I've read the comments with interest and have really held back the need to reply. Yes, I think more often then not accused of being a class badgerers as mentioned by Darryn and Switch. I'm also a mechanical engineer and oen of the few people who actually ran alot of math on these boats.

I feel very compelled to inform the "tradionalists" that they are verifiably wrong on many points.

The first is simple. The spinnaker doesn't put nearly enough stress and on the platform to break it. At this time the upwind loads are still the highest by far. So adding a spi will NOT make the craft more sensitive to breakage then it already was. Additionally the cracks on the mossie beams sound like either fatigue cracks or low tension ruptures, neither of which much influenced by changes in stresses. The causes for these are to be found in inadiquate design or fitting of the beams. The most simple solution to badly build boats is to glue a strip of aluminium on the concerned area;s (on the inside) to locally beaf it up. Sorry mates, THAT is just the truth and I'm not going to sugarcoat it because your GUTT feels otherwise.

Then we got another beauty.



Obviously YOU never sailed with a spinnaker in those conditions. Yes it does take some additional skills at first but afterward you'll never go down WITHOUT a spinnaker ever again in these conditions. Only the bulk of F18 sailors and other spi classes support the claim that it is really easier to go downwind and gybe with a spi in these conditions then without. Reason, the boat is ALOT less dive happy. Hell, a score of us are doing this SINGLEHANDEDLY. When you fit a large squaretop head on your mainsail the spinnaker becomes even mandatory as the large head does push the bows in more when broad reaching without a spi.

I appears more like it is YOU who is perpetuating the falsehoods. "15 years ago rule changes", "spinnaker breaks boats", "better downwind handling is boogus"


Then we get a switch argument from the Traditionalists :




May be it is just me but I've heard alot more "shut-up" and "don't change anything" comments from the traditionalists then the from the guys considering changes. It is they THEY who are quickly discouraging others not the modifier. And it is you who are clearly so threatened by even the discussion of possible changes without them ever reaching proposal status. You are accussing the other side of what you yourself are doing all the time. And I know because I received my fair share of those comments, a good portion even rather aggressively.


But I safe the best for last. The "(any) change is destroying the class" argument

My appologies for Gary, Tim and the other healthy debaters here but I'm afraid I need to spell something out to these traditionalists. The mosquito class WAS alot more dead before the all the talk of changes and spinnakers then it was after. This dispite the fact that it DID NOT change anything in, oohh, the last 15 to 25 years ? Secondly the class is not a succes by any standard today. The South African sailors have switched to class spinnakers and so you will not count them as Mossie sailors anymore. That leaves a handful of old school mossie sailors in Victoria and South Australian. Absolutely no mossie made it to other parts of the world. If this is what traditionalists call succes then what do you guys call the development classes like the A's, F18's. F16's and even modified mossie designs like the Taipans ?

It seem pretty obvious that "not changing anything" could not prevent decimating the fleet numbers the way it is claimed. Hell, it appears even that the modifications was actually the one thing that turned this bad streak around.


But the best example I ever encountere was this. The tornado class voted down, with a large manjority, all the changes proposed back in 2000. Booth and Bundock when ahead as planned anyway and 18 months later 90 % of the class had upgraded and the tornado fleets started attracting more and more boats on the line. Somewhere in those 18 months the large majority of "no-voters" changed their minds and went back on their most fundamental believes and upgraded anyway. Most remarkably was that never again a complaint was heard from any significant group of Tornado sailors.

I think this shows clearly how dependable traditionalists are. They sure as hell won't float a class, no matter how passionate their arguments. And maybe my next comment is a bit harsh but it is sadly the truth. I say forget about these sailors, for their value in floating a class is indeed very little and in the end THEY will follow the lead in the class anyway no matter how much against it they are.

Base your decisions on what furthers the class among the other classes and right now that means changes. Moderning the boat without getting overboard. Make sure you keep the class leaders and really active sailors on board (by keeping the class interesting) and make the mods slow enough so the rest can follow.

I'm sure this post will cope its fair share of "You European lake sailors now nothing of Australian scene" and "you're not even a Mossie sailor", not to forget "Keep your dirty paws of our succesful one-design class". Of course I've never been a lake sailor and I've been right where locals were wrong. I predicted the demise of the Taipan 5.7 and now I predict the demise of the Taipan 4.9 design. It takes no genius to predict the demise of the Mossie if it doesn't "go with the times" a bit. Hell 80 % of the demise has already been completed in the last 15 years.

Now the mossie design deserves alot better as evidenced by the recent results of the spinnaker equipped mossies. For the first time in its 30 years history the Mosquito catamaran is actually a known name OUTSIDE of Australia and South Africa. THAT is growth. Maybe if you guys play your card right you may even start new fleets in Europe, USA and other parts of the world, something the old classic setup never was able to do.

Take another look at the Taipans vs F16 conflict. Is there any doubt which will survive and outlast the other ? Right now there are NO Taipan 4.9 OD's sailing outside of Australia. And right now there are about 100-150 Taipan alike boats more in the world then 5 years ago. THAT is class growth, the F16 concept pretty much floated the Taipan sales for the last years.

Yes we did loose some really hard core traditionalist but we won back over 100 new sailors to the class. I say that that is a trade-off I don't need to think about hard and long and neither should the mossie sailors.

Wouter