Page III

Flying Dutchman
Found on the Flying Dutchman stand was GBR384, if you think there's a lot of rope there, remember that all the tails are tied up under the decks with shockcord, must total miles if laid end to end.
Always an exciting boat to sail the FDs have resisted temptation to change class rules in a major way, and although you will not find large club fleets in the UK there are many boats sailed worldwide and World Championships attract large fleets of very competitive boats and sailors. As an ex Olympic class there are many bargains to be picked up secondhand, you will certainly get a lot of fun for your pennies with an FD.

MRX
This is the new MRX dinghy from Welsh Harp Boat Centre. Looking very much like a Merlin Rocket without the planks the boat is self draining and carries a Hyde rig.
The boat has now been finalised and Dave Ovington will be building them. Available from under £8000 she should undercut the traditional Merlins in price. I understand Phil Morrison has led the design team and that a handful of boats have already been ordered, once numbers get up we can expect a circuit to begin.

National 12
The boat on the National 12 stand is a Feeling Foolish design, and despite looking immaculate is a couple of years old. Although just about everything on the boat is adjustable the layout is very good and gives plenty of space for the crew in this relatively small boat.
Not visible on the pictures, the boat uses one of the increasingly popular leward whisker poles, this is stored vertically on the mast and swung out on the offwind legs, I was told that the performance increase is quite marked, and much more than the barber haulers used previously.

Contender
The Contender on display is GBR665 owned by Andrew Mcgaw, with a hull by Bonezzi of Italy, she is one of 3 boats on the class stand.
Again this is a class I have sailed in, although I admit to not being too good! The boat is not as difficult to sail as first impressions suggest and once you have the hang of sailing it downwind the speed is quite sensational and you will blow away many high performance 3 sail trapeze boats.

Blaze
The Blaze is another of the recently introduced singlehanders, this one from Topper International. I have not sailed the boat but would certainly like to, as it looks nicely fitted out and has a powerful rig. It is performance equalised with differering rack widths for crews under and over 70kg allowing competition among a wide range of helms.

Topper International
As you would expect the Blaze was not the only boat from the Topper stable, you can see here the Boss, Spice, ISO and Buzz, all lined up and attracting a lot of attention. The ISO has been around for a few years now and has a well established circuit, supported not only by new but also a healthy secondhand market.
The Boss class are adopting a few changes, with a modified bow and larger jib, also to come at the end of this season is a larger masthead spinnaker. I suppose that if you have a larger twin trapeze boat with racks, you would expect it to be one of the fastest on the water, and these changes are all geared towards achieving this. Again a boat I must try and get a sail on.

Come back soon as more pictures and reports will be added in the next few days.

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