Racing in the wet......

Monoposti!

How many similarities with our sport can you recognise?

When I first started racing sailing dinghies some fifty years ago there were basically three categories to choose from: one design, restricted and open. One design dinghies are identical to the designer's drawings, open classes give you the hull length and usually, but not always, the sail area, and let you design the rest; restricted came somewhere between the two extremes. No matter which category a crew choses to race in, a class races boat to boat.

The Firefly was probably the first true mass produced one design, it was manufactured by Fairey as they diversified from their WWII aircraft production. They applied the construction techniques of DH Mosquitoes to boats. You raced it as they built it, a new concept that was way ahead of its time. The rules for the Firefly and other one design boats could and still are remarkably restrictive, it took the Firefly class sixty years before it allowed windows in the sails,,,,,,,,, windows assist in avoiding collisions, logic eventually won!

Waterproof wood glues had been developed during WWII creating a new material, marine plywood, as useful to sailors as high tensile steel tube is to chassis builders, but remember the chassis of the original Marcos! Even when the dinghies were built from kits by individuals and small boat builders, every effort is made by a one design class to reduce variation. The result is that a 2010 National Enterprise will be very similar to the 1956 version introduced by the News Chronicle (a newspaper). Inevitably, changes are forced onto classes such as the Enterprise and Firefly as new materials are introduced and change the economics of production, when a Firefly was first built the only sail material available was cotton. Most hulls are now constructed from GRP rather than plywood, and the masts are alloy rather than spruce. Changes ultimately occur in all the long established classes, but usually only after stubborn resistance by die hard committees fearful of loosing their 'level playing field'.

The National Enterprise was, and is, one of the most popular dinghies, but I would find it just as uncomfortable and unsatisfactory to sail today as I did fifty years ago. This is partially due to the fact that the dinghy did not fit me (or vice versa) and partially due to dissatisfaction engendered when sailing with some of it's design limitations. The same is true of the even older Firefly. a class that had a long career as an inter club and inter university team racing boat. This raises the point that one can have a great race in an otherwise unsatisfactory machine. One could take the view that some dinghies are so boring to sail that the only entertainment they are capable of providing is when they are being raced. The other extreme is a dinghy so difficult to sail that it becomes unwieldy, so racing becomes secondary to maintaining control. It should be said that in heavy weather a racing dinghy has only one speed, flat out, to maintain control the job must be done properly, backing off is not an option.

Not all one designs are as strict as the Firefly and Enterprise I started my sailing career in a class that permitted some freedom, and thus was able to tailor some aspects of the dinghy, the toe straps in particular, to suit my requirements. Sailing dinghies are balanced by the crew, in a high wind the crew is hanging most of its weight outside the hull with their feet under straps, the toe straps. Suitably positioned toe straps are essential for both efficiency and comfort, one of my complaints about the Enterprise remains poorly positioned toe straps.

Better sitting out technique produces more power, resulting in greater forces on the rig, result, the class I was racing required a stronger mast because the original design was breaking under the forces now available. We started carrying spare masts to race meetings, and broke two during one heavy weather championship week. Naturally the change was initially met with resistance, we were told that the breakages were our fault, our technique was deficient, but ultimately the safety argument prevailed, having a design defect that caused a dinghy to be dismasted and disabled in bad weather is ultimately indefensible.

Looking back from health and safety ridden twenty-first century the prevailing attitude to capsize half a century ago is difficult to countenance. Decking, buoyancy, self bailers and transom flaps, keep water out of the hull or remove water and assist a dinghy to self rescue. On the grounds that capsize was the ultimate crime, and should be severely punished, all were resisted in some quarters. I was firmly on the side of self rescue being essential, and when choosing a high performance dinghy selected a suitably equipped design.

An additional problem with strict one designs is that for optimum performance they tend to require a one design crew. Crew weight should be matched to the power of the sail plan and the latter is a product of the flexibility of the mast, and the cut of the sails. This may sound simple, but the variations are numerous and subtle. It is no coincidence that many of the most successful competitors made or make their own sails and thus can experiment with the tuning of their dinghy.

Open classes are for the enthusiasts who have their own ideas and who wish to design and make everything. Financial risks are much greater because bespoke costs more, and the chance of building a failure that rapidly becomes more or less worthless, are greater. However, it is in the open classes that evolution has occurred, it is in these classes that designers have made their names as they produced hulls that are both more powerful (i.e. wider), and slip through the water with less resistance.

Patrick & Brother Nigel in a 5o5. "K" indicates it's a UK boat, 1220, the 1220th built.

I could not summon up the commitment required to succeed in the open (and restricted) classes. My ideas did not extend to redesigning the whole boat, just to making it more efficient for me to sail. The International 5o5 suited, fifty years ago the design was bang up to date. The origin of the design was an open class and an Olympic trial. This dinghy's hull and deck lent itself to GRP moulding, it was the first of the narrow waterline, wide decked, one design dinghies, A 5o5 is dominated by its powerful rig with an exceptionally large spinnaker all balanced by a crew member on a trapeze. The sails were too powerful to hold by hand without the assistance of winches or ratchet blocks. It was up to a crew to sort out its own solution to sail handling problems. A 5o5 can self rescue if, and when, everything goes wrong.

During my time with the 5o5s handling the spinnaker underwent a revolution. Originally the spinnaker was launched by the crew from the cockpit, in the late 1960s the spinnaker chute was introduced (a tube running to a mouth near the front of the dinghy), launching and recovering the spinnaker became the responsibility of the helm. Evolution in a class with the emphasis on one design.

The International 5o5 is a much faster and more powerful dinghy than a National Enterprise but I estimate it as more seaworthy, and can give anecdotal evidence of races in conditions where the Enterprise fleet was decimated while the 5o5s finished with a full field. This would appear to demonstrate the advantages of a class that permits development work to suit the dinghy to the crew's requirements, and the ability to self rescue.

Whilst racing with the 5o5 fleet I was an interested observer of a couple of developments. The first I put down to fashion, one year in the early 1970s, the national champion sailed a wooden hulled dinghy. The following season all the top crews had wooden hulls. As an interested observer I noted that the order at the front of the fleet remained unchanged. When the champion changed back to a GRP hull at the end of the season the others followed, and the wooden hulls disappeared from the scene, a pity, they were artefacts of craftsmanship and considerable beauty.

The second development was a controversy about the bow sections of the hull. Before championships scrutineers checked the hulls with formers but there was no former for the first 2 metres of bow and one manufacturer was accused of exploiting this to produce a faster hull with a finer bow. 505s have fine bows and it was difficult to see any difference. However, many got into a fine lather over the controversy, and regulations were changed. I always put down any performance advantage down to the 'fine' bowed dinghies being new, and therefore stiffer than the competition, newer stiffer boats usually had an advantage even though it is difficult to quantify.

A further digression into the materials used in a dinghy's construction. A hull made from a simple GRP moulding is not sufficiently stiff, making the construction double walled with foam, end grained balsa etc stiffens the boat to a certain extent. The advent of carbon fibre offered a solution, but carbon fibre was/is seen as expensive. The 5o5 philosophy was to embrace carbon fibre. But the Olympics selected the 470 as a medium sized two person dinghy, very similar to a 5o5 but slightly smaller and a strict one design. To control costs they required that 470s have a carbon fibre free construction. The result was that a front line 470 hull lasted six months while the more powerful 5o5 remained competitive for several years and was ultimately the cheaper option.It was notable that no matter what was occurring technically, the same names were doing the winning at the front of the fleet.

A foray into singlehanders. The International Finn set the pattern for most modern singlehanded dinghies. An Olympic boat since 1952, it has an unexceptional hull, but sets a ‘soft’ sail on a unstayed mast that flexes like Robin Hood’s longbow. In an era when masts were festooned with additional rigging to prevent flex, a Finn’s rig showed the advantages of tuning a mast and sail to suit the crew’s weight. The effect of sailing a well tuned Finn is similar to driving a well set up car, its much easier to go fast. Unfortunately, a Finn is for heavyweights (> 15 stone). Ultimately, a suitable dinghy for lightweights was manufactured. The most successful, and certainly the most numerous singlehander of all time is the Laser. This is a ultra strict one design because, like the earlier Firefly, it is the product of a single manufacture, thus it is a commercial success as well as well as elevating a simple mass produced dinghy to an Olympic class.

The International 10sq Metre Canoe a complete contrast. I once owned and raced one, something that is now difficult to give credence to because the 10m2 Canoe is a near mythical beast. At a time when it was universally recognised that a single handed dinghy should have a single sail set on an unstayed mast, the 17' long Canoe came with a conventionally rigged mast, a fully battened mainsail, plus a jib. This 'dinghy' is about a metre wide and balanced by the helmsman perching on the longest sliding seat in the business.

The class evolved out of paddling canoes and first approached its modern form in the 1930s when Uffa Fox put the elements of the modern efficient design together. By the 1960s the class had settled for a one design hull, a curved 5' sliding seat and 10m2 sail area, everything else was 'to taste', and a friend, Tony Marston had completely rethought the standard design, one tacked or gybed his design by walking round the back of the mainsail rather than crawling underneath it, all this in an era before windsurfers! I had his prototype boat, it was all black and named 'September', with hindsight, I don't know why I didn't have a visit from the anti-terrorist squad.

10m2 Canoes were, and are, monumentally fast. In the 1970s some trials were held to find a replacement for the heavy and expensive Finn as the Olympic singlehander. The Canoe left the rest of the field for dead, so when a second series of trials took place it was told to stay at home because it was too extreme. Eventually the trials were inconclusive and the Finn remained the Olympic singlehanded dinghy for heavyweights.

A conventional single handed dinghy has two controls, the main sheet for its single sail, and the tiller, one for each hand (o.k. I know that there are also controls for the centreboard, and changing the shape of the sails, but they don't need constant attention). The standard 10m2 Canoe has the main sheet, jib sheet, tiller and sliding seat enough for four hands. But unbelievably half the Canoe fleet now carries an asymmetric spinnaker, an additional sail that has to be hoisted and set, it triples the Canoe's sail area. And remember that all this is being done while balancing the boat from the end of the long sliding seat enveloped by a cloud of spray. Owning a 10m2 Canoe is only for those who enjoy a challenge..............Sportingly (mischievously?) the Canoe authorities took a refreshing approach to spinnakers, they did not specify a size, you can set as big a spinnaker as your ego believes it can handle!

There are sizes and shapes of sailing dinghy to suit all tastes, and my account is historic, successful dinghy classes have survived either unchanged or steadily evolving for over fifty years despite the advent of windsurfers and kite surfers. They continue to attract bands of enthusiasts despite the advent of several designs that are far too new for me to know much about, which is why they have not been included in this account. However, many of the classes designed in the 1950s continue to be successful on merit, that was the decade where the major advances in design were made, materials have evolved, but designs have not significantly improved.

While dinghy designs have evolved, I find that my taste in dinghies has not, my preference is for a long hull with a powerful rig, and enough freedom in the class rules to permit the dinghy to be tailored to my idiosyncrasies.

Patrick Huston
December 2009

The original Fairey Firefly, a Griffon engined 2 seater.

DH Mosquito prototype, a composite monocoque 40 years before the McLaren MP4.

A Firefly in action

Wood is a versatile material - this is a wooden chassis'd Marcos

Enterprise dinghy

10m2 Canoe. Even to a non-sailor, that looks powerful.

Lasers, looking like a Mono start at Mallory

"some dinghies are so boring to sail that the only entertainment they are capable of providing is when they are being raced."

Pics mainly from the internet; if we've offended your copyright please tell us and we'll take the picture down. 5o5 from Patrick, planes from TC.