Solid Sail Society

I'm still not a fully paid up member of this exclusive club. I've been thinking about it for a while but it is not that straightforward. Building a wing itself seems pretty easy but the rule interpretations around it and the fact that the measurers themselves can't agree on even the basics without resorting to throwing one design insults means I'm just not ready to jump yet.
The recently published rule interpretations surrounding the adoption of wings lends more to my feeling that it's a square peg, round hole argument. The rules as they stand obviously aren't worded or built to cope with wings which has left the whole thing open for some pretty wild assumptions and it's going to be interesting to see what appears in Belmont and how it goes down with those attending.

As it stands, regardless of whether the mast is a mast and the bit on the back is a sail the only reason the whole system works is because it behaves as two sails and that simple fact puts me on the side that they probably shouldn't be allowed at all!

There are those who say that we are a development class and we should allow it but the flaw in that argument is that we have banned multihulls, sailboards and have limits on things for very good reasons. Whether a wing rig is something the class wants remains to be seen but I am very hopeful that decisions aren't made in Belmont without consulting the rest of us. Those that can afford to get there in the first place have a very different perspective on things...

Rant over - I'm off to Hayling to help out with the class coaching this weekend. The reservoir is filling back up and will hopefully be mothable in a couple of weeks time. in the mean time I've made another toy that only needs 8 inches of water to go sailing!