The return of the cruiser racer....?

[flaming]

the current set up favours racers so CR boats don't enter....

Factually incorrect. In smaller sizes race boats are rated out of competitiveness. For example I suggest you look up race results of boats such as Farr280, C&C30, MC38 and any number of 30 something boats designed only to race.

My entire point is that DESPITE RORC putting into place measures to encourage CRs at the expense of race boats the fleet has collapsed, at least in the mid sizes and barely any boats are even available to buy any more. So why not do something different? There's nothing to lose.

 

[savageseadog]

The average 35ft family cruiser won't carry anywhere near the size of kite that a J109 does for example, yet the rating for these larger kites doesn't seem to reflect the advantage they gain.

 

[mrming]

The average 35ft family cruiser won't carry anywhere near the size of kite that a J109 does for example, yet the rating for these larger kites doesn't seem to reflect the advantage they gain.

A quirk of IRC is that downwind sail area is relatively lightly rated when compared with upwind. That could obviously change in the future.

The J boats however are slightly misleading imo as an asymmetric is usually bigger than a sym kite but you’re forced to sail the angles so unless it’s honking and you can plane it’s not an advantage in a typical windward leeward race. In fact there are increasing numbers of J/109s running with sym kites.

 

[roblpm]

Factually incorrect. In smaller sizes race boats are rated out of competitiveness. For example I suggest you look up race results of boats such as Farr280, C&C30, MC38 and any number of 30 something boats designed only to race.

My entire point is that DESPITE RORC putting into place measures to encourage CRs at the expense of race boats the fleet has collapsed, at least in the mid sizes and barely any boats are even available to buy any more. So why not do something different? There's nothing to lose.

I think they should give you a job and you should be in charge!

 

[Chris 249]

I think it might be worth looking at what the rest of the world is up to, there is more to yacht racing than doing dinghy courses zig-zagging around Lake Solent.
I think a lot of your problem is that the keen middle-aged, affluent racing sailors who could afford to move 'up' to that are largely not interested. They're buying drysuits and distorting the demographic of dinghy racing instead.

I'm one of them. I love offshore racing and cruiser/racers but can't justify spending the price of an entire club fleet of Lasers on the sail wardrobe we need to be fully competitive, especially when the front end of events from Melges to the Hobart is full of my rivals from Lasers and similar classes so it's a step across in competition and a huge leap up in cost.

It's a good idea to look around the world. The Bermuda race has very few of the 36 foot modern cruiser/racers, but then again it's also got only about a dozen "IRC racers" from Farr 40s to Maxi 72s, and lots of old boats. It's sailed under the ORR system.

Block Island Race Week, a major US regatta, has 21 J/109s racing one design, a couple of Benny 36.7s, 5 J/111s, one Mills 35 and nothing else in the modern cruiser/racer bracket around that length - and it's a PHRF, ORCi or One Design regatta.

The ORC Europeans had three Italia 9.98s; nothing else new around that length. Sweden's biggest race seems to be under SMS (a Scandinavian rule) with all sorts of boats mixed up at the front of the fleet, but not many new 36 foot cruiser/racers.

Germany's ORC nationals was full to the brim with the usual suspects (J/109s, Benny 36.7s, Xs etc) and they also had a concurrent J/111 class (5 boats) and an ORC two-handed class half made up of Js, but no other newish mid 30s cruiser/racers.

The ORC worlds had the usual Xs, Js and Bennys plus about half a dozen Italia 9.98s and about three other "new" c/rs (ie Arcona 34) which to my eye seem both heavy and heavily distorted. I notice on the ORC website that there's an official complaint from Italy about the dominance of lightweight boats (Melges 32s etc) under the new VPP and the damage that's causing to fleets at club level. That may indicate that, in some places at any rate, making small lightweights more competitive does not increase fleet size.

NZ's biggest race runs on local handicap and OD classes. It has one Elan E4, one E3, one Sunfast 3600, one 36.7, three or four 30-37ft modern "radical speed machines", and a couple of dozen of their very fast '80s racer/cruisers in a 126 boat fleet. Sadly there are very few small boats racing there these days. Only 7 boats raced IRC, including two of the new fast 37s in amongst 42-52 footers.

So while the drop off in new production boats of this type is a concern, it seems to be universal no matter whether the event is under IRC, ORC, PHRF or a local rule. As noted, the new boats may be bumping into the issue that it's hard to make them significantly better than the old boats. I wouldn't be surprised if we may be seeing the effects of many years in which sailing has largely ignored the smaller cruiser/racers or even banned them. It's hard to think of another sport that is so unfriendly to people who "only" spend about 6 months to a year's salary on their "starter kit".

In earlier eras the cruiser/racers 30 ft and under were often where new owners got their start - these days boats like the seven year old Elan 310 are banned from the major ORC events. In what popular sport would something that cost twice as much as the average person earned in a year be banned because it's too cheap? One can compare that to the much more democratic spirit of the boom years, when 20-somethings like Farr, Holland and Whiting with their 25 footers were a centre of attention, and owners bought such boats and then moved up.

 

[lw395]

When you say 'banned from major events', are we talking about small boats being excluded because of safety concerns?
Are there in fact significant numbers of people wanting to do big races in small boats? If so maybe it's time for something along the lines of what JOG used to be, offshore racing for small boats.
But in the UK it seems to be all about racing inshore. In fact a lot of our racers prefer not to leave the estuaries.
Seems to be different with the French, but that might be because I mostly meet those who venture over here.

 

[Chris 249]

No, they're banned from events like the ORC worlds which are day races. Odd, because one imagines an Elan 31 would be able, at least if modified, to do Cat 1 races.

Even if boats are still only racing on estuaries, many people still prefer a cruiser/racer to a sportsboat so the fleets still seem to show plenty of activity among the boats that are not permitted in major ORC events. In fact it appears that dozens of them pay their measurement fees and are then excluded from the big events.

While many in the UK may prefer inshore racing, surely the enormous interest in the Fastnet says something about what happens when there is an aspirational event that it within people's reach? And isn't it a basic rule of sports administration that you should provide competition for kit that costs less than a year's salary or so, in order to encourage new people into the discipline?

 

[flaming]

No, they're banned from events like the ORC worlds which are day races. Odd, because one imagines an Elan 31 would be able, at least if modified, to do Cat 1 races.

This sounds really odd. Do you know why they are banned?

 

[lw395]

No, they're banned from events like the ORC worlds which are day races. Odd, because one imagines an Elan 31 would be able, at least if modified, to do Cat 1 races.

Even if boats are still only racing on estuaries, many people still prefer a cruiser/racer to a sportsboat so the fleets still seem to show plenty of activity among the boats that are not permitted in major ORC events. In fact it appears that dozens of them pay their measurement fees and are then excluded from the big events.

While many in the UK may prefer inshore racing, surely the enormous interest in the Fastnet says something about what happens when there is an aspirational event that it within people's reach? And isn't it a basic rule of sports administration that you should provide competition for kit that costs less than a year's salary or so, in order to encourage new people into the discipline?

A huge slice of the Fastnet appears to be pay'n'play operators.
Another big slice of it seems to be 2-handed entries.
Like many sports, lots of people aspire to completing a Fastnet. Many are fairly relaxed about having zero chance of winning.
A lot of this discussion seems to be about people who want to be 'competitive' in an expensive sport on a low budget. There is an attitude problem of people not wanting to bother because they can't win.
Most sports take part for the fun of it and hope to do well by their own standards, do well 'for an amateur on a budget etc'.

There's also a problem that some of the people with plenty of budget (and their hangers-on) create an atmosphere where people with less budget don't really want to get involved.
You get this in some dinghy classes too, but not all.
Often you get very good sailors who can make up for a small % of equipment disadvantage and still do very well. They might not win, but they beat a few brand new boats. But these people can pick and choose who they sail against. If they don't like the big budget 'all the gear no idea' crowd, you won't see them.

 

[wotayottie]

I'm really not sure what you are getting at Flaming. You say that " There's absolutely no doubt that cruiser racers can be very competitive under IRC."

Then you go on to say " there are essentially just 4 options from major yards for an IRC cruiser racer in the mid 30s bracket today. The Dehler 35, the XP33, the GS34 and the J112E."

Then its " Of those 4, the XP33 and the GS really fail the "make a good cruiser" test by not having doors to the cabins, or an open forepeak. They are simply not going to be bought by dual use owners in the UK"

But then its " We already know that most owners of CRs in this size aren't cruising them, so do we really think they'd be put off from a boat that didn't have any accommodation?"

So if the owners arent cruising them, does the accommodation on the XP33 and GS matter? And since you say CR can be competitive under IRC then where is the problem.

It seems to me from your comments that what you are after is a CR that can win in IRC against out right race boats. Is that ever going to be realistic. Obviously there will be some times when it has happened in specific circumstances but round the cans?

Coming at this question from the perspective of a cruising man, I wouldnt want to cruise a Benny First let alone the examples you quote. Light weight and sea kindlyness dont really go together. Neither do spartan interiors and my wife. There is a big difference between the sort of boat that a crew of young men can take to Cork week and live aboard, and a boat that a family would want to take on the annual cruise to France.

Just what is it that you would like the RORC to do to IRC?

 

[Ingwe]

I'm really not sure what you are getting at Flaming. You say that " There's absolutely no doubt that cruiser racers can be very competitive under IRC."

Then you go on to say " there are essentially just 4 options from major yards for an IRC cruiser racer in the mid 30s bracket today. The Dehler 35, the XP33, the GS34 and the J112E."

Then its " Of those 4, the XP33 and the GS really fail the "make a good cruiser" test by not having doors to the cabins, or an open forepeak. They are simply not going to be bought by dual use owners in the UK"

But then its " We already know that most owners of CRs in this size aren't cruising them, so do we really think they'd be put off from a boat that didn't have any accommodation?"

So if the owners arent cruising them, does the accommodation on the XP33 and GS matter? And since you say CR can be competitive under IRC then where is the problem.

It seems to me from your comments that what you are after is a CR that can win in IRC against out right race boats. Is that ever going to be realistic. Obviously there will be some times when it has happened in specific circumstances but round the cans?

Coming at this question from the perspective of a cruising man, I wouldnt want to cruise a Benny First let alone the examples you quote. Light weight and sea kindlyness dont really go together. Neither do spartan interiors and my wife. There is a big difference between the sort of boat that a crew of young men can take to Cork week and live aboard, and a boat that a family would want to take on the annual cruise to France.

Just what is it that you would like the RORC to do to IRC?

I think you have got the problem slightly back to front, what a lot of people would like is to be able to race competitively a full on race boat in the vein of the fast 40's but at the smaller sizes as and lower budgets. As things currently stand you could commission one of the top fast 40 designers and give them an unlimited budget to design and build a 30 to 35 foot boat, then pay for our America's cup team to sail it and you almost certainly wouldn't win a single race all season under IRC.

It should be possible to build these boats for at least 30% less than the current cruiser racers, they would require fewer crew and would go twice as fast downwind as the current boats do. But nobody is building them because they know that IRC heavily penalises any boat under 40 foot that can plane in less than 20 knots of breeze - with today's technology we should be racing relatively cheap boats that can plane in 12 knots of breeze - with big grins on our faces!

 

[mrming]

As things currently stand you could commission one of the top fast 40 designers and give them an unlimited budget to design and build a 30 to 35 foot boat, then pay for our America's cup team to sail it and you almost certainly wouldn't win a single race all season under IRC.

This. A nice side effect would be that a whole bunch of existing sportsboats which are small, fun and cheap to run might suddenly become viable to race under IRC. There are a couple of Hunter 707s at our club, and they look like a brilliant budget race boat, except that you haven’t a hope in hell of ever winning a handicap race in one. I know they were meant to be a one design but the fact is we only have two.

 

[lw395]

I think you have got the problem slightly back to front, what a lot of people would like is to be able to race competitively a full on race boat in the vein of the fast 40's but at the smaller sizes as and lower budgets. As things currently stand you could commission one of the top fast 40 designers and give them an unlimited budget to design and build a 30 to 35 foot boat, then pay for our America's cup team to sail it and you almost certainly wouldn't win a single race all season under IRC.

It should be possible to build these boats for at least 30% less than the current cruiser racers, they would require fewer crew and would go twice as fast downwind as the current boats do. But nobody is building them because they know that IRC heavily penalises any boat under 40 foot that can plane in less than 20 knots of breeze - with today's technology we should be racing relatively cheap boats that can plane in 12 knots of breeze - with big grins on our faces!

The problem is, either you want a rule that encourages trad cruiser racers, or you want a rule that encourages what are basically going to be sports boats.
You will have boats that go like stink downwind, but uphill, they are same old small boat with not much ballast.
So, the results become very course dependent. You know who will win according to windstrength and whether there's any tight reaches or is it dead runs.
It like racing dinghies, if the reach angle suits our asy and the wind is light, we win on PY. That's fine for low budget amateur sailing in a family-friendly club, but not to be confused with serious racing.
You cannot handicap disparate boats effectively. PY works OK in dinghies for one Una-rig singlehander against another, or one sym kite against another, if the speeds are not too far apart. When it's RS600 vs GP14, don't take it seriously.
The answer is to race what you enjoy and not worry too much about results, or find some mates with comparable boats and do your own thing.
Ideally, go one design.

Basically what you want is Sportsboats from the last century only a bit longer and maybe with a bog and a cooker?
If the racing was actually that great, people would just crack on and do it and not care if they got slapped on their ratings.

You really might as well say, why doesn't your rule encourage my Trimaran or sailboard.

 

[Ingwe]

If the racing was actually that great, people would just crack on and do it and not care if they got slapped on their ratings.

I have done this and sailing this type of boat is a lot more fun than sailing a slow cruiser. I was one of the few people in this country who bought a Archambault Grand Surprise when they first came out - they weren't as fast as if you were designing something similar today but with the full sail wardrobe on we could plane in 13 to 14 knots of breeze and were very quick upwind for a 32 foot boat (eg slightly faster than a J109) but with all our big sails on we rated 1.080 which meant that the only way we could ever win a race was a point to point race either downwind or deep reaching when we could plane.

After I think 2 seasons of doing appalling badly in every race we gave up on being penalised for having fun and optimised the sail plan for IRC I think we went from a 110sqm kite down to 75spqm and knocked about 5sqm off our upwind sail plan which dropped our rating to 1.028 at which point we could be moderately competitive under IRC, but you shouldn't be forced into sailing slow boats if you can't afford a Fast 40 - and before you say then sail a one design no one design that is going to cost £100 to £120k is ever going to take off unless the first owners have a means to sail it competitively under a handicap system before the class takes hold. The only way round this is to do something like the New York Yacht club are currently doing with their IC37 one design where the club is buying 20 boats that the members can lease for a season - but no club in this country has the kind of money to do that.

 

[Chris 249]

A lot of this discussion seems to be about people who want to be 'competitive' in an expensive sport on a low budget. There is an attitude problem of people not wanting to bother because they can't win.
Most sports take part for the fun of it and hope to do well by their own standards, do well 'for an amateur on a budget etc'.

There's also a problem that some of the people with plenty of budget (and their hangers-on) create an atmosphere where people with less budget don't really want to get involved.
You get this in some dinghy classes too, but not all.
Often you get very good sailors who can make up for a small % of equipment disadvantage and still do very well. They might not win, but they beat a few brand new boats. But these people can pick and choose who they sail against. If they don't like the big budget 'all the gear no idea' crowd, you won't see them.

It's not simply a case of not wanting to bother because we can't win; it's also about believing that it's not good for the strength of the sport if only about 2% (?) of the population can afford to be fully competitive. Historically, it's clear that the great increases of the sport have come about when people have taken measures to reduce the cost and therefore open up the pool of potential owners, as they did with JOG and with the production boats and one designs. Once upon a time, for example, the minimum length for entry into the Fastnet was effectively about 48ft. Guys like Adlard Coles got them to reduce it to 24ft and then Patrick Ellam etc brought in JOG with 19-24 footers. Much of this was assisted by people like John Illingworth, then Commodore of the RORC. They did all this to reduce the cost and increase the number of potential sailors, and with the obvious belief that just saying "it's an expensive sport, if you don't want to pay you can go away" was harmful to sailing. At the same time, people like Holt and Moore were doing the same thing to dinghy sailing.

When we are basically beneficiaries of their work, it seems wrong to me to let the situation return to one where having an offshore racing boat is unashamedly elitist, almost in the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" spirit of the robber barons. And even those of us who, to be frank, could afford to do it fairly easily are discouraged by the simple extravagance but also by the fact that we have fewer people to race against. It's not a case of "why try to make it cheaper", but a case of "why NOT try to make it cheaper?"

I don't mind not winning too much. I do mind not winning a sailing race because it has been turned into something completely different, which is a spending race. And as you say, if we do turn up and do our best with a minimalist effort, there are people who are likely to be unpleasant about it - probably simply as a reflection of the same culture that says "take your Elan 310 away from our regatta".

In a way I'm making the same sort of point as Flaming, which is that we could perhaps be doing a better job of reducing costs. He wants bare interiors, I would like an allowance for a smaller sail wardrobe and also for encouragement for boats smaller than mine (which IRC provides, but some other organisations do not).

I also fit the description in your last paragraph, I hope. Over the winter series we've had a skeleton crew but still count national titles in four different classes (all but one of them against Olympic team members) and we know how we rate against the top guys nationally in boats in our bracket when we're all sailing one designs. If we did the glamour regattas we'd probably end up with reinforcements who have won more than one worlds - but it appears that we'd still have no hope without spending $40,000 more in sails. I don't see that as healthy or necessary for the sport.

EDIT - I should add that I do appreciate the fact that IRC gives an allowance for just carrying a furling jib+ heavy weather jib, and that may make us competitive without having to fill the boat with jibs and a Code Zero. The problem is that it can't work with a short overlap rig.

 

[Keen_Ed]

And we are saying - "why can't sailors on smaller budgets sail boats like that and have a chance of winning?" Why isn't there a 35 foot version of that boat?

Slightly smaller, but the HP30 class hasn’t taken off in the same way as the 40s, despite being that much cheaper.

 

[flaming]

I'm really not sure what you are getting at Flaming. You say that " There's absolutely no doubt that cruiser racers can be very competitive under IRC."

Then you go on to say " there are essentially just 4 options from major yards for an IRC cruiser racer in the mid 30s bracket today. The Dehler 35, the XP33, the GS34 and the J112E."

Then its " Of those 4, the XP33 and the GS really fail the "make a good cruiser" test by not having doors to the cabins, or an open forepeak. They are simply not going to be bought by dual use owners in the UK"

But then its " We already know that most owners of CRs in this size aren't cruising them, so do we really think they'd be put off from a boat that didn't have any accommodation?"

So if the owners arent cruising them, does the accommodation on the XP33 and GS matter? And since you say CR can be competitive under IRC then where is the problem.

It seems to me from your comments that what you are after is a CR that can win in IRC against out right race boats. Is that ever going to be realistic. Obviously there will be some times when it has happened in specific circumstances but round the cans?

Coming at this question from the perspective of a cruising man, I wouldnt want to cruise a Benny First let alone the examples you quote. Light weight and sea kindlyness dont really go together. Neither do spartan interiors and my wife. There is a big difference between the sort of boat that a crew of young men can take to Cork week and live aboard, and a boat that a family would want to take on the annual cruise to France.

Just what is it that you would like the RORC to do to IRC?

I think you're making my point for me! You as a cruising man wouldn't want to cruise the current offering of cruiser racers. So what we have are boats that only really have one purpose - to race but because they have to equipped to cruise are much heavier and more expensive than they could be.
In the past the argument has been that to get bigger fleets you need to encourage dual use boats. Looking at the current state of the fleets, and the boats that are actually available to buy we see that those days are over. The proportion of boats who cruise as well as race is very low.

Whether or not the collapse in fleet numbers can be blamed on RORC's policy of encouraging CRs is moot. RORC are the ones with the tools to make changes to what is competitive.

If there were still big fleets of CRs we wouldn't be having this debate because racing in big fleets is fun.

My argument is that without change this sector is doomed. And the smaller boats are suffering too... sure fleets are holding up at the moment, but other than the J97, can anyone name a CR available to buy today that rates less than 1.000?

So maybe it's time to try something different?

 

[flaming]

Slightly smaller, but the HP30 class hasn’t taken off in the same way as the 40s, despite being that much cheaper.

True. It's a different animal though. Trying to provide racing for orphaned sports boats. By contrast the Ker 40 that kicked off the fast 40 class was already winning under IRC. And that in itself should be the blueprint... fast, fun boat winning under IRC and surprise, surprise other owners took a look and said "I'll have a bit of that".

By contrast if you have an HP30 boat you are only going to be competitive in that fleet. And generally people with small race boats want to do more racing than the 6 or 7 events on their calendar.

 

[lw395]

Maybe IRC aka CHS has run its course for small boats?
Do all rating rules have a shelf life?
When it was created, a fast CR under 35ft meant something very much like a Sigma 33.

But I think nobody's taken up on my other point, that it's very hard to have a rating system that works with disparate boats over a range of conditions.

If you take two boats, and one of them planes fast down wind above F4 and the other doesn't, the planing boat will be going 50% faster when conditions suit it. On a W/L it might knock 5% off its elapsed time.
When conditions don't suit it, it will not.
So it becomes very difficult to have a rating that's good for both offshore and short-circuit, strong winds and light.

I suspect fiddling with the handicap system will only make it worse?

The worst possible outcome would be encouraging a new genre of boats at the expense of making the existing fleet obsolete.

 

[Ingwe]

The worst possible outcome would be encouraging a new genre of boats at the expense of making the existing fleet obsolete.

But the existing fleet is rapidly going to stop sailing anyway - if you look at the RORC inshore or offshore results and take out the SunFasts and JPK's (which were never primarily designed for racing inshore) there are no other boats there in class three or four that were designed in the last 15 years so unless we start building more 30 to 35 foot boats now there will not be any even vaguely serious boats racing inshore in another 10 years time as trying to race 30+ year old boats starts to become very expensive to the point where it would have been cheaper to have a new boat built in the Far East than the amounts that people are currently spending doing up old quarter or half tonner's.