More lost classes??

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Pat
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More lost classes??

Post by Pat »

Last AGM we extended the CVRDA eligibility rules to include as lost classes, those built after 1965 and before 1990 and where that class is no longer in production and its association has ceased to exist (or never existed).
So which new lost classes could we now see at events?
(Half Cut and What a Lark Removals Ltd)
Julian
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by Julian »

Oooh, Pat!

By 1990, the asymmetric antichrist virus was reproducing faster than something left in a bin in the sunshine in a reasonably fresh meat market in China, but I don't know how many of these were in existence by that date. Please remember this is just the postprandial rambling of someone full of beef stew and red wine.

1. Heavy metal. As in 1953 there were some big hairy arsed competitors for the position of the bloody muzzled top predator. Two of the disarticulated bone assemblages left in the dinghy park were the Laser 5000, which was definitely a proper thing for a while, but I don't know if they still exist in any form. The other one, the Boss, which was the offering from House of Topper, really is a racing dinghy, but only if racing dinghies were produced by Poundstretcher. Obviously, faced with the 49er, a vessel built out of a single lab grown crystal of an advanced titanium alloy (reality check, I think I'm talking about a jet engine turbine blade), and still the apogee of dinghy sailing, both of the others found themselves to be as desirable as were the American or Soviet supersonic airliners.

2. Pocket rockets. Here in North Wales we have a breeding programme with two L3000s, but all we have managed to produced so far is a handful of Vagos. However, Buzz, Iso, L4000, Spice, does anyone care about any of them? Also, the Laser II, or as we call it the Laser dai, are they still a thing?

2.b, Kids Stuff. 404, 405, wasn't one of them made of leftover Lark shells? Byte, how many parents were glad they bought them? I'm sure there are more pathway disasters.

3. Amy Barlow now has a new patio, which I strongly believe has her TOY buried underneath it, as she has turned her allegiance to the Farr 3.7. Its stunning, a home buildable plywood mini Contender, not sure how organised they are?

4. Absolute absurdities. A baby FD, again, may be mid 90s, L'Equipe, some damn froggie chappies produced this I believe, Laser Tourist, assiste nous si'l vous plait, seems to have gone straight down the plughole with the FD, with its target audience immediately drooling over the 29er, which again, for its type and purpose, has not been bettered.
And finally the Bell Flyer, again, I cant do an accurate date, but producing a home build wooden skiff at that point in time showed as much understanding of the market as did the sinclair C5.

Thanks for ten minutes of your life reading all that, additions and arguments please!

cheers

J
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PeterV
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by PeterV »

We have a Laser 5000 here at Warsash, it turned up at the beginning of last year and sailed extremely fast, winning most races, but then it is sailed by the Budgen brothers.

We had a Laser 5000 for a while in Bristol docks at Baltic Wharf. It was very easy to beat round the course in a Laser!
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JimC
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by JimC »

So all the early Italian Bistro foam sandwich Cherubs now qualify!
Pat
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by Pat »

:lol: :lol: Amy's ToY is alive and kicking and heading to the Birkett race at Ullswater this year we're told on FaceBook.
Do the various Toppers and Lasers come into the same category as RS - the class association is for all boats produced by that manufacturer?
But I wouldn't mind seeing a Bell Flyer at an event. Fits the Lost Class ethos pretty well - how many average club sailors have even heard of one?
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davidh
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by davidh »

Julian (and Peter V)

The re-emergence of the L5000 was due in part to their having their big anniversary event recently down at Hayling Island. The L4000 is of course now part of the Rooster empire so is no longer a 'lost' class - nor is the Buzz/Iso as they still have the vestiges of an organisation behind them. As to the others....I'm not in the business of dumping on various classes, it is much nicer to find good things to say. But I would struggle with the Bell Flyer... what is there to say that hasn't been done already!

This does though once again highlight the issue of getting the 'fast end' of the classic scene into some semblance of life...to date it just hasn't really happened, even for the symmetric spinnakered boats. I'm not sure just how easy it would be to blend in the earlier asymmetrics, with the changes in dates you could rock up with a twin wire monster kite job which I cannot image would be much fun at Shearwater (or even at Whitefriars for that matter).

BUT - just to bring a smile to your post-red wine mutterings, as part of the 505 book project I recently 'wrote up' the arrival of the L5000. It was an important part of the story, as you can chart how the mainstream sailing media switched attention from the 505 being top dog (sorry but the FD never really cut the mustard with the media, too specialized with the Olympic focus) to the asymmetrics - with the Audi sponsorship of the televised EuroCup series. For a variety of reasons, the L5000 quickly got something of an unsavoury reputation which was a shame as that was NOT the boat that was originally envisaged - and I can tell you that as I was there - in the workshop as the prototype was developed. It should have been a lightweight, carbon flying machine but that was not how it ended up. You'll have to either put your hand in your pocket and unbolt the wallet to buy a copy of the 505 book OR arrange to give me lifts to and from a Committee Boat (in between laying marks in the right place) if you want the rest of the story along with some of the famous quotations of the time - as I said...I was there! And a PS - the Boss story is in there too and some of them must have survived as I saw one of flea-bay recently. Now that WAS a lovely boat to sail even if you did wonder if you'd make it home in one piece.....

We really ought to do an event together again..... all the more so as Jon Thompson is Chester based (that's 'just up the road isn't it'...…..

Dougal
David H
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by LASERTOURIST »

L'équipe is not a bad boat, only itwas meant for kids.

A lot of boats were meant for kids in the heyday of dinghy sailing .
The best one was also a mini FD (without spi chute) by Lanaverre called the KID (most of them were done "safey yellow" both on deck and hull tobe easily spotted in case of trouble. Gouteron of La Baule (of Simoun 445 and 485 fame ) had the self bailing Mowgli with less brilliant performance and La Prairie (best known for the successful cruising 12 Ft Zef and the rarer Surf (4,35 m quite fast downwind). Morin did not have a specific kids 2 in dinghy but the well designed 4m fitted the bill even if nots specifically built for this market segment.

All these were late 60's early 70's boats and it turned out that the market (for individual owners , not club fleets ) was quite narrow as kids tend to grow up , and , with the trapeze allowed for youngsters , the 420 easily fitted the bill and had much more widespread fleets and interesting regattas.
Very much the same happened for the singlehanders when the Radial and 4,7 rigs became available , lots of kid singlehanders (remember the dutch Splash ?) even with ISAF support became lost classes .

L'équipe is a different story, a more recent one :
it is the brainchild of Marc Laurent who was the french olympic campaigner for the 76 games , narrowly winning the selection against Jeff Fountaine (crewed by his wife) the current mayor of La Rochelle and successful boatbuilder.
Laurent went on as a sailing coach for FFV and he wanted some kind of way of getting a supply of well trained crews for olympic FD, 470 and Tornado he thought a sophisticated double hander with almost all the trappings and knick knacks of the FD was needed (i beg to differ , a crew must have tactic skills at olympic level).

So with the support of the daily sports newspaper l'Equipe (reporters Gilles Pernet and Patrick Chapuis) and the french national authority (FFV)he designed and launched a mini FD, built by Boutemy of La Rochelle (now 2 win after numerous takeovers and revampings).

The class was neither a rocket success nor a downright failure (like most of the boats directly endorsed by, and created with, support of FFV) . It was sensibly targeted at club fleets rather than individual owners , chiefy for école de sport (not just basic training but advanced, race-oriented training).
It got quite a loyal following in France, spain, switzerland, italy (it was license built by Calvini) and even England (license built by Holt), had some well attended european championships in the late 90's and garnered some big fleets in the 80's and 90's but started to wane inthe 2000's when the FD was phased out.

I dont think it really fulfilled Laurent's goal of being a hotbed of well trained crews ...and FFV started to cherrypick the best young laser sailors for that because at high level the need is more for a tactician sort of crew than just a trapeze monkey with spinnaker triming abilities.

Unlike the laser it was not really suited for basic training except on some cal lakes like Verneuil sur Seine (now extinct because af a greedy town developper) where the fleets of equipe were recycle as sailing school boats for primary school sailing programmes.
Along with the lack of versatility L'equipe was killed by an attempted updating (a square top composite mainsail) thet looked modern but outmoded the olkder boats wa sexpensive and did not brig a spectacular bonus in speed... same stupid idea as the Laser ILCA aussie Carbon C5 rigs costing their weight in gold.
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by LASERTOURIST »

I dont think L'Equipe was ever a contender for the 29 er it was meant for lighter and youger kids (just compare sail area) ...and the 29er , contrary to the tamer 420 is very difficult to recycle into a sailing school / club boat: recreative owner boat : local racer boat, once it has enjoyed two or three seasons of top notch racing...

IMHO it is much better for a class to be based upon a successful basic popu-boat turned into a competitive fleet than a purposely built expensive and none too beginner-friendly racing machine.
Gavin3G
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by Gavin3G »

A 5000 appeared as bass week last year, only went out once and didn't join in we aspired after it as another #threemeninaboat machine and tried to blag a go. the lads said it was quite tame, could take 3 and did over 15kts but so does an osprey!!
Rupert
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by Rupert »

Not sure any of the boats mentioned here would be new to lost classes. Either too new, the L5000 is mid 90s, or already qualified, or not lost. We are talking 86 to 90, which wasn't the most inspired time from my memory, which should mean some very niche lost classes, but I can't remember any of them offhand.
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Nessa
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by Nessa »

I’ve been wondering about my Laser 2. No longer in production, I think the CA is defunct. Would it count? I have no wish to race it myself, but there are plenty still about.
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Rupert
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by Rupert »

Doesn't seem right, somehow! That there were 10000+ boats and the Laser name attached, I suppose. Are they really defunct as a class in the UK? Just seems odd.
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JimC
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Re: More lost classes??

Post by JimC »

Pretty much Rupert, 20 races at 5 clubs last year in the PY system.
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