Now Gang , I will not Multi post here but I need to sort of give Cooyong a complete answer. At far as measuring the Ms. The racing should take place as Handicap racing. You said Ron, your fleet comprised of sixty’s boats and up. If you were to make rules for every era in M developement it would all be fragmented and who is going to be the policemen to monitor it?
If it is done on Handicapping the races then it should work, for it takes into consideration , as well, of not only the boats but some of these top M sailors too!
I don’t know about you Ron but I think the excitement and the FUN in R/C yacht racing takes place IN THE FLEET, not with the bloke way out in front.
Handicapping the fleet is an art and takes practice , as youu know. Get it right and your fleet is in for a FUN time.
HI Steve,
O.K. I will put this up as a topic for the next association meeting as well as talk to the members in my local club.What else do you suggest we need to do
I belive the system or idea has merit. Maybe we could use the old trophy that S.A.and Vicoria had manny years ago?
The hadicapping or measuring thing was my thinking about keeping some integrity to the boats…60,s hull with swing rig?You and I know how far some will go to win!!
What a Good Idea Ron , that Bournville Trophy has been sitting around for far to long and it was put up by the Bournville club in England in 1964 for Marbleheads in Australia.
Well I suppose mate we should talk about it . I reckon there is about 10 clubs throughout Australia associated with ARYA, in 4 states namely SA, VIC, NSW and QLD. I asked the National Web master (Eddie) if we could use a page in “Our Past” to talk about Classic / vintage/ old Marbleheads and sent the same request to the National Secretary (Ken) . Now not to get to far ahead of myself. I thought if we have a meeting place(web page) we could get together and sort it out.
we could sort of have a fixed place and in another time of the year to have our sort of Big regatta or am I moving too fast?
Hi Steve, Have talked to a few sailors here, they are interested and keen enough to travel with their boats, a couple have started searcheing out their old marbelheads already.Will email you
Well Old marbleheaders there is a web sitededicated to old Marbleheads on user.ncable.net.au-~seagull Its just starting has a few stories and stuff. Contact seagull if you want your old vintage M up there.
Back to main topic-
two cent Idea: every year, advance the cut off year of the old M’s another year with like a thirty year difference, between cut off and now, which would stay the same. That way, before long the old boats are no longer retro when their year comes up.
Sorry-
You know how the Vintage M’s allow designs that were made before 1970? (Or is it 1960?..)well, as the years progress, 1970 gets farther and farther into the past. Maybe, just for the sake of discussion, you could have a retro M class that would allow only those designs that were made more than say twenty years ago from whatever the current date.So like maybe designs prior to 1985 would be allowed for 2005.
That way these older M’s would have a shot, and the current VM’s which are raced year after year regardless of date of development, could keep their situation.
It could be sortof like going back in time and re-living the 1980’s
I know we have too many classes, but like we always say, if there’s niche, and you have a lot of interest, why not?
John , seeing that you put it like that , it is indeed, worth a try?
We in our country do not have that many classes. They are A, 10R, M, IOM.
Currently we have an investigation going on about our M class, that a lot of people think will yeild some positive solutions. So we can wish our forum mate the best in his endeavours.
The neat thing is, some of the older designs from the eighties or whatever year could be built new as well so the Retro M class could have a big following potentially.
I don’t know very much about the more contemporary older designs but maybe they might be easier to build than the latest Hitecs. Not that its that hard to build a Hitec anyway.
I think your quite right. When one particular design gets out in front, the other designs seem to emulate it, rather than to come up with saomething else to beat it.
I think it comes from the computer designer programs the so -called modern designer seem to rely on. Somebody said that what you feed a computer comes back to you. But if a designer feeds into a computer, 3 bad designs, he will get back the best of the 3 bad designs. Now these people would like you to think , that they know what they are doing! But the sad fact is , they don’t. For they would not Slavishly be following each other in design if they were doing there own designs.
One has got to ask one self, are the boats noticably faster, say going frtom 2 knots to say 4 knots to windward. The airplane in the same time has gone from 50mph to 2000mph? The only thing that has gone uo is the price!
<blockquote id=“quote”><font size=“1” face=“Verdana, Arial, Helvetica” id=“quote”>quote:<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”>Originally posted by Steve Crewes
I think your quite right. When one particular design gets out in front, the other designs seem to emulate it, rather than to come up with saomething else to beat it.
I think it comes from the computer designer programs the so -called modern designer seem to rely on. Somebody said that what you feed a computer comes back to you. But if a designer feeds into a computer, 3 bad designs, he will get back the best of the 3 bad designs. Now these people would like you to think , that they know what they are doing! But the sad fact is , they don’t. For they would not Slavishly be following each other in design if they were doing there own designs.
One has got to ask one self, are the boats noticably faster, say going frtom 2 knots to say 4 knots to windward. The airplane in the same time has gone from 50mph to 2000mph? The only thing that has gone up is the price!
<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”></font id=“quote”>
First, let me say that I respect the efforts here to try to promote a class of “older” Marbelheads in Australia.
However, it is quite another thing to suggest that current designers and their boats are somehow inadequate as the result of current computer design programs.
Fact is, computer yacht design software aids the designer in drawing a boat; it doesn’t supply shapes or “give back” new designs based on drawings “feed” into the computer.
Second, the suggestion that current boat designers are all “slavishly” following each other and not doing their own designs is simply false. Current designers are very competitive and are always searching for an edge over the competiton.
Finally, it is a fact, plain and simple, that today’s Marbleheads are significantly faster at all boat speeds than boats from the 60’s through 80’s. Boats like the Epic, Magic Dragon, Bingo, Wind, Eclipse III etc. were all state of the art in their time. They are not state of the art today. They are too heavy, fins too thick and overall there is way too much wetted surface. No one would suggest that a P-51 Mustang is equal to an F-16, the same applies to r/c yachts.
Again, it is fine to try to get these older boats back on the water, but to to suggest that they are equals to contemporary designs and that contemporary designers are lacking in talent or competitive spirit is both uncalled for and untrue.
Steve,
To say that all all current modern designers emulate each others designs, rather than use their own ideas is false & a sad reflection on your experience in the M Class here in Aus.
Of all the current modern M’s here in Aus, i would ask you to pick out those that are close versions of each other both local & worldwide.
You may just suprise yourself at the differences.
Are you saying that because a boat is narrow, well its just a copy of another?
What Crap.
To say this would mean that all older wide design hulls must have been copies.
Not sure what it is you have against current designers to constsntly doubt their expertise & intelligence.
Unfortunately prices are a little higher than those of the past Steve & both myself & Jeff Byerley here in Aus are looking at ways to provide M’s at a more affordable rate but this is not easy.
Steve you state in another thread that you are content to race your older M’s with your mates rather than be up in the front end of the fleet. I respect that & know that people have different enjoyment levels of competition.
So why all the flame throwing at current designers & builders in the class.
To call us “poor bastards” & imply that we do nothing but copy, are deviod of talent & basically we do not know what we are doing is some of your best work!
Well Brad, the conversation is getting intersesting. I starting to see your still quoting me out of context. For the ‘Poor bastards’ term was about the young guys coming in to the sport. I might add Brad your niether Young nor Poor and so you personally don’t come in that catagory. You keep mentioning money. have you got some fixation on it? For Frank wasn’t charging enough, this was too cheap and that was something else.
Roy , that was very illuminating on computer planing.I imagine there will be some questions I would like to ask you about that subject, later. What I would like to ask you is what your designing now? No , you don’t have to give any secrets away but perhaps tell us if your designing anything with a thin beam, a tall rig and deep keel, in the marblehead class?
so mine is on the water and sailing.