Fast and for everyone: fun is called Melges 15
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Chat characteristics should a modern, fast and fun dinghy have that is nevertheless suitable for a wide audience and also designed for use in sailing schools? One response has come from the U.S. and it is promising.
The U.S. shipyard Melges Performance Sailboats, famous for producing racing monotypes, has launched a 15-foot dinghy, the Melges 15, suitable for younger people, sailing schools and beyond.
The design is by “archistars” Reichel/Pugh, a cult design firm specializing in the design of sports boats of all sizes. The result is a drift that in intent is meant to be easy to handle, suitable even for the inexperienced, but at the same time adrenaline-pumping with crisp performance.
A mix of features that is far from easy to recreate, but as always in these cases it is the search for the right compromise that is the cbiave of a boat’s success.
THE DESIGN.
To achieve this, the designers devised a flat-shaped hull that facilitates planing on the slack and increases the righting moment upwind, thanks in part to the presence of a small edge at the extreme stern. A hull designed in this way clearly has stability as one of its first objectives, a very important element for use in sailing schools, where the first edges under gennaker will be protected by a hull that is “docile” but still capable of outstanding performance.
Perhaps the boat will lose something in terms of cue in light breezes, but as a dinghy also created for beginners in the sailing world, the priority was to offer an all round hull capable of being versatile in different situations.
The crew will sail by taking advantage of the straps in the cockpit for “backing,” and the use of the trapeze will not be necessary. This is quite an important choice: eliminating the trapeze means opening up the medium to the less young, or at any rate to that whole section of the public that perhaps has little experience with drifting.
Also very interesting are the bow volumes conceived by the designers: the boat has quite powerful front exits, even and especially in the submerged part.
These volumes provide a significant buoyancy reserve when the boat will be sailing at carrying gaits, under asymmetric, in fresh breeze.
The bow will tend to dive less under the buoyancy of the boat and remain high favoring glide and avoiding unpleasant entanglements that would lead to capsizing.
The sail plan is under the banner of total simplicity and includes an 8.7 sq. m. square-top mainsail and a 3.7 sq. m. jib, plus a 14.5 sq. m. asymmetrical one. Important is the size of the bowsprit, greater than one meter: it will serve to have easier control over the gennaker on the carriers ,moving it away from the mainsail waste for easier crew management.
THE NUMBERS.
Shipyard: Melges
Project: Reichel/Pugh
Length f. t.: 4.57 m
Maximum beam: 1.67 m
Draught: 0.8 m
Displacement: n.d.
Mainsail: 8.7 sqm
Jib: 3.7 sqm
Asymmetrical: 14.5 square meters
Price: 10,390 euros excluding VAT
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