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Yup, the fact is the tolerances were written in to allow for the inevitable construction errors. Glass craft have no such need for tolerances and a plug should be dead set in the middle of all tolerances to be A class, and any weight unders should be carried on the sternpost. If this drives those who want to use the tolerances allowed in wood back to wood construction, then all the better that would be for the class, not to mention cheaper. If the executive was to implement rules along the lines of these simple suggestions i think it would get the class back to being one design as was originally intended. But will it happen? No way
(And as a nod to the original philosophy of the class, also a third category with all similar accolades: the builder/sailor who builds his own boat in his own shed in his own backyard. 😯
It’s not too hard to organise. The fleet races as usual but instead of divisions according to speed, you’d have a glass division, a wood division and a DIY trogs division. That might even tempt me to dig out the old wood plane
Thanks for both replies to my post. Seems I am out of touch about building light timber boats 😳 But that aside, the rule allowing up to three kilos to be placed on the thwart represents a serious undermining of one of the basic tenets of a one design class – and that is minimum weight.
I’ve often heard Sabre class reps go on proudly about how the class rules are preserved so that older boats are not knocked out of contention before they hit the water. But this amendment does exactly that. Prior to 2010, all boats were required to weigh a minimum of 41 kilos, with any unders being bolted to the transom post. After the passing of the amendment, boats may weigh just 38 kilos and have the remaining three kilos positioned such that the effective weight is but a fraction of that three kilos.
As a consequence, the class executive has done what they have always proclaimed they would not – and that is make older boats (older than just three years, currently) effectively uncompetitive. And that is both irresponsible and a shame.
HelterSkelter has the right idea. Stop the race to the bottom weight by providing rules that severely penalise light boats. That’s much smarter administration than bowing to pressure, probably from the glass boat builders, to ditch a fundamental one design rule and thereby initiate the dismantling of the Sabre as a one design class.
