[Disclaimer – I do not speak for anybody but myself]And...if the racing cut sail is so much more "one-design fun," then why do we as a class not open the manufacture to any sail loft who wants to make them and get a little price competition going? If they're all made the same way, using the same measurements, the same cloth, then we could all watch the price go down. And it'd be even more fun!
So my blasphemy is this: What makes racing with a racing sail and the added lines so much better that racing with the typical recreational cut sails? What's up with that? And when did the one-design Sunfish start down two paths: Race version and recreational version? Seems to me that racing the same boat is the fun!
The pigments added to the raw polymer during formulation influence the behavior of the plastic from that point onward. The exact behavior depends on the pigment type and its color, but in general darker colors tend to elongate more easily after they are extruded into fibers.Re: rec vs racing sails, why do some colors stretch more than others?
There's a difference. The North Sail (Sunfish OEM) recreational sail has less draft (camber) than the race sail. Other sailmaker's sails are made to resemble the OEM recreational sail, except Intensity Sail's "practice" sail which they claim is cut like the OEM race sail. I've not had a third party sail side by side with my OEM sails to scrutinize what, if any, differences in cut, material, or workmanship there might be.Also, are they now cut/sewn to achieve the same draft or is there still a difference? Thanks in advance!
The entire boating industry has a decrease in interest; hence the 2005-onward "Discover Boating" advertising blitz in Canada..."...The producer now has no competition as the number of single handled sailboats being produced has decreased as has the interest in sailing..."
The pigments added to the raw polymer during formulation influence the behavior of the plastic from that point onward. The exact behavior depends on the pigment type and its color, but in general darker colors tend to elongate more easily after they are extruded into fibers.
Now, we're talking tenths of thousandths of an inch per inch (0.0001"), but over time the result is a little more noticeable bagging of dark panels over white or uncolored ones.
The best situation is no colorant in the plastic and that's exactly what you see in big race boat sails. The natural hue of uncolored polyester (and some of the other sail fabrics) is often that straw yellow you see. All the graphics are applied on top of the fabric, not part of it.
Volvo Ocean Race
The other sail color you see today is..., none. Many of the "laminates" like Mylar are colorless, hence the clear sails.
There's a difference. The North Sail (Sunfish OEM) recreational sail has less draft (camber) than the race sail. Other sailmaker's sails are made to resemble the OEM recreational sail, except Intensity Sail's "practice" sail which they claim is cut like the OEM race sail. I've not had a third party sail side by side with my OEM sails to scrutinize what, if any, differences in cut, material, or workmanship there might be.
SLO Sail and Canvas - www.SloSailandCanvas.com
. . . is a free-for-all fun gathering.We've tried the recreational seperate class. Problem is one will have the rec sail and wood. The next will have a racing sail and old wood, and the third would have a plastic dagerboard and rec sail.
Two sails, one cut for leisure sailing and one for competition is not unique to Sunfish. Other sailboats have the same option, for example...I guess my biggest quandry is the departure in sail design...
The Class has freely chosen how this works...... and subsequent awarding of the production monopoly to a single firm ... But, bottom line, and unless I am missing something key, it seems a cost solution lies with something along the lines of what the Flying Scot class does. Any loft can make class-legal sails. They just have to be made according to class guidelines. Everytime you buy a sail you also pay a small royalty to the class (through the sail manufacturer) that, I guess, ensures the sail was made to class specs. Result: Price competition as opposed to monopolistic pricing. (We can fire up a separate economics thread is anyone is interested--or is suffering from insomnia!)
The idea seems to be, you can buy the whole enchilada, but without the skill to make use of all the ingredients you're off the back of the pack anyway. ...and it's been demonstrated, someone with good sailing skills can win consistently with a simply equipped yet well maintained boat.The two main attractions of the Sunfish (to me and others I know) are low cost and simplicity. If you have to throw those out to simply enjoy racing I'd say that concession alone would be at the core of any eroding interest in the boat.
Bottom line is no one races and expects to be in the running without:... But, bottom line...
..... Given that Sunfish dinghies are a one design class it would seem logical to make all of them identical from sails to foils. Doing this would enable an owner to sail solely for recreation, or if desired, to race....without the need to upgrade.
Yes, thank you for the clarification. I mentioned polyester in relation to the material a Sunfish sail is made of and also pointed to other plastics in their raw form…, but you are right, I didn’t make the distinction from the sails pictured.Minor correction..... Those sails shown in the start of one of the Volvo Open 70 round the world legs are not uncoloured polyester, they are Kevlar Mylar laminates, Kevlar has that straw colour.
I don’t disagree, a simple boat is what Sunfish started out as and what its original popularity centered around. Somewhere along the way, evolutionary improvement gave way to divergence of design and intent. Apparently the simple design fell out of favor with the buying public. The sportier Sunfish on steroids… strike that… make it just Redbull, got more recognition.This is what I was driving at.
This, and spreading the sailmaking among numerous lofts to keep the prices as low as possible. Again, why does the class award a monopoly for sails?
I completely understand and respect that other classes have different rec and race sails and setups. But, an attractive uniqueness of the Sunfish class would be a true one-design boat that could be a rec boat or a race boat and with a variety of sail sources. Would certainly work for me!
I belong to three sailing groups for boats open to using any sailmaker. Like Sunfish, the volume is low so prices are not reduced by competition. The sails for these boats are only competitive for their generic size range, but in no way is the price now lower than it was when they were only made by a single OEM sailmaker.I doubt if the Sunfish sail market is the bread and butter of North Sails, and if the load was to be further spread out nobody would make much on them. Going with a single loft is important for consistency.
Ok. Back to happy thoughts about the pure enjoyment of sailing a Sunfish! I had a great afternoon: About 8 kts on the lake, just a small whitecap here and there, and really had a blast! My tacking is still terrible. But there was enough wind to really get a sense of the differences between port and starboard tacks. Downwind was a good time, too!
Good idea.<textbookOn>Multiple producers that cannot achieve differentiation are in a commodity business and therefore compete on price. They will try to differentiate; but, if (in this case) the class enforces materials and measurements the products are all the same. If the products are the same, producers will try to differentiate on brand. And it often works to garner a higher price.
Prices are set in non-monopolistic markets by supply and demand--not by costs. Costs simply determine if there is enough profit to produce the product or pass on it. Costs have very little to do with pricing. (Seems counter-intuitive, I know.) No need to be condescending!!!END QUOTE
You are trying to imply that if Sunfish sails became deregulated, somehow all sails made by all producers would be the same. Regulating that would be virtually impossible. If you require them all to make the same sail, you would have to require them to buy their sailcloth from the same supplier, and then someone would need to be employed by some entity to be sure all the sails are the same (not sure how you are proposing to do this - sounds expensive for the class association to hire someone to fly around and monitor sail production. And measuring sails after they are made is an inexact science, and a real pain for the Sunfish class, which has never had to worry about measuring in sails) If you could somehow achieve this, either one of two things are likely to happen:
1) several suppliers enter the market. Prices will fall to rock-bottom as the sails are truly commodities. They sell at rock bottom prices. When a manufacturer want to achieve a profit increase, they will have to cut costs. Quality will decline, and either the firm that cuts quality sells more sails, so either, a) everyone else cuts quality, eventually to the detriment of the class or b) the firm with higher prices holds quality, and since their quality is better, they can then start ratcheting prices up, because the alternative is to buy a lousy sail for less money.
2) No suppliers enter the market. Who WANTS to join a commodity market?? Generally nobody - as you say, usually firms in commodity markets try to de-commoditize so they can charge a premium. So here is what happens. A new supplier enters, like Intensity, with rock bottom prices and drives North out. No one new wants to enter because its a commodity product, with very low volume, so little money to be made. So now Intensity has a monopoly, and when no new suppliers join the market, it is a natural monopoly and they can slowly raise prices, or they hold price and cut quality, to the detriment of the class.
HOWEVER, there is no way the scenario where all makers have to buy the same material will come to pass. What WILL happen is your little Sunfish will end up like Optimists. Optimists have rules governing sailcloth, cut, etc. Here is what happened. Several firms entered the market, like Olimpic. To try and decommoditize, they innovated and made faster sails. As you can find out, sails that the winners in Optis use cost $500+. Low priced players also entered - the Dinghy Shop on Long Island sells private label Opti sails for half the price Olimpic and the others charge. Do any top sailor use Dinghy Shop sails - NO. The business has migrated to the expensive fast sails. Same as will happen with your little Sunfish.
In our case, the price of racing sails has a huge impact on the number of racers. And you have concluded this how? Name a growing class aside from Lasers.
We see many, many sailing classes lamenting the demise of their numbers. There are reasons.</textbookOff> And those reasons are???
Ok. Back to happy thoughts about the pure enjoyment of sailing a Sunfish! I had a great afternoon: About 8 kts on the lake, just a small whitecap here and there, and really had a blast! My tacking is still terrible. But there was enough wind to really get a sense of the differences between port and starboard tacks. Downwind was a good time, too!
...... The ISCA Board grappled with a huge issue on the sails. Back in the pre- "racing sail" days, racers in the know built good relationships with their nearby dealers. Dealers would notify them when a new stock of sails arrived. They would go, lay them all out, pick out the 2 or 3 good ones, and leave the rest for sale to the general public. New racers would suffer as they didn't know this kind of homework was required. And, the "lottery" for having a great sail show up in that next batch was never guaranteed. There are a couple people who still have their pre-1989 sails that save them for certain conditions because they are the perfect shape for that setting. To remedy this insurmountable problem, the "race sail" was adopted to (1) provide better drive for the boat in lighter air, (2) to make the sail quality issue a far smaller issue and make the stock fairer for all involved, (3) to increase safety by changing and enlarging the window, and (4) to make the shape best suited to the Sunfish (Hans Fogh did tons of testing with panel shapes and seaming so the sail, with adjustments, would be most suitable for the spars and space available)....
The racing cadre is completely happy that we don't have the widely varying shapes and funny looking panels like we did in the old days. When there's a real problem, a real solution must be found.....
Would a $150 reduction in racing sail price mean more of those guys would go the full-race route? Maybe. But it'd benefit us customers--and that's something I can certainly support.
Hmmm... Heresy can help to raise awareness, but I'm afraid you're preaching to the choir. 90% of everyone here are not Class members, rather just recreational sailors looking for help to keep up their boat. Did you think this is The Sunfish Class??This conversation spurs two comments and raises three questions in my mind:
First comment: In my business I've yet to consult to any company suffering from low sales whose leaders haven't said, "If people would only understand how good our products are!" Well, that's not the problem. You have to listen to why people don't buy and meet their demands. Telling them that they're wrong usually doesn't result in any new sales.
I can only assume that would be the builder, Laser Performance. You'll have to ask their people that question.First question(s): Just what is the margin on a racing sail? Who sets the price? If their margins are low, whose fault is that?
Looking for equivalents, it seems a number of similar size "One Design" boats are all in a Manufacturer (monopolized) Class..., Butterfly, Hobie, Laser (LP again), Opti (several builders, but still constrained).Second question(s): How much would you be willing to pay for a racing sail? $500 $600 $700 How much is "too much" and who gets to decide that? Presently, it's decided by one manufacturer who is engaging in (class condoned) monopolistic pricing.
I wonder if there's a dichotomy class?Second comment: I'm not trying to change the Sunfish world here. I admitted up front that I was risking blasphemy. But I can't help but find reason and common sense in what an earlier poster said: If it's a true one-design, then it seems that all the boats should have the same stuff and you could buy one and race it or enjoy it recreationally at the same price.
Hmmm… I’m not sure where the notion of “superior” sprang up from. I was under the impression the argument all along has been equivalence in material and workmanship, only for a radically different price.Third question: If a $439 racing sail is superior to a $150 copy-cat sail (say, the one from Intensity), or even superior to a $140 rec sail, then why can't a sailor show up at a sanctioned event and race those (if they have a window)? What's the risk to the $439 sail or to the class?
OK, you’ve expressed a displeasure with the monopolistic parts supply at the racing level…, welcome to the club. You’ve voiced disapproval of US Sailing’s lax structure, allowing a One Design with a dual personality to exist among its ranks. And you’ve scolded the Sunfish Class organization for not being egalitarian between its members and corporate sponsors. However, you are saying this to a gathering of enthusiasts who, for the most part, share your frustrations, but also like you have been reluctant to join the class, learn all the facts, deal with the politics of garnering support from the builder while participating in formulating constructive solutions. So if you’d like to see some change for the better you’ll need to step up to the challenge and become actively involved instead of railing from the back of the room.Help me understand. I'm open to understanding.
Wayne said:OK, you’ve expressed a displeasure with the monopolistic parts supply at the racing level…, welcome to the club. You’ve voiced disapproval of US Sailing’s lax structure, allowing a One Design with a dual personality to exist among its ranks. And you’ve scolded the Sunfish Class organization for not being egalitarian between its members and corporate sponsors. However, you are saying this to a gathering of enthusiasts who, for the most part, share your frustrations, but also like you have been reluctant to join the class, learn all the facts, deal with the politics of garnering support from the builder while participating in formulating constructive solutions. So if you’d like to see some change for the better you’ll need to step up to the challenge and become actively involved instead of railing from the back of the room.
The one impediment to all this happening? It's the question, the Big Question, I get from almost everyone who has expressed an interest: "So, for me to sail in a class race I have to get a $400 sail? Why?"
I'm looking for better answers than, "That's just the way it is, dude, and the class has its reasons."
Perhaps I'm being a bit selfish; but, I'd really like some more Sunfishers around here to play with.