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Saying a boat/team was inferior because they never won a contest on the water against the other boats is a silly statement given the whole G-Cat scene.


Well, Mr Fosset played that game with Lakota too: never faced the French. He tried it once in Route de Ruhm and promptly brought Lakota to California... Why not race the French Open 60 tris? Plenty of racing every year! The boat was one of the best if not the best when he bought it.

Go figure...

/Martin


You're bashing the man simply to bash using whatever


Sorry about not worshiping your 'hero'.

Back to Playstation:
- She had well documented handling problems.
- She was launched first of all boats designed for The Race yet they didn't use that advantage to tune, practise, iron out bugs... Why?
- She was then rebuilt beyond recognition. The Fosset spin was that this was according to plan and the original hull shape was merely to trick the oposition. Who bought that one? Not me for one. The original hulls must have been a major failure and now they band-aided the design.

Oops, don't "send in the marines", please.

/Martin


Oh, gosh, you're starting to sound a bit moronic here.

So, here goes, again. As I've already said, I don't care if you don't like Fossett. I don't care if you worship him. I personally don't care who you do or don't worship. If I were prone to worshipping heroes, he would be on my list. But so would everybody else who gathered up the balls to do the Race, and set out for records previous and post, regardless of where they hailed from. I also think the people that have brains to try to design and build these things are worthy, especially if they are able to learn from their mistakes. Honestly, I don't think you share the same open mind.

But I don't care for the attitude that seems to surface whenever Playstation or Fossett is mentioned, especially since it seems to based more on attitude than fact. I would feel the same compulsion to defend you if I felt you were being unfairly portrayed. Ask those who know me on that score...

Now, for the other stuff. As others have advised, please get a copy of "The Race" and read it. Lots of stuff to learn there... Read it, really. It's good.

So, other stuff:

"-Well documented handling problems"

Do tell, what were they? Your statement seems to indicate more than what prompted them to extend the hulls. What other things were done to address these "well-known problems"?

"- She was launched first of all boats designed for The Race yet they didn't use that advantage to tune, practise, iron out bugs... Why?"

Are you really asking this? PS had quite a few miles on her with some records to show for it before The Race. The need to extend the hulls had been recognized and performed. In fact, I seem to recall some people bashing Fossett for starting the race with worn out equipment. Perhaps the mileage explains some of their other problems. In the end, a brand new set of sails to replace the worn out ones from all the sailing they had done were their undoing. Criticsm was then levied for not testing the new sails properly, maybe that's fair, maybe not. I guess there's a certain expectation when you buy new sails...

"- She was then rebuilt beyond recognition. The Fosset spin was that this was according to plan and the original hull shape was merely to trick the oposition. Who bought that one? Not me for one. The original hulls must have been a major failure and now they band-aided the design."

Rebuilt beyond recognition? That's funny. The hulls were extended, flowing from the original lines. Previous to that, ballast tanks were added. When the work was done, I doubt anybody sat back and said "gee, what is this new boat"? M&M's take was that they "finally put the right size chasis under the rig". Now, if we want to talk about failures, maybe we should discuss the fact that Dalton had to bring in another design team to reinforce the failing structure of Club Meds hulls and main crossbeam. That Ollier initially refused to give up the structural drawings so the fixes could be made, because they believed they were the only ones smart enough to build such structures. Their conceit could have proven fatal. That those same fixes were truly needed, and were incorporated into the other Ollier cats. Sounds like a major failure that required band aid fixes. And the boats still suffered some delamination. But I won't say the boats were POS because of that, but I don't think you're applying the same standard.

"Oops, don't "send in the marines", please."

Here's where you sound moronic. I'll not even dignify that stupity with a response.

And if we want to credit anybody with ground-breaking designs for The Race - the only one with a ground-breaking vision was Pete Goss. Ill-fated for sure, but maybe he had something there.

Now, a serious question about the boats themselves - it always appeared to me that Playstation and the Ollier cats had a ton of rocker in the keels. The motion displayed in the video to me would seem to be a product of that - given that the other boats also had that feature, I'd love to see video of them in similar conditions. Of course, if you got rid of the hobby-horsing you'd be slamming the whole structure after launching from each wave - potentially a big deal in shock loads for boats that big.

Last edited by Keith; 01/01/07 11:17 PM.