International 14 Mailing List
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From: Rand Arnold (i14@mac.com)
Date: Tue 05 Feb 2002 - 06:06:58 GMT
Wow this list has nearly caused a meltdown of my server the last two days...
As the debate over foils, racks, length of the boat continues, and we ask
ourselves why would anybody want to make these changes, perhaps it would
be a good idea to look back over some of the past changes, and think
about what they did for the class.
Boom Vang - kind of made sailing down wind a little bit safer eh? (and
easier and faster)
Trapeze - first outlawed, probably because it would change the character
of the class, but then later permitted when the character of the class
changed anyway. In other words, at one time it was inappropriate for the
class, and then later it became an integral part of the class. (Perhaps
wider racks and t-foils could be characterized the same way? No good now,
but maybe in 20 years?)
Double bottom - made the boats easier to build, quicker to recover from a
capsize, quicker to drain, maybe faster.
Dual trapezes - made the boat easier to sail, and faster.
Asymmetric kites - make the boat much easier to sail down wind (and
jibe!), oh and made the boat faster and more exciting to watch.
Fully battened mains - made the main sail last longer! the boat easier to
sail and made the boat faster.
Really big rule change that over night obsoleted every boat north and
south of the equator - boats are way faster, marginally easier to sail
(depends upon what design you moved up from), almost doubled the size of
the class (with at least a short term reduction in the number of
competitive boats).
Looking at proposed changes:
t-foils - at an extreme these make the boat way faster, at a minimum it
is hard to gauge exactly how much benefit they are. The expense looks to
be huge, but does it make the boat easier to sail? or does it make the
boat last longer? (Potential drawback, this might allow for a radical
hull design change that would obsolete all our boats again, do we want that?)
wider boats - potential for faster boats. Would they be easier to sail?
Probably harder to right from a capsize (5'6"" to 6' made a difference
there, and new comers capsize a lot!) Do they make the boat cheaper?
(Again there is the potential drawback of a radical new hull design that
would make all our boats obsolete again).
racks behind the boat - well, I think I covered this above...
Personally I think that big changes to the rules are bad. Both the I14's
and the Australian 14's lived with the same basic set of rules for many,
many, many years. Most developments came within those rules, not by
changing those rules. In 1996 we broke from that tradition, so that we
could sail together, this has had a huge monetary cost that was first
borne by the northern hemisphere and is now taking its toll on the
southern hemisphere. 14's are not cheap, but most of us can tolerate the
expense of a new (or newer) boat, because we can sell our old one to help
defray the costs. But when you can not even get somebody to take your
old boat away, you are starting from scratch. We did that once so that we
could all sail together, but what would be gained by doing that again now?
It took me three years to get going again after having my boat destroyed,
if my new boat is obsoleted by a rule change, rather than a radical new
idea within the existing rules, I too will be very hard pressed to stay
in the class.
Rand
ps in 8 to 10 knots my new(ish) bIII kicked but on the 5o5's this
weekend, isn't that fast enough? (Normally we are just racing 14's, not
anybody else.)
<p>_________________________
Rand Arnold
International 14 USA 1143
"A Bumblebee Called Kate"
rand@meur.net
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