What's your next stop? Do you have a pair lined up for Racine yet?
How about this Pete
VIPER Club Great Lakes Championship!
I posted this on the Open Forum. If I was a junior I'd be all over this! If anyone knows a kid or pair of kids that would like to do this, drop a line.
I'll forward to the F16 class if you like.
What is the price difference with a standard Viper?
I think you missunderstand my points here, I am 200% behind the concept of the Viper Club Junior concept. It was Mark Schnieder who said it should NOT be sold as a family boat but only as a Junior boat. (go back and read his posts) That's when I said, What dad is going to lay out that much money for a -Kid only- toy? I also mentioned the Laser Radial 4.7, etc, same concept, I think it's a great idea.
Maybe we can start an F16 junior class, and I can have my kids race my Blade (with the same Junior sails) then hit the beach, swap sails, and I go out and race. I'm all for
Versatility
and any cost savings, believe me! Mark was saying a kid needs his own boat and doesn't want his dad along. My point is, what dad can pay for that? I say, Use it for BOTH, the dad and the kid, the kid can race with his friends, and dad can race it too. I'm not trying to kill it, I think it's a great idea. But before Dad writes that big check, Dad needs to know he can play with it, thus my mention of Zach and Matt Lynch.
I would never have bought -any- of the horses if Mom and Dad couldn't ride them too...
Maybe we can start an F16 junior class, and I can have my kids race my Blade (with the same Junior sails) then hit the beach, swap sails, and I go out and race. I'm all for
Versatility
and any cost savings, believe me! Mark was saying a kid needs his own boat and doesn't want his dad along. My point is, what dad can pay for that? I say, Use it for BOTH, the dad and the kid, the kid can race with his friends, and dad can race it too. I'm not trying to kill it, I think it's a great idea. But before Dad writes that big check, Dad needs to know he can play with it, thus my mention of Zach and Matt Lynch.
I would never have bought -any- of the horses if Mom and Dad couldn't ride them too...
I'm JC, not Robbie. Robbie's too cool to post on websites, and he's busy doing what I want to be doing right now.
That's what I hate about these forums, that
go back and read his posts
stuff. I read his posts and you asked anyone to give the pitch, so I responded. I don't wanna talk in circles.
I'm not taking it the wrong way at all. I'm just trying to answer the question. You can dish it out real good Timbo, and I have fun with it too sometimes.
I see where Mark is coming from, and I think you are both right in a way. Club kids generally sail club boats without mom and dad, and that's what the norm is. However, since this is a larger price-tag it must suit many different options. You and I are coming at it from the same angle. Anyway, I think the efforts should be geared towards getting more kids involved instead of haggling over small selling points.
What a great idea! An F16 junior class. Kids race, swap sails and parents can race. I bet you still didn't look at the website. When do you decide to put the landing gear down, Timbo, after everybody in the **** has been talking about it for fifteen minutes?
The imagination is a powerful thing. <img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />
Loss in functionality is the trade off but will they help you win races? NO. Are they in the way? YES. Will it be expensive to replace or repair those
deep
boards? YES. Would center or low profile boards like on Taipan be lees likely to get whacked in club or rental use? YES. Do we need the
deep
boards to enjoy
apparent wind sailing
? NO. Do the
deep
boards create more problems then they solve? YES. Can we make them shorter? NO. Not without a redesign of the
trunks
. Will they redesign the
trunks
? NO. Would not add to bottom line which is perhaps why they went with the F18 beams and want the F16 min. weight increased. Did I miss anything?... <img src="<>/grin.gif" alt="grin" title="grin" height="15" width="15" />
I do think the deeper boards will help you go better upwind (create more lift, point higher or sideslip less) and allow you to fly a hull earlier in medium wind, which also reduces drag, so that's a help.
I have two set of boards on my Stealth. Long and short. In fact the original short ones are the same as the rudders, all sourced from 49er rudders.
I keep them in my trailer box just in case, if I break a rudder or a daggerboard I have two spares...
The big difference between the two is that the boat is way quicker to lift a hull with the long ones. I've used the short ones only twice: Once when it was honking a good 25 knots with gusts to match and a second time combined with a smaller main when I put my two sons (14 and 9) on the cat by themselves.
I'd say there is value in short boards <img src="<>/smile.gif" alt="smile" title="smile" height="15" width="15" />
I wrote a paragraph of recommendation on behalf of the two kids I'd like to see awarded the ride. It would've been a whole letter, but I'm just not that creative.
Sweet that there'll be two more F16's at Racine! Way to go JC.
Sorry for the confusion JC, I was traveling up to ATL when I responded to the posts, from an airport computer connection, didn't have time to go to the web site, and right now I am still in ATL. It is 12:30am, I just got out of a 6 hour simulator session, now I'll be snoozing in a chair at the airport until the first flight out, 06:55am, back to MCO. We call it
living the dream.
I just know from all the years I've spent trying to
sell
sailing to other families (and cats in particular the past 10 years) the parents need to be
on board
if they are going to write a big check like that, vs. a few grand for a
Racing Opti
.
When the Wave first came out, I had high hopes it would replace the Opti, as most of the complaints I heard from kids in Opti's were: 1.
It's too slow!
or 2.
It's too small.
Well, the Wave fixed both those problems at once. The problem for the Wave was, and still is, there is no follow on cat class for the kids to move up into, at most Yacht Club settings. The Yacht Clubs go with what they know, what is simple to store, what is cheap, thus they use Opti's, Lasers, 420's etc.
The Hobie 16 is still very popular today, because there are so many used ones out there, cheap, anyone can get into cats via the H16 if they can find a back yard beater cheap, and fix it up.
That's the only way I was able to get into cats (it was a $750 Hobie 18 in my case).
With the H16, the parents can race with or against their kids. But any of the newer cats? Not too many used ones available, and none of them are what I would call cheap, so if you want to sell a brand new, expensive (relative to a used 420) cat, you had better have an 'angle' on Dad and/or Mom being able to sail it too. They are the ones who write the check.
Now, they may only sail it once in a while, but it makes it easier to part with that much money if Dad knows he can get out some time too.
It's going to be a tough sell in this envrionment, no doubt, but I think if you get to the clubs where the 15y. old kids are, who have been sailing slow bathtubs, they will be -hooked- when you get them out on the wire in some wind. And if you can get Dad out too, he just might write that check.
Tomorrow, if/when I finally get home, I'll check out your website.
Be good!
There is no argueing with that !
Right on Red gear sailing and DUH.
Wouter
Just to follow up, the F16 Club is a great idea, my
summarized
two cents as a long time opti coach at the national level:
-target the racing kids coming out of Optis. They are the ones that are looking to spend $$$ on a top notch 420 (10k, easily)
-Don't say
sail 420s or us
, do like the 29er has, offer the boat as an alternative that compliments 420 sailing (most 29er kids I've worked with only used 420s for a season to get up to speed on double handed boats).
- Price Price Price, match top end 420s, 29ers, or don't bother
- To parent's, debunk the myth that a 420 is easier to maintain then a cat. Trust me, 420s SUCK to cart around to regattas, but on roofs, etc. Steping a mast on a viper is trivial compared to car topping a 420.
- Sell the boat with a trailer, see above two notes
- DEMO the heck out of the boat at opti regattas. If I don't see two club vipers sitting at Orange Bowl this winter you have missed out big time (800+ junior sailors in Optis, 420s, 29ers, Laser 4.7, radials and full rigs). THAT is your demographic.
I look forward to pushing these boats. Learn from Bic and the o'pen bic, big club deals (buy 10 at a ridiculously low price, get dollys, etc etc). They haven't surpassed the Opti, but certainly got a lot of clubs buying in.
First you have to tell them what the Orange Bowl is.
I know it's -the- big midwinter kid's regatta in Miami, but since there are no cats, most of the cat regulars here have never heard of it. Do you have the dates for that regatta yet?
I went to it once, in about 1986, to kid-nap my old 505 crew, who was by then sailing for the Navy Academy. I showed up, found him, and took him to South Beach...
Don't ask.
JC,
Thanks for coming to West River with the Viper Club. The three of us really enjoyed meeting and sailing with you. Looking forward to seeing the pictures you took of my 8 yr old Bella on the wire of the Viper Club while she was driving it. She hasn't stopped talking about it. Every time Bella brings up the moment Adam adds that you were sitting to leeward on Gertie and he was on the windward hull which was about 4 feet above the water. Thanks for the offer Wouter, I figured out how to make the pictures smaller
Send the pics to my mail account and I use photoshop to make them smaller and then post them in this thread.
Send them to wouterhijink(at)hotmail.com
Wouter
Very, very cool JC. But you better be careful, that kind of stuff will have you shopping for a Mrs.
very cool pics!
Orange Bowl: Arguably the biggest Junior sailing event in NA, 800+ kids (last year I think it was 1000) from all over the world, age max (I think) is 18. Fleets, Opti (the best of the world attends, 200+ plus boats), Laser Radial and 4.7, 420s... might be full rig as well, maybe 29ers, I'm on the Opti course so don't know for sure.
Always happens Dec 26th - 30th, every year that I have been alive and probably more 😉