Those who wanted to sail single-handed dinghies and regattas, but were unable or unwilling to master the acrobatics of modern trapeze skiffs such as the RS 700 or Musto skiff, often ended up with two Olympic classics: the Laser and the Finn dinghy. Both are suitable for sailing, both have good regatta fields and both require fitness.
And both offered a wide range, from Olympic level to club regattas, so that there was something for every level of sailing experience. The Laser was always regarded as the simpler, more cost-effective solution, while the Finn was the more sophisticated boat, especially for heavier sailors.
Now the British dinghy manufacturer RS and the Italian boat builder Devoti, who also builds the Finn dinghy, have taken on the class of "sloop" boats, as the sailors call them, and interpreted them in their own modern way: flat, wide skiff shape for fast planing, modern materials such as carbon fibre mast and a "trunk", i.e. gennaker for fast planing, more ergonomic cockpits.
We wanted to know how the boats compare to Finn and Laser and sent sailors from these boat classes on a test sail with the new dinghy type. After all, both manufacturers are speculating that they will win customers for their boats from these camps in the future. But how big is the changeover, how much learning effort is required to master the new boats? Are the boats fragile light wind rockets for experts or relatively easy to handle? And how do the two classics fare against their unequal brothers?
You will find the results of the comparison in the new YACHT No. 17, on newsstands from 4 August.
