I'm interested in the uptake of new technologies into the UK dinghy scene. In particular I want to look at the uptake of carbon masts, laminate sails and epoxy/foam sandwich hulls. I've formed a theory that one or more of these technologies (or possibly a combination of more than one) may have been as radical a change as the change from cotton to terylene sails was back in the 1958/61 period, but because the changeover has been much more gradual it has been less obvious. The change to terylene sails in the 60s resulted in something like a 4% performance increase across the whole range of classes.
The challenge is finding out which classes adopted which technologies when. I'd like as many people as possible to fill in this survey for classes they know about. Even partial answers would be useful, and as many as possible, so I can amalgamate the results. Its suprisingly difficult to remember exactly when these changes occurred so as many opinions as possible are encouraged. This seems to me exactly the sort of exercise where 'crowd sourcing' is useful so the more the merrier.
For each technology I'd like an estimate of its uptake within the championship/open meeting fleet. I can think of no reliable way of estimating uptake in the fleets round the clubs, so its better to have a consistent picture just from the Champs fleet.
What I would like are the years when the class first had a few boats with the new tech - say 5-10%, about half the fleet, and the vast majority - say 90% plus. Some classes do not permit these technologies at all, and I'd like to know that too.
This is purely a personal survey, and although I am on the RYA Portsmouth Yardstick Advisory group this survey is not connected with the work of the panel, nor will the results have any affect on the Portsmouth yardstick numbers for the classes. It was, however, triggered by looking at historic PY changes and seeing a pattern of changes in some classes but not others in recent years. It doesn't seem impossible this could be caused at least partically by technology advances, but the question is which ones. Given a picture of when and if different classes have upgraded it may be possible to get some idea of causes.
Please don't fill in this survey if you're not a UK sailor - sorry, but that's out of scope for the exercise...
The Classes listed are those in the 2014 RYA Portsmouth Yardstick list, minus a few which are very new or where I am confident there haven't been any design or materials changes. That gives me a reasonable size data set with recorded UK yardsticks. This ought to be able to give an indication whether the observed performance has changed consistently across classes after new technologies have been intrduced, and if so whether there is any pattern in the amount of change, and how long it takes to filter through to club fleets.
Q. Are my details safe?
A. Well, I'm not asking many details, not even email. There are no type in fields and no personal data recorded because that protects me and the data against the spammers This sort of script isn't mega secure, but its should be OK. If you're worried, don't use it. There are no guarantees. There's no logging or anything, (well other than server mail system logs) so there's not a log of email addresses somewhere on the server some lowlife could hack into.
Q. Could someone distort the survey?
A. Sure, by spamming umpteen false entries. But why would they bother. And there's enough detail in the system logs to spot most obvious attempts.
This page and script is solely for private individuals to communicate with Jim Champ for the purposes of the survey above. Businesses and organisations may not use the script.
The use, misuse or abuse of these scripts for any kind of commercial email, mass email or any attempt to use it to contact anyone is prohibited.
There are no guarantees that communications will work correctly, if at all. Your message may not be transmitted unaltered and or in its entirety.