scott.projectsomewhere

I don’t want to ignite a religious cross-harbour 18′ skiff
pissing-contest…

… but the news releases coming from the Squadron this season are
just so agonisingly bad.

I mean, I don’t have a problem with them as such, it’s just that
Double Bay’s League media effort is just not strong enough to
overcome the mixed messages that are circulating around the sailing
media.

Sure the releases about the faux
sponsors, or the whole fleet
sailing the wrong course, or the misinterpretation
of the starting signal, or the protest about starting
before the latecomers arrived paint a pretty ordinary picture
for them, the bigger problem is that the undeniably better League fleet’s
message is being diluted.

Their boats might not have some inherent design flaws, and they
certainly don’t have the money that our fleet does, and they may
not have built a new boat in 10 years…

Even after all that - it’s still a little embarassing.

It seems anything can be auctioned off on eBay these days.

So, I wonder what a ride on an 18′ Skiff for a few hours would
fetch?

I might float the idea with the guys and see if we can do it (and
want to do it).

Doug, the infamous sailinganarchy forum
poster has been frequenting the Australian Moth forum of
late.

Now while the
threads in which he participates are always entertaining - it’s
often for the wrong reasons. The occasional rant is good, but to
repeat the same argument every time you post without ever
acknowledgeing an opposing point of view is one of the most
infuriating things anyone can do. And it’s done again. And again.
And again. And again.

So on the argument in question… making a heavy two-person foiler
be competitive around the course is not as easy as the maths
suggests. It has taken the Moth class several years to develop
systems which work on our incredibly light, efficient, high-tech,
simple boats. Taking a few order-of-magnitudes in every variable is
not necessarily going to be produce the results.

Even if a heavy, user-friendly foiler did perform… the failures
in Moth equipment suggest it wouldn’t last long…

Interesting… keep up the good work Doug.

Reminds me of the politically incorrect quote… “Arguing on the
Internet is like competing in the special Olympics. In the end
you’re still retarted.”

Update #1: And yet another
recent example on boatdesign.net.