Messages

on ebay, march 2007

Hi Hoard,

I would have loved to have been there! wether didn't put me off, just the impending house move and a poorly relative. I like it winnnnndy - it gives us an excuse for the inevitable swim!

Philip
N3253

on ebay 17/03/07

John said: Twelves sail off a Secondary Yardstick because not enough Clubs put in annual returns, according to Ken Kershaw only 200 returns were recieved last year and I suspect very few clubs that have Twelves in their handicap fleet did.

OK - this means that the N12 PY published by the RYA is likely to stay static I guess - and me coming last in a lot of club races is not going to have much impact.

If weight reduces in the rules or development of the rig or hull get to a point where the other classes feel the PY is no longer representative,  they will do this as an 'educated guess' I suppose in consultation with the National association.

I know about the age related PY advice, and Scaling do operate two PY's for the AC and DB. It dosent help me much!

I do realise getting out on the water is the key. But I may have a very reduced season this year due to other commitments  :-/ :-(

Just having a nosey around the Burghfield SC website (due to the fact I am yearning to go to this event, but cannot possibly attend due to the 500+ mile round trip and my imminent house move)

I was interested to see that the N12 PY is suggested to drop by 30 points to 1063 and the RS200 is suggested to increase to 1070.

When do the club act on these suggestions? is this just a 'for interest' type of analysis? will these be put into a national database and form recommendations to the RYA?

Reducing national PY number might be a consequesnce of smaller fleet size... the hypothesis might be - If only the expert sailors stick to the class, the average speed will increase and the PY come down, making the class less attractive to the novice. Maybe we need more sailors like me to get out and compete in boats like mine (and putting some respectable lap times in, i.e. coming last!)

Philip
N3253

Did I imagine a fixture list in outlook format downloadable from this website?

I can't find it again

Phil

I can't see how you don't pay VAT to Mike Cooke... Are the boats classed as childrens shoes?

The high shipping costs from china will be why you just can't find anything sold in britain these days manufactured in china, I search but just can't find - it's like Viagra, they tell me it's wonderful, but I've never been able to find out where you buy it from!

Planet saving - please don't get me started on planet saving! If NOT shipping a few 50Kg boats from china is 'doing your bit' then heaven help us! I guess that's why we all cycle to work, holiday in our gardens, and never travel to open meetings (or the dinghy show)

Boat Hulls are pretty ideal shapes for stacking in a container, and 50kg is over weight for a bare carbon hull surely? (you don't have to ship the lead over as well)

Philip

Rick,

PC's dominate the market:

1) because of microsoft's near monopoly.
2) apple is one company against 1,000 - apple sell a lot more 'PC's' than Evesham Micro - for example
3) since I went upstairs and had a shower, i've had a worrying thought that the RS200 might be the apple users choice - because the sales messages for the mac are - you just get on and use it, you don't need to learn, no upgrade issues, it plugs in right out of the box
4) it is the apple that is uniform, not the PC - my little 'sideline' company writes software - we tried it on one imac - and it works, so we can say it works on all imacs! we can never say that about PC's because they are all different - This is why games consoles are so popular - games programmers can develop for a known configuration.

Phil

radiography simulation software
virtual radiography
www.shaderware.com

for the spiders (however that works!)

My point is that as an individual - I am not likely to contact the chinese and overcome the problems of communication - but as a company like P&B I would jump at the chance - once you have a partnership - you can invest in that and start building all sorts of things - spars, foils, and other hull designs.

If you did a run of 20 hulls - and sold them at a price the market set, not the builder then the class might attract a lot of new members.

One problem would be that this would undercut all the second hand values of newish boats. Perhaps this is one of the factors supporting a high price for new builds at the moment.

Another would be that all 20 would be identical - so it would be close to one design racing at the top of the fleet. The only innovation would be in the rig. This would probably be the reason not to go for it.

I only speculated that this might be the 'big secret' - i'm not advocating it, its just a 'thought experiment'

The fact that the 'big secret' was that its made in suffolk was a little underwhelming to be honest! John Ellis (of Int Canoe fame) makes IC's in carbon - he started making motocycle parts last year for a company. So this sort of crossover can go both ways - they obviously though a boat builder was better/cheaper than their motorsport supplier.

Philip

Rick posted - "Why do most F1 cars get built in the UK? Because that is where the skills are ..."

Rick, you are joking about the F1 comparison right? on what possible planet could you compare the technology level required to build an F1 car with that required to build a National 12?? One of my good school friends, a superbly accomplished electrical engineer, works for a small cambridge company and worked on the design and build for a data logger for a F1 car. The budget was huge and he worked with a team of people for over a year on the design and build. Just for the data logger!!! (Remember the thread about electronic equipment allowed on a N12??)

I think this "quality" bunk is insulting to the chinese. The N12 ethos was that it could be built by the gifted amatuer. The chinese are quoted as being able to build stealth bombers out of kevlar epoxy composite! I quote from a defence concern document - "The PRC acquisition of composite technology is an interesting case study. It indicates a broad-based set of joint-venture initiatives directed toward providing for the PRC a state-of-the-art composite materials/aerospace structure capability."

How hard can a N12 be? can winder knock up a kevlar stealth bomber??

Here are 10 things the chinease do better than us (well canada...) http://aolnetscape.workopolis.com/servlet/Content/fasttrack/20041023/CHINATEN23?section=Technology

Philip

odd behaviour...

The pictures of gryphonm don't appear when you search for 'gryphon' in the database - but when you go to edit the entry - there they are!

Why is this? is it only my mac browser?

Phil

Here are some pictures as of October 2006.






In 2005 3253 had a lot of simplification. gone are the mast prebend etc. Mr Blue Sky is currently undergoing a minor 'refit' and will have one colour thwart, CB case and internal hull for the start of the season. Hopefully this will help us find the right bit of string to pull!

OK - I understand - you need to host the images yourself... then link like this




Cheers, will update 3253 entry

Philip

3rd time lucky?