Two Digit Sail Numbers

Bill Garlinghouse

New Member
I bought a 2002 Sunfish from a gent who bought it new in Texas. It was nicely configured with all the common racing mods, and the seller said it came that way as a package. The sail is a North Sails racing sail with window. The number 15 was (inexpertly?) applied on the sail behind the Sunfish logo.

I understand sail numbers are now assigned to individuals by the class association, and are located below the Sunfish logo.

I see many many sunfish on this lake with two digit numbers in the same location, but have not uncovered any information as to who assigned those numbers, how they were derived, if they mean anything, are suppose to match HID ...

What is the history on those two digit numbers?

Thanks
Bill Garlinghouse

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A lot of clubs had fleets of Sunfish that they numbered with homegrown numbers for club racing purposes (and avoided paying the
Class dues in the process.) Or sometimes people who club raced just added a random numbeer to their sails. The sail number has nothing to do with the age of the boat; the number goes with the skipper, not the boat.

Alan Glos
Cazenovia, NY
 
A lot of clubs had fleets of Sunfish that they numbered with homegrown numbers for club racing purposes (and avoided paying the Class dues in the process.) Or sometimes people who club raced just added a random numbeer to their sails. The sail number has nothing to do with the age of the boat; the number goes with the skipper, not the boat.

Interesting. Has the standard for placement always been to place the numbers along the sail's seams, like the boat with white sails above? Or did that evolve over time? Were the numbers on the boat with the red, white, and blue sail ever in accordance with class standards?

Bill Garlinghouse
Burt Lake, MI
 
Numbers are assigned by the Class and there are strict rules on how to place the numbers on the sail. As the above discussion suggests, these rules are not always enforced. But one might run into trouble at a very high level event with non-legal numbering.

The 'original' height of the numbers was 10", but new sails (bought after 1/1/2015) are supposed to have numbers that are 300 mm (11 13/16 "). This is a World Sailing requirement AFAIK.
 
new sails (bought after 1/1/2015) are supposed to have numbers that are 300 mm (11 13/16 "). This is a World Sailing requirement AFAIK.
RRS appendix G1.2 gives the 300 mm as a minimum character height for Sunfish-sized boats (hull length 3.5 to 8.5 metres), but class rules can - and often do - override either or both G1.2 and 1.3 (Positioning). Examples include Laser 4.7 numbers being one size smaller, and national letters located below the numbers in both Sunfish and Laser sails.

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