Peter Milne HIT 14 Dinghy

[Nessa]

Geoff, could you bring your Hit down to Hunts this weekend? It isn't far for you and it would be great to see it. Good to see Ferry Meaows sailors with somewhere to sail again!

[solentgal]

Yes.....#22 is on ebay at present too..........

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Hit-sailing-d ... 1c3f97a318

[Nessa]

Just up the road and I am looking for another single hander now my nothing days are coming to an end, but I fear I need more sail area these days.

[davidh]

Geoff,

If you're coming to Hunts, with or without the boat, can you bring the brochure: I will have my PC and scanner with me. Of course, if you bring the boat alo)ng, that would be even better. Even though I'm not sailing 'fit' yet (I'm keeping Nessa company on the 'recovering list' I'd have some kit with me 'just in case'... I'd love a go on a HIT.

If you're not coming, could you do me a favour please? Can you scan the brochure and send it to me. If you can take a picture of the transom and aft sections (I have a rather sad and totally incorrect reputation of a interest in the aft sections of various boats) of the boat and send that too.

best email is dougal@davidhenshallmedia.co.uk

D

[Gavin_H]

Hey there, I own sail no. 7. Sorry I didn't notice your posts until now. If you have a scan of that brochure I'd love to have a copy. There doesn't seem to be too much verified info out there I can find. I could take whatever pictures you want of my boat, but it'd be in Dec when I go up north for the christmas holidays before I could take them.

[neil]

There's some info over at https://hitdinghy.wordpress.com/

Nice to know where another hit is, I'll try and trawl through old posts as I think there's 4 or 5 in the CVRDA now

[davidh]

Neil,

Now that you've been sailing yours, what is your over riding opinion of the boat? I was looking at the new 'thing' from RS and was struck at the similarity between the underwater shapes of the two boats...but these days that is called progress methinks!

Cheers

D

[Rupert]

Compare the picture below with the marketing ad picture of a similar angle on Neil's link, and what DH says becomes really clear! The Hit is certainly more extreme, though.

[neil]

But the big difference is that the Hit is made from 1970s glass and resin, so is a fair bit heavier than the Aero.

Due to circumstances beyond my control I was unable to get to Clywedog and I've yet to sail the Hit. Am planning to take it down the lake in the coming weeks for a sail though.

[Rupert]

Heavier, that is true. However, I'm not sure that ultralight is always better, or makes as big a difference as is sometimes stated. Looking forward to hearing how the boat goes, though much of the feel will be down to the rig, I'd think.

[LASERTOURIST]

Looks like the Hit was some missing link in the darwinian evolution between the OK dinghy and the Laser , it even retains the tupperware hatches that were such a nuisance ion a capsized OK...Trouble is it was advertised as the Singlehander for the 80's while in the early 80' s the laser was already pretty well established and only the most conservative crumudgeons persisted in calling the Laser a beach boat...

[davidh]

I do not think the HiT slotted in between the OK and Laser.... indeed, the Laser was well established before Peter Milne ever penned his design.

Looking back on my notes made in conversations with Peter and others, HIT was, like his Mirror 14, driven by a commercial concern who wanted a design. Indeed, if you look at the two boats, there share many a design feature. Elsewhere on here we've talked in the past about the classic 'Proctor bow' -in the M14 and HiT you have the Milne stern.

But as Laser Tourist, with his knowledge of the European Market, knows better than all of us.... back then the market was awash with all sorts of single handers that varied from the good to the indescribably bad!

I think that the HIT is an interesting side line in development that probably is, as already highlighted, more of a early version of the 'new' single handers coming to the market than a side story in dinghy history.

D

[LASERTOURIST]

Thing is , as always, established classes tend to drag on for quite some time (think of the Snipe in the US !) and OK's were the staple singlehander for the non- finn, non 90 Kgs Athletes sailors on the Continent , there was nothing as the Solo, Hit or Sliding plank british wonders back here...
With the french National Authority favouring the OK (with club molds and lots of help and advice) in the early 80's the transition was directly from OK to Laser even if the FFV tried to kill the Laser with a badly imitated clone , namely the X4which failed quickly.

OK was basically a early 50's design, but as there were lots of allowance in measurements (to cope with amateur builders making the odd mistake and nevertheless measure in and be class legal)...the OK was much tweaked when expert builders tried to make a faster boat within the existing class rules.
Some of the latest, most tweaked OK's must have been somewhat Hit - Like (at least for the underwater part)

The strange thing about the Hit was that it claimed for a strict one design principle...but still retained a Fiberglass or Wood option....

Clearly there was some impossibility there....Granted, wooden and plastic OK's cohabitated for some time, like did Wooden and Plastic Vauriens (the plastic ones being first quite uncompetitive ) but in the end with FRP sandwich working wonders (even for the flattish Vaurien, when Faccenda of Italy started manufacture FRP Vauriens ) Wood ceased to be a competitive option...

I think , despite some clever features and a fast planing hull (no doubt Milne of Fireball fame knew a thing or two about planing hulls) the Hit was more or less doomed from the start .