below the cost of a Laser. Why not turn the IC into a kit boat? Assembling it certainly hadn’t been rocket science.
We went back to the drawing board and with a bit of conniving we (mostly Dad!) designed a hot little hard-chined IC called Machete. For the sake of preserving ease of build, I set myself up in a separate rented space over 300 miles (sic) from our main shop and got to work on the prototype, using nothing but a basic tool bag. I did add a drill press and a bandsaw, but they ended up not getting any work. We’d conceived something that was so simple a kid could build it in a dorm room. Machete made her debut this season and I couldn’t be happier with the out- come. She’s minimum weight, stiff and competitive at the front of the fleet. I even managed a few regatta wins before I broke my ankle loading up the C-Class container for Switzerland…
We’ve been selling kits with all the plywood pre-cut and all non-hull parts including spars, foils and prefabricated sliding seat carriage for $US5,000 (a bare hull kit including prefabricated carbon seat track is around $2,000).
well-off wing of the fleet that can’t afford the upgrade. Yes, it’s anybody’s race, but try telling that to a hot-blooded 20-year- old who just got edged out of first place – again – by an old guy with significantly more expensive equipment.
After a while it stops being fun and the dropout rate increases. As this happens, price increases for membership and storage space at clubs go less heavily protested. The clear majority becomes those who can afford to stay. Those who are just on the edge are increasingly under-represented. And this has effects in the industry as well. Who would order a cheaper boat when everybody believes in the more expensive one? So builders end up focusing more and more on the portion of the com- munity for whom cost is no object. Prices rise across the board as builders, even one- design builders, aim for prices ‘not much more expensive than a ________’ and with it all the complementary goods rise in price as well. This just drives young people out even more quickly.
It’s also important to remember that, while to us on the inside our huge gains in speed seem amazing, to the outsider there has been no change. All sailboats are still significantly slower than a bus. My Prius can roast an AC72. My inexpensive bicycle aimed down a good hill can go faster than a foiling moth.
The speeds that we hit are only
exceptional as sailing speeds. To a non- sailor they mean nothing. So if in achieving them we have damaged the system that brings in new sailors we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and, as the sport shrinks, those figures will become increasingly meaningless.
I realised this a few years ago and I set out to help fix it, in what little way I could. My hunch has been that, to grow the sport, quality must go up while prices go down. I sat down with my father and asked how I could build a light and stiff boat out of a cheap material like plywood. He pointed out that with the rise of CNC machining, making a ‘rings and stringers’ structured plywood boat, like the old C-Classes in our shed, was more achiev- able at low cost than ever before. In the age of carbon the CNC machine might just be the leveller we’ve been searching for. So I built an International Canoe in this manner for around half the cost of an equivalent carbon one and used it to get fifth at the 2014 worlds in San Francisco. It was a heavy-air event and, but for snapping a shroud, the boat func- tioned wonderfully. Given the fact that I’m still awful at starts and still don’t actually know the rules, I called it a success. However, as I was driving our fleet trailer back across the country, I got to thinking. What would really be cool would be to get the cost down even further. Down
I look forward to seeing the ones we’ve sold come racing in the forthcoming sea- sons. I do this because I believe that if you simply make the right tools easily available to people, they can work wonders on their own. People are more creative and capable than most of the world gives them credit for. Dinghy sailing need not and should not involve a spending contest. At least in the world of ICs, I hope I have helped fix that by arming the people with Machetes. But this is about more than cost. Having grown up as a crash-test dummy for my father’s Vanguard prototypes and other experiments, I’ve had my share of thrills in boats. I’ve sailed I-14s, foiling moths, C-Class catamarans and piles of other fast stuff. I’ve had the adrenaline, the terror… the loss of control.
There’s a sense of urgency and accom- plishment in sailing such unpredictable things and it is sublime, in a way. But those experiences wither in comparison to the sense of worthy effort that came to me when I finally got to race a boat I’d built with my own hands at the front of a world championship fleet. I will never go back. Sailing in a boat you made is breaking the envelope; standing outside that world on a structure you built yourself. You are not just a user of the system, of what you are handed, but a maker who can improve the system.
All of us can and should have a moment like that because humanity is the species of creativity. We are meant to have that moment. Sailing is a transcendent sport, which offers a comprehensive fight between the sailor and the elements. It is upon us to make sure that it continues to be all that it can be, and that all who want to do it are able to.
you do?
Here’s what I’ve done to help. What can q
SEAHORSE 41
LUKA BARTULOVIC
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