Snapper95

Lol....different buyers Mambo. Boats are VERY different.
I'd be interested in seeing just how many J80, J105 and J120 owners are buying 70's. I know of 4 personally.
Hey, J70 owners...what'd you own b4 the 70?

Viper...we all switched from Vipers.

That is quite possibly the lamest argument ever attempted on this forum.  We are talking about boats, so keep it to that.  Do you think thoroughbred breeders compare their horses' speed to cars?  Or that sportscar racers compare their speeds to the space shuttle?  Context, folks.

 

Gybe,

 

 

Seriously, we are talking about sailboats.  Fastest ones go 50+ miles per hour.  That ain't really fast. If you want fast, you need another sport.  F1, Lemans, they're pushing 200 + miles per hour.  Unlimited air racers at Reno are pushing 500 miles and hour.  Most jet fighters are in the 1.6 to 2.2 mach range.  Face it, sailboats are slow.  So arguments about fastest are kind of like saying your the strongest kid in kindergarden....

Crash

 

PS,  Not claiming the J/70 is fast.  Just faster than my S2 9.1 most of the time....

 

The reason the J/70 is 'fast enough' is that it planes downwind in reasonable breeze.  That means the 4KSB crowd that's moved in to the J/70 fleet will get a real adrenaline rush often enough to keep them excited about the boat, grinning from ear to ear, and telling all their friends.

 

 THAT, more than any other factor, is why the sporties have slowly but surely been taking over inshore racing.

 

 

 

No more so than the comparison you made between sailboats and entry level race cars when you wrote the initial review of the J/70 and VX-One. He's making a point about relative speeds versus relevance to the sailing experience. Same thing you did in your article, more or less, since race cars are a lame comparison to boats as well.

 

He's saying that if you've piloted relatively high velocity vehicles you probably aren't as impressed about absolute speeds in a sailboat. Flying beyond Mach 2 is done precisely to say you did it, and is of no tactical relevance. It's not a big deal, anyone qualified can do it. Turning against a competitor who is trying to kill you at 335 knots indicated is far more thrilling and far more stressful. The former is about ego and impresses the air headed blonds and the club, while the latter is about skill and if you want to be candid, courage. It's how one's reputation amongst peers is determined.

 

Let's be honest. The whole boat speed discussion is about ego's, nothing more. Absolute speed in a racing sailboat is significant relative to whether you want the tactical decision making of being able to plane downwind in a reasonable breeze, vs either never being able to plane or having the SA/D to (almost) always be able to plane.

 

All of the above situations are of interest depending on viewpoint and the characteristics of distance vs the weather where you typically sail. If the boat will often see variable conditions that mean you have to switch tactics, then it is more interesting in general. This assumes that the boat is reasonably controllable in the conditions that are prevalent.

 

If your ego says you must go 20 knots instead of a paltry 17, then plenty of boats beckon. Go buy one and have a blast. Either way, your stu cazzo will still be the same size.

They were easily doing 16+ on Friday.  No question; we paced 'em.

Not good enough. You need 4K video from a calibrated, government-vetted GPS with triple Ring Laser Gyro using coupled AHRS backup as proof (for some people anyway).

Just watched the TP TV Dobbs Davis video. The boats looked great.

 

Where is that video available? I'm not familiar with the acronyms...

We drink JP5, whatever is left goes in the afterburners.

And $250 barely buys a mid-range bottle of Cabernet for a man of Ultra's refined tastes.