Hi,

I am thinking about purchaing a mosquito and was wondering what sort of competative life on average you would expect from a set of hulls. I am buying the boat to race and would like a boat that is still relatively competative. I realise there are other factors such as rigging and sails but they are easier to upgrade if necessary.

I see there are two boats for sale on the Vic website which are probably in the vacinity of 14 years old. How much longer would you expect to race a boat this age competatively assuming rigging and sails are up to date.

Thanks for any help on this.

Stephen

It does depend on the type of hulls.
The foam/kevlar boats keep going really well - the only problem being that the earliest foam/kevlar boats (up to 18yo now) were built with finer hulls that are not as buoyant and do not manoevre as well as the more recent designs (90s).

My foam/kevlar Fay hulls are approaching 10 years old and are as stiff and competitive as new ones except that they are now around 2kg over weight. The day I make so few mistakes on the course that 2kg would make a difference I'll trade it in for some new Boyer hulls.

As for timber hulls. I have no experience there so I couldn't tell you. I would guess it depends a lot more on how well the hulls have been looked after.

My Hulls are 18 year old kevlar/foam built by Boyer, still in good condition and not overweight (55.5kg). The boat is more competitive then I am
Darryn
1704

Steve,
I have an older Mozzie with timber hulls and timber foils and while it is best to go for the low maintenance option the timber hulls can still be competitive. If you do choose to go the timber option look out for cracks below the inboard side of the front beam. If this is found it's not too hard to fix with epoxy sealer, fibreglass cloth and epoxy filler.

It is also important to go for hulls that are as light as possible (foam frames and minimal use of internal stringers)so that you can keep up with the other minimum weight Mozzies and have as much buoyancy as possible. This is where the newest Mozzies have even greater advantage with maximum buoyancy already designed into the mould.

If you go for timber I would also recommend that you go for hulls that were built by a professional boatbuilder rather than a backyard builder. They usually had the right strength to weight ratio but were probably raced and stressed allot more. What a dilema !!

As you say it's easy to buy a new sail and rig to get best possible forward thrust. I'll let you know what difference a new powerplant makes in a couple weeks when I get my new sail.

Good luck with your search.