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2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 4:51 pm
by paul manning
Club Nautic S'Arenal - Tuesday 30th May

Note - the skippers meeting is a general forum for open discussion of those present on the class. The annual sailor survey continues to be the classes method of receiving data.

Points arising

Alastair Singh (Commodore of Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron) in association with the AUS class association will be making a presentation to competitors on Friday evening ahead of their World Championships. There is a pre-event video on the class website and further information will become available regarding shipping etc.

Iver has confirmed that Kieler Wocher would be happy to host the class in 2018. They require a minimum of 40 boats and the class would have its own race area. Ideally the dates would be set so as to reduce / limit the time off work.
Iver to report back regarding dates.

2019 Medemblik World Championships 8th - 13th July event planning is well under way and advanced information will be available later in 2017.
The Dutch team are progressing with their regatta plans and Paul manning will continue to liaise with them.

2020 World Championships. Possible venues are Como, Garda (general preference for Riva) and Germany.

2021 World Championships. The class has an offer from Lyme Regis Sailing Club. This is one of the top venues in the U.K.
The international committee need to approve / reject this offer at their meeting in Palma.
Note - the subsequent international committee meeting has approved Lyme Regis as the venue for 2021.

Mast update. Rick recapped the timeline for the mast. Explained the issues around a small number of members vocal objections.
The class has a mandate and ask Ovington Boats to produce a sample alternative supply mast and sail (from the current supplier).
Tim Hill re-affirmed the AUS fleets 100% support of this process.
The main issues continue to be:
Track failure is an irritation
Top section breaking is a real issue
Supply of spars is a real issue
The class chairman considers that it would be most beneficial to the class to fix the issues without major changes.
A question was asked of the fleet present what the general opinion was of the members.

Does the class want a new rig (mast & sail)?
14 in favour
6 against
7 no opinion (38 people present)

It is essential that the class has certainty on a timeline for a new rig (mast & sail). Note, a sail has already been designed and is awaiting the go ahead.

Class rules - there were no questions arising on the recently published 2017 class rules.
The class members thanked David Rickard for the diligent work he had put in producing the revised set of rules.

A discussion was had regarding boat weight and the relevance of carrying out mandatory pre-event weighing as part of equipment inspection. Rob Taylor (class chief measurer) indicated that the entire inspection process took 10 minutes per boat and that this was a similar time to other classes such as the 49er.
Should the class consider carrying out random weighing, rather than compulsory pre-event weighing of boats finishing races in the top 10.

Following are the votes of the members present.

All boats checked - 6
Spot checks - 13
No check at all - 6

The class technical committee will discuss this further and report back.

There was a general feeling that the new 1 day pre-Worlds is a better format.

John McAfee (Ovington Boats) stated that the company continue to be very happy to receive any suggestions on product improvement for new boats. This will continue to be a question in the annual survey and the class are very happy with the support provided by Ovington Boats.

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 6:09 pm
by PaulM
Hi Paul, thanks for this a good summary.

Just for clarity, on this mast issue as no doubt this will get some publicity?

Are we now sure that it is not possible to source a new mast supplier suitable to be used with the current main, or is this still being investigated? This was the initial mandate/discussion and I understood this was a possibility again? Thus saving the big cost hit people are concerned about.

With regards to the timeline this has obviously slipped do we have an update?

Thanks
Paul

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2017 8:01 pm
by Rick
PaulM wrote:
Are we now sure that it is not possible to source a new mast supplier suitable to be used with the current main, or is this still being investigated? This was the initial mandate/discussion and I understood this was a possibility again? Thus saving the big cost hit people are concerned about.


All options are still under discussion / investigation.

The whole project has received less priority from the builder due to the negative response the project received on various social media channels.

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2017 12:11 pm
by bristollad
any pictures or images of the new sail?

and can i add i have had 2 top sections a middle section and a bottom section none of which cause me any issues the most recent was sent in 2 days i was back on the water with no issue the following weekend

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2017 7:28 pm
by Alexvanderwelle
i realy don't get all the negative response to the new main/mast proposal! I am thinking about buying a musto for a long time now, the main thing that was holding me back is the 'old' main sail. you can ask any 49er sailor about how much the boat has improved with the square head main, both in handling and performance. are there any results yet of the tests with the new main?

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 12:57 pm
by bristollad
Have you sailed a musto skiff??

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:41 pm
by Alexvanderwelle
Yes ofcoarse have i sailed one! I love the boat but as stated above, the rig and sail design are outdated and the boat would benefit a lot from a new rig/mainsail. Does anyone know of the new rig is tested yet?

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 7:51 pm
by bristollad
Ok
Why is the rig out dated ? Numbers are not dropping the class is booming boats are good value for money second hand market is strong and it's enabling youngsters into the class
So why is it out dated ?

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2017 7:07 pm
by Alexvanderwelle
well... heaving read all the posts regarding this subject, I sense that your not the biggest fan of the whole new mast/rig project. :D
so I don't think I am going to change that any time soon but try to look at the facts.
Squarehead is faster in all conditions and at all points of sail. More power with lower drag. Roughly the top 10% of a three pointed sail doesn't do any good but to hold up the rest of the sail, but you get lots of drag. This is why you see an squarehead on all new high performance boats/dinghy's these days, good examples of existing platforms that later changed to an squarehead are the 49ers an the rs800. it workes very well on these boats, the performance and sailability has had an enormous bootst, I have never heard any sailor who wanted to go back to the old main/rig. if you have the time for it, Bethwaite has written a few fantastic books about high performance skiff sailing, he explains it a lot better then I do.

And have fait in Ovington, I think we all agree that they never deliver any crap, so if the are involved in the development I think there will come a good reliable rig and a fast main! I hope they will give it some priority!

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2017 2:18 pm
by bristollad
And why as a class do we need a "faster main "? The boat is already fast

Re: 2017 - World Championships skippers meeting

Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2017 10:05 am
by chriswrightlaser
We have a boat that can win handicap events if it is windy, if the wind is light the boat will not perform to its handicap, is the musto handicap wrong in a force 4 to 5 also wrong in a force 1 but correct in a force 2 ?
In a few years time we might have two legal rigs and a legal smaller sail as well for young people?
if we are going to have two legal rigs? then for light wind days the new rig should be faster by a good margin. I see no point in making the two rigs the same speed as that will never happen.
I have been forced to get a laser 1 mk2 sail now as the laser 1 mk1 will not hold its lane on the start line, so all are going to the mk2 sail now as will be the case with the new sail in the musto if it happens.
This time that we are unsure of where we are going to happen is more damaging to the class than ever, jump or stay the same with the rig but not sitting on the fence so sailing goes back to normal.
Chris