Getting Started - Part 4

If they cannot ask and answer the questions, then they probably need to hold off buying a boat until they have a little more knowledge about the sport. In the meantime they can join a club, crew for people if they want to try different boats. Alternatively they can rent or continue to go on RYA sailing courses either at schools in the UK or overseas on sailing holidays.

One would have thought that the asymmetric 'revolution' (this refers to the type of spinnaker) would have made buying boats less daunting. In fact there appear to be more boats on the market since the manufacturer's one-design revolution. This 'revolution', started in the mid 90s, has been led by Topper, RS / LDC and Laser and has given us great boats such as the Laser 2000, RS 200 and 400, Laser 4000 and opened up the single-handed market beyond the original Laser. (A manufacturer's one-design is a boat supplied by ONE manufacturer including sails where all boats are identical.)

The boats still fall into certain categories from which we will need to choose our boat:
1. Single-hander: where we normally balance it by sitting out although some do have a trapeze.
2. Two man boat: this can either be balanced by sitting out or having a trapeze, and in terms of sails will either have a spinnaker or not and this may or may either be conventional or asymmetric.
On top of all these permutations we have the shallow cockpit or the deep cockpit (how much do you sit 'in' the boat or sit / move 'on' the boat. Boats such as the Laser 2000, RS 200 and 400 give you the 'in' feel, while the Laser 4000 and standard Laser give you the 'on' feel.

So are we totally confused by now ?

Most people will be and that is why I think the club provides the answer to the $64,000 question. The local sailing club gives you the opportunity to try these boats while crewing for another club member. The club or RYA school may have a fleet of boats that you can rent or have lessons in . It also provides a vast information base and views from the members given while chatting over a drink so do not ignore the conventional spinnaker boats or some of the older designs, just because they no longer have many adverts promoting them. And finally the sailing club provides security as the strong fleets in a club will have good second-hand market values if you do make the wrong decision.
Finally, remember that sailing is a sport that we can enjoy throughout our entire lives - age is not a barrier and the boats within our sport are progressive, so if your aim is to sail a two man, single trapeze asymmetric such as the Laser 4000, then remember that the smaller boats will give you a great base in sailing skills on which you can build the specific skills required to sail these new exciting designs.

Check out the madforsailing dinghy database and secondhand boats for sail list for prices.