misconseption2348

need more everything

This topic has been debated a lot over and over again, and there a couple problems with going to a high performance option or at least to have it taken seriously. Here's my take on it.

If it is a sideshow event like single handed and sloops, then no-one is going to spend money on it. Even the rich teams are spread pretty thin. If you make it worthwhile then this means that you are going to need more than just one boat per team. If it is a high caliber event then you will want to train for it, and have someone to train with. It is very hard to practice starting with just one boat. This gives a huge advantage to big money teams, something ICSA does not want to do. They already have a pretty big advantage, and I can't see ICSA deliberately pushing this harder. For a smaller team you are taking funds away from the majority of the team to fund a very few. Smaller teams like Bowden, Dartmouth, Salve, all of the mid-west teams, 70% of SAISA, are not going to be able to compete. Or you eliminate the existing format switch to just these boats and go from being able to accommodate 20+ people, to 8 tops.

Second is the venue. There are multiple venues that you simply cannot sail these boats at just to practice nevermind host events. Tufts looked at getting V15s last time around and decided that they don't have the room or depth for something that fast, and picked up larks instead. Maintaining costs and time are again going to also explode but that's already been touched on.

College sailing is about being inclusive. The beginners compete in the same format and boats as the very top guys. Cheap boats allow low maintenance costs and allow more people access to the sport. The simplicity also allows people who just learn how to sail when they enter the program to compete at a decent level by the time they are graduating. The only way you are going to see changes is if some of the larger teams make the change. Some kind of 2 person hiking dinghy with an A-sail, might be more realistic, gives slightly more complexity to the tactics, still reasonable boat handling curve and more speed and power. Could be used at more venues like the Charles, Yale, Salve, Navy, CG, as there is more room. The idea is to try and expand programs rather than shrink them.

If you really want a higher performance college option, then i think the place to do it is in the offseason. Create a 49er, FX and 470 winter and summer circuits. Your elite guys take their boats down to Florida over the break, leave then there for the winter, do 2 or 3 sanctioned events, bring your coach. Similar to a Jag cup. The do a similar thing in the summer time. Maybe get US sailing to kick in a little cash as you are aiding the development of the next olympic group and give a big trophy at the end of it all.

At the end of the day it will only work if it is perceived to drive recruitment. If it will help me get more kids on my team without us loosing a bunch of money then it will go ahead, right now I can't really see that happening unless there are some big changes that are going to take place.

In general vertical battens will almost always loose out to a real horizontal batten. Vertical battens are a pain to handle on deck, making sail changes harder, are much longer, and get less leverage for their length. You also lose the ability to have a real full length batten at the head of the jib. On a smaller sport boat, not really the end of the world, and the jibs don't last very long anyways. On a bigger boat with higher loads this makes a huge difference in terms of the shape at teh head of the sail. Also remember the purpose of the battens are the support a nicer leech profile and keep a straighter exit angle. Whats going to do a better job, a 5" batten or a 2' long batten? That being said vertical battens are better than no battens at all, just not as good as horizontal ones. As for roller battens, these tend to have a limited lifespan, and do not work as compression battens. The newer RBS ones are better, but not perfect and still not as good as a real horizontal one. The boat I'm involved with opted for horizontal battens in all the jibs and keeping the furler for now in case of class racing.