Way out of my league and past my time but interesting.........
Fyi on what it might be............https://www.sail-world.com/news/222072/Do-jump-on-board
In days past, sailing was always an expensive and elitist pastime enjoyed by the people with lots of money. Over time people were able to have a bit of disposable income that was previously denied to them and they too were able to go sailing albeit on a much smaller scale. It now seems that after reading that article above that we have again come full circle and sailing will once again be denied to the less affluent among us. When a World Championship Moth is (as alluded to in the article) in the region of $50k US then it has once again become elitist.
So here is a few coparision costs.
If anyone wants to take their 40 footer they sail in fun races to Hobart in good shape when it is all said and done it will costs you $100k.
Newer boats might be a bit cheaper as you have the ABS eqivlience for instance.
Trip to the Etchell worlds overseas will be north of $50k for a 10 day regatta. Hong Kong was even ore expensive for instance.
If you have any illusions about the Olympic offshore boat you will want a budget of at least a $1.0 mil
The boat that is selected btw is likely to be the ****box L 30 they are using for the next Worlds as for the Game the boats are provided and the Ben and the Sunfast don't fit on standard width trailers and are far more expensive
This is even though it looks the worst boat by far.
Select to expand quoteLooseChange said..
In days past, sailing was always an expensive and elitist pastime enjoyed by the people with lots of money. Over time people were able to have a bit of disposable income that was previously denied to them and they too were able to go sailing albeit on a much smaller scale. It now seems that after reading that article above that we have again come full circle and sailing will once again be denied to the less affluent among us. When a World Championship Moth is (as alluded to in the article) in the region of $50k US then it has once again become elitist.
That's actually a good article. The Finn has been dropped from the olympics but it was always an expensive class. Good Finn was 50 grand but you needed two of them to get selected into the Australian team. One in Australia and one in Europe. Not enough time to ship one boat about to all the compulsory regattas to qualify.
That's also an interesting point about the mixed crews excluding Muslim sailors in long races.
Elitism and expense are both problems, but on the other hand a huge number of sailors sail yachts and are therefore unrepresented at the Olympics. Shorthanded offshore sailing in fixed keel boats is also a major growth area of the sport.
Personally I'd have thought WS could have achieved their aims a lot cheaper by just specifying a smaller boat, say under 30ft. JOG, MORC, Quarter and Half ton size boats were huge when the sport was growing and they are a lot cheaper than bigger boats.
Just because WS or IOC will supply your boats does not make this a cheap event. This makes it equal (sort of). So you may well be able to just rock up and sail the Australian/Oceania qualification series but without significant training in a similar boat you have zero chance of getting close. That is because there are already Australian teams talking about the time they will need to train. That is train full time.
The big costs in any Olympic campaign is not the boat. That is the big cost for the trickle down to the club sailor sailing a 9er or Finn. The real cost for these people is the day to day living expenses including accommodation and travel for the events. You cannot do this and work at the same time. So 2 x 50k Finns maybe about half your annual costs if your lucky.
I can see an argument that this event is likely to be cheaper (maybe) once you own a 30 ft performance offshore boat. Most training will be Australian based but with no competition it will be hard to effectively train. I dont know whether someone would be able to get onto the Figaro circuit to train as Australia will be lacking serious training time given we are struggling to accept that 2 handed sailing is a thing. These sailors who will eventually compete will be against the French who have been racing Mini's and Figaros all their lives. I am willing to put down $100 right now that the French will win the gold medal in this event... by a long way.
My bet will be that the offshore boat will have foils. Like the Figaro 3 but different enough to think that the current Figaro sailors are not as advantaged
Agree your $100 bet would be very safe.
The quarter tonner suggestion is tops - in Europe they have revived the class as here and many other links...they were offshore and overnight capable and the 2 crew would be certainly challenged but it could be done unless the 1978 1/4 ton cup weather in Japan was repeated. At that event there were masts over the side and boats capsizing like dinghys.............albeit they were the limit of the IOR centreboard yacht design days........nothing against lift keel yachts but they certainly pushed the envelope then.............the ballast ratio was way too small.........https://www.sail-world.com/news/218429/Quarter-Ton-Cup-2019-day-1
rbsailing.blogspot.com/2015/09/quarter-ton-cup-1978.html
Someone is trying to do a similar revival here;
www.aussietonyachts.com.au/
For a cost effective current build yacht would suggest the SB20 but it might be considered too small.........Tony Castro is a brilliant designer...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SB20
For a bit bigger would suggest one of the smaller J boats.............or Melges 24.............or many others not more than 8m say........
