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The BVSC source its yardstick from YV, but have been thrown a couple of curve balls recently with the membership base growing with both new and old boats.

The first boat a NACRA 430, I dont suspect has a yardstick at present published anywhere, while the second boat a DART 18 perhaps had its last recorded yardstick chiselled in a stone :-)

Does anyone have a reference source for either of these yardsticks and any future obscure ones we might have in the future.

Cheers,

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Three 430 raced at Mannering Park 14ft Regatta along with a strong fleet of Maricats, windrush, Paper Tigers and Arrow.

The Mannering Park Sailing club web site has the results from 5 races with elapsed times and yardsticks. They used 87 for the 430.

I'm sure the Koonawarra Yardstick guys will go through the results and see if that fits.

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The Nacra 430 S/Sloop was off 87, S/Sloop W/spinaker, was off 84 or 85 (check that), but would need a long course or windward leeward course to sail to that yardstick. The sloop rig 430 was off 94, was sailed by a new owner and son with minimal cat experience so can be disregarded for Y/stick comparisons.

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The Lake Cootharaba Sailing Club has used 85 for the 430 one up sloop rigged and 81 for one up sloop and spinnaker rigged. This is obviously calculated guess work based on observation at other regattas. Hopefully clubs are sending their results to YV so a soundly based number will eventually appear. The Nacra 4.5 has the same problem.

Maybe an interim solution for the 430 would be to have the boat measured using Texel then back calculate to YV.

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Thanks for the prompt and extensive replies.

Wow... its going to be hard to enter 85 for the 430 1 up sloop rig as that pits it against a Calypso 4.4, my first boat. But it does sound like a fair yardstick really and with spinnaker reduction of 3.1 it would bring it down to 82.

I have sent off an email to the Dart association seeking their help.

The Brisbane Valley Sailing Club invites any sailors to come and have a sail with us each fortnight Saturday on the now 100% capacity Wivenhoe Dam. Entry is via Brydens Road Dundas which it just outside Fernvale. The next sail day is Saturday 11th December which is the 4th heat of the club championships. For more information, contact Greg on 0412096612 or brisvalleysailing@hotmail.com

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The Nacra 4.3s sailed at the recent 14' cat regatta at Mannering Park were well sailed against National and State class competition in Mari, Windy, P/Tiger and Arrow. If you apply Foam Mari Y/stick, 92 for cat and sloop (2 up), 88 for super sloop, 85 W/spinnaker, you will be close to the mark without crippling a new class. Regards and good luck. Darcy.

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The Mannering Park 14' regatta has obviously been the best test to date of the 430 in a mixed fleet of similar cats, and the yardsticks listed by Darcy seem appropriate. Clubs should adopt those numbers. Having come from a Windrush Super Sloop to a 430 Super Sloop, I can vouch that they a similar in performance. To apply a yardstick of 85 to the 430 Super Sloop would be unfair, especially when sailed against Nacra 4.5's (88) and Arrows (92)!!

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Nacra site it says that there are 3 trim levels Rocket (main, jib & kite), Sports (main, jib) & Clubman (main only with shallow draft rudders).

So that begs the question can you sail one Cat rig with the deep rudders? Are all 3 configurations with trapeze? Can you sail 2up with kite? Is there any class rules yet?

If you were to sail all 3 trim levels with 1 person, trapeze and deep rudders I reckon the only major difference would be the Rocket. I say this because of the size of the jib that the 430 is fitted with.

The front beam is seemingly along way forward which brings your mast forward and cuts the amount of room you have to fit a non overlapping jib as is the case with the 430. The jib measures 1.97m squared which is somewhat small for a 14ft cat... a Windrush has a 2.43m squared jib (approx 25% larger) and a Maricat has a larger jib again (not sure of exact size but i'd expect around 2.6m squared, please correct me) and to compare with dinghys at 14ft an NS14 & MG14 have a bigger jib at 2.4m squared.

Add in that it has skeggs and should tack better without a jib than a Windrush Cat rig or Maricat Cat rig, it should also climb higher. I'd expect to see maybe 1 point difference between the 2 configurations given that both had trapeze and deep rudders.

The Rocket however gets the kite and on VYC adjustment should be more than 2.5mins faster than the Supersloop. Fact is that it is simply faster to sail windward returns with a kite than without, but the kites effect maybe not so big on a triangle and this could be a problem with this boat in regular mixed fleet sailing. On a triangle course that was set with identical wind angles on both reaches it would be hard for a 430 to beat a Windrush or Mari supersloop on these reaches as the hoist and drop will take valuable time and you wont be sailing the best VMG because you wouldn't be able to sail high enough and maintain speed (there is a point at which an asymmetrical kite is so strapped that it just chokes the boat and slows it down) so you would be either forced to 2 sail it or drive low and drop it 2/3 the way down the reach and then 2 sail up to the mark. I would also expect a well sailed Supersloop to beat a well sailed Rocket to the top mark because the rocket carries a lot of extra windage with all the kite gear (personal experience from sailing H16's with and without spi). So triangle courses could be the Achilles heel of this boat.

On the flip side it could be a yardstick monster. Say the yardstick was set with it running triangle courses it would end up with a higher ys because of the 'limited' use of the spi, but say you turn up to a regatta that runs windward leeward courses. It would out sail its yardstick quite considerable because every 2nd leg you would have the kite up running optimum angles.

Anyway just my 2 bobs worth. As I said in my blog 20knts.blogspot.com I would like to race one with someone who had sailed alot on it. I imagine it could get quite hairy in 20knts+ because of the position of the front beam but that may be counter acted by the pumped out high volume bows. But overall it seems like just another 14 to further spread the mix of 14ft classes. Nothing radically different or anything that makes me want to sell my Windrush and buy one.

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In our experience the Koonawarra Yardstick for smaller cats is the preferred standard. For example VYC still do not have a Yardstick for Maricat Supersloops and they have been around since 1986. Many clubs in NSW use Koonawarra for their small cats. They actively seek out results to update their Yardsticks (good job Neil !!).

Check out www.koonawarrabaysc.org.au

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  • 3 months later...

Along this same thread this may help some of us poor handicappers. At the last Nacra nationals the 5.8 and the 4.5 sailed the same course at the same time over 10 races. I crunched all the numbers as if they where one fleet. There where 21 5.8's and 9 4.5's. At the end of the series the average yardstick for the 5.8 was 72.3 and the average for the 4.5 was 88.1. The lead 5.8 was about 5 points below the average as was the lead 4.5. As much as I hate to say it as I sail a 5.8 and was hoping to bring the 4.5's handicap down a bit in our club the VYC is fairly accurate with these two boats. When I compare my results against regular competitors in the aclass, taipan, f16 national results. We on the 5.8 appear to be about 1-2min off the pace at the moment. Must go faster

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