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[I14] The story of CAN566: Boat costs and I14 participation.

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From: Charles Orchard (corchard@Celestica.com)
Date: Wed 02 Jan 2002 - 17:32:20 GMT

The story of CAN566: Boat costs and I14 participation.

I sailed in the 1993 Worlds in Kingston and had a blast in an old boat that
had been rebuilt three times and barely passed the float test. I wanted to
do better than bottom of the fleet so I started late in 1993 to built a
boat in preparation for San Francisco in 1997. The hull was carbon/kevlar
based on a Morrison 7 design. Being a student with no funds I had to build
the boat in stages and had put about 4k CDN$ into the project when the
rules changed. It became obvious based on results in 1996 that an old
rules boat would not be at the top in San Francisco. I lost interest in
pouring money into a boat that would never win (I would have needed about
another 8K to make the boat race ready). In 1998 after spending months
trying to find a buyer for an unfinished boat, I cut it into small pieces,
and paid a $60 disposal fee at the dump.

Now some would say that my timing was unlucky, or that this is the nature
of a development class, however, to spend that much money to have nothing
to show was discouraging at best. To put things in perspective my new car
this year cost 20K. A used, up to date 14 costs 25-30k.

I still dream about a ride that I had in the lee on an island with the
chute up and a 30 knot gust. I also enjoy reading the discussion about the
class and seeing the development of the class in photographs. However, I
will likely never own a fourteen nor participate unless there is a class
commitment to keeping costs down so that a newcomer doesn't feel that they
are throwing money away.

Charles Orchard

(for those of you that were in Kingston I sailed a baby blue boat and put
an upside down sailboat on the bow every time I dumped)

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