Post by paultp on Jun 12, 2012 18:35:50 GMT
At the risk of doing the forum equivalent of putting a stick in a wasps nest I thought I'd start this thread as I believe it needs discussing, understanding and acting upon.
At the EGM on Saturday 9th June the assembled quorum voted on the proposed change to the sail measurement rules (details are on the website [here]).
The proposal was rejected by a small majority.
However, my feeling was that the consensus was that the rules need tightening but there wasn't agreement on how they should be tightened.
My understanding of the issue is that at the moment, within the rules, sails are being made with a "fat head" as the rules do not require a measurer to comment on the roach after the headboard dimension has been measured.
Whether this gives an advantage or not was a moot point and IMHO is irrelevant.
Theoretically a sail could be made within the rules with a massive "head" and there were suggestions that other aspects of the sail measurement rules could be exploited to radically change the British Moth sail shape in other ways.
It seems clear that the wording of the sail measurement rules needs amending to prevent such exploitation, but it isn't clear (to me anyway) what the changes should be.
I feel that if the design/cut of sails is allowed to wander within the current rules the possibility is that a fleet of British Moths will end up all looking slightly different. They are different in terms of deck and cockpit layout but hull and sails have generally been the same shape.
Also, somebody may turn up with a "killer" sail that makes everybody else's sails competitively redundant overnight.
I think both these situations should be avoided in the interests of the preservation of the class.
So I thought I'd start this thread with the view that the issue could be sensibly discussed and possibly some reasonable conclusion(s) reached for proposal and consideration at the AGM.
If I've got anything wrong please feel free to correct me.
Cheers
Paul
At the EGM on Saturday 9th June the assembled quorum voted on the proposed change to the sail measurement rules (details are on the website [here]).
The proposal was rejected by a small majority.
However, my feeling was that the consensus was that the rules need tightening but there wasn't agreement on how they should be tightened.
My understanding of the issue is that at the moment, within the rules, sails are being made with a "fat head" as the rules do not require a measurer to comment on the roach after the headboard dimension has been measured.
Whether this gives an advantage or not was a moot point and IMHO is irrelevant.
Theoretically a sail could be made within the rules with a massive "head" and there were suggestions that other aspects of the sail measurement rules could be exploited to radically change the British Moth sail shape in other ways.
It seems clear that the wording of the sail measurement rules needs amending to prevent such exploitation, but it isn't clear (to me anyway) what the changes should be.
I feel that if the design/cut of sails is allowed to wander within the current rules the possibility is that a fleet of British Moths will end up all looking slightly different. They are different in terms of deck and cockpit layout but hull and sails have generally been the same shape.
Also, somebody may turn up with a "killer" sail that makes everybody else's sails competitively redundant overnight.
I think both these situations should be avoided in the interests of the preservation of the class.
So I thought I'd start this thread with the view that the issue could be sensibly discussed and possibly some reasonable conclusion(s) reached for proposal and consideration at the AGM.
If I've got anything wrong please feel free to correct me.
Cheers
Paul