Junior Sailing Input Desired
Bob Gray:
Last year a friend of mine said he was interested in an opti for his son. I pulled up the plans and specs on the Opti site and was impressed. They restricted the important things and left the rest open enough so you could put together a decent boat for a reasonable cost. It seems to make it easy to fit the child as well as the pocket book. With kids you never know if they'll even like a sport or stick with it. I really like the idea of one sail and one set of runners for a regatta, but aside that, leave the specs the same as they are in Europe. They don't hurt anything and we don't want to have two competing organizations. If we build an Opti, it will have a set of 30 inch 3/16" plates that we can build for under $150.
Bob
Rick Lemberg:
This is my first year involved in the opti,I built one for my grandson and have been watching the developement of the class for the last couple of years.I watched the opti centrals this year and to tell you it was great to watch the kids out sailing and being envolved with all the other ice sailors .I think if we keep the boats as simple as possible ,one set of plate runners per regatta would be fine and they could be bullnose or the gator type,these skates work great in all conditions.thier are a couple of plates being experimented with at very low cost,Bob gray from traverse city has a set he built out of stainless with wood stiffners and has held up great. I myself have built skates ,it takes time but you can do it cheep $200. or so.I think if your just starting out with a Jr.sailor put together what you can and go sailing.the biggest problem I found was finding ice time this year .every time I wanted to take my Grandson out it snowed .We are both looking forward to next year allready. Think Ice Rick Lemberg 4155
Geoff Sobering:
One possible solution to the equipment issue would be to establish two fleets, one with strict one-design limitations and another "Open Class" using the more permissive European-style specifications. For now, I'd expect that most sailors in NA would compete in the "Open" fleet.
Some background might be helpful in understanding the motivation behind the discussion of specifications for a Jr. class. The soft-water Optimist class has become extremely competitive, with an "arms race" in gear to match (and this is with quite tight one-design rules). For example, look at the range of spars available - topping out with 7075 alloy tubing, and different stiffness sprits: http://www.optiparts.com/products/spars.asp :o
Some people are concerned that with loose specs. once the Ice-Opti becomes popular the most competitive (and well funded) sailors will push the limits of the rules to obtain an (unfair) advantage and discourage other sailors from participating. Unfortunately, experience with kids sports in the US would seem to support this fear. :(
OTOH, establishing super-specific rules can raise the "barrier to entry" for casual sailors, hindering the expansion of the class and discouraging new sailors from "giving it a try". I know Daniel's motivation to start this discussion is to try and find a "happy medium" that encourages new sailors to come out and get involved (even without perfect equipment) while at the same time more serious sailors are not discouraged by the cost of competitive equipment.
Cheers,
Geoff S.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page