I am late to this thread, but I thought I might chime in since I am a N6.0 (Worrell setup) owner who skipped the N20 and now sail an A-class.

1. First, cost of boats: I remember in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a Laser cost $2000 at Backyard Boats Alexandria. At the last boat show I attended, that same boat costs 6500Euro! Is this because cheaper boats are from companies producing at a loss or because Vangard is exploiting a monopoly? I suspect the answer is probably both and is still both with all SMODs, just that guys like PC can't push as hard as Vangard because their market is far less rohbust.

2. I loved sailing a big strong 2 man boat designed for American (100kg)220lb guys. Our mistake (in the US) however, is that we let Mast and Sail be under SMOD control. This is where the poorest value/money is revealed and you see boats like the A-class able to draw from a larger pool of person-size because there is flexibility here. SMOD is a great technique to control platform costs. Box rules are needed on sail and rig to lengthen their competitive lifespan and broaden the fleet size. Big boats have developed tools to control the costs here through number of sail registration limits, sails owned by the class, etc. But I find the 20ft class limiting because your total crew weight must fit within such a narrow band.

3. The spinnaker (Worrell unlimied from) standard for distance racing kept the N6.0 competitive for a very long time after the N20 for this type of racing. But this configuration was impossible for buoy racing and improvised buoy sized systems were frustrating to developer yourself and given correction factors set by the history of the oversize distance versions. The Boston fleet tried to fix this with a 'class spinnaker' with snuffer. Unfortunately, by the time they developed their system, N20s had already become the dominant buoy+distance combination boat. Lesson learned, the boat will become obsolete because of inflexibility in the sail plan far earlier than it will for platform issues.

The day new boats stop entering the fleet (to create used boats for newcomers) is the day that marks the beginning of fleet death. High prices and low volumes always come together with a dieing fleet. This can be triggered by arms race or inflexibility. European arms races seem to be less damaging to the fleets than American over-control from my view. The problem is that SMOD are easy to organize, the manufacturer does all the work and takes all the up front risks.


Matt Mayfield