC or even Cowes to nominate a model and manufacturer ( say the 3200) plus an approved sail maker etc, and then to arrange a series in somewhere with lots of keen racers like the Solent?

In other words is the problem that its the manufacturers trying to set up a one design?

Quite possibly. Though I really doubt that RORC or Cowes would want the headache of running a selection criteria, and the possible backlash from the unsuccessful manufacturers. And then there's the headache of how much notice anyone would actually take of what RORC says before spending a large amount of money on a boat...

My gut feel is that right now there simply aren't enough new race boats in the 30-40 foot bracket being sold for there to be a new OD. Stands to reason as it's probably the guys in this size (price) bracket that took the biggest hammering financially in recent times.

Even J seem to have struggled to start new ODs in recent times. The J111 and the J88 still haven't quite taken off, having to make do at the moment with extracted results for the 3 or 4 boats in an IRC class rather than starts. Which leaves the J109 as the only OD that gets starts in all the major events (Spring series, Cowes, Winter series etc) and has a national champs. And they're down from expecting 20 boats on the line for the spring series to getting about 7-8. In other words just about hanging on. Meanwhile, IRC racing has at least seemed to have stopped the rot. We had 20 boats on the line yesterday in our class, which was about the same as last year. First year in ages there hasn't been a drop I think. And with at least 3 of them new to the fleet (if only 1 actual new boat) and a few other regulars yet to come out of hibernation, it at least seems like the season has some promise!

On the OD classes that are building seem to be older boats having a second lease of life. The Impalas are a case in point, and I gather there's a building Melges 24 fleet on the East Coast, which could be one to watch.

 

[Birdseye]

When you say 20 boats in IRC Flaming, is this your club competition or the whole of the Solent or what?

 

[flaming]

When you say 20 boats in IRC Flaming, is this your club competition or the whole of the Solent or what?

Warsash Spring series. 4 IRC classes. J109s, Fast 40s. SB20s, J70s.
100 boats in total.

 

[flaming]

The released bow numbers indicate 8 boats ready to play. That's actually a pretty good effort I think.

This could be very interesting to watch.

 

[Yacht Yogi]

I think the strength of the J-109 class is not the one-design racing alone but that it's probably the only boat that has a Cowes Week class start and can also be decently competitive offshore for the Fastnet. It's also very affordable now, despite its large sail wardrobe.
There was a recent meeting of owners to review whether the OD and IRC set-ups could be standardized to boost the one-design entry. It was then realised that no two J-109s are set up the same for IRC so there was no IRC "standard" to reset the one design class to. The upshot of that is that the one design will stay strictly to class and the IRC boats will continue to be a bit of a development class. Freezing the IRC boats configuration would cause them to become steadily less competitive in the offshores.
Right now the J-109 can provide decent one design racing although the fleet is not huge but the JOG and RORC IRC races provide some great class-within-a-class rivalry between six or more very closely matched (but not identical) boats and it can pull off a class win.

 

[flaming]

I think the strength of the J-109 class is not the one-design racing alone but that it's probably the only boat that has a Cowes Week class start and can also be decently competitive offshore for the Fastnet. It's also very affordable now, despite its large sail wardrobe.
There was a recent meeting of owners to review whether the OD and IRC set-ups could be standardized to boost the one-design entry. It was then realised that no two J-109s are set up the same for IRC so there was no IRC "standard" to reset the one design class to. The upshot of that is that the one design will stay strictly to class and the IRC boats will continue to be a bit of a development class. Freezing the IRC boats configuration would cause them to become steadily less competitive in the offshores.
Right now the J-109 can provide decent one design racing although the fleet is not huge but the JOG and RORC IRC races provide some great class-within-a-class rivalry between six or more very closely matched (but not identical) boats and it can pull off a class win.

Getting way off topic, but as someone who used to sail 109s, I can't help but feel that's a missed opportunity to reduce owner costs. A setup for OD that used non-overlapping Jibs and inhaulers would over time significantly reduce the sail bills for owners. We have found on the Elan, which has a very similar rig, that the jibs last a LOT longer when they don't get thrashed around the shrouds on every tack. We're just now replacing our light jib, after 5 years of service. Granted it's probably a year or so overdue, but it's a hell of a lot less often than we used to replace the overlappers.
Sure, whatever was adopted would doubtless annoy someone who'd just bought a new Genoa, or an IRC jib that didn't fit or something, but in the long term it's got to be good for the class to cut costs?