Irish OK Dinghy Association

A Bob Hoare* hull, recently refurbished, is for sale on Apollo Duck.

Here are some pics of the boat before and after it had its deck re-done and its hull re-sprayed.

Other boats have been for sale in more remote parts of England, so this one’s a real option.

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At £900, it’s not going to break the bank either.  No carbon mast, but unless you want to win the worlds that’s just not an issue.  See the ad on ApolloDuck.

* – Bob Hoare also built very successful Flying Dutchmen and Contendors.

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If – like us – you regularly visit the OKDIA homepage, you’ll have seen the photos of OK Dinghies in various poses.

These are the kinds of images that attract people to the class.

A compact, seaworthy dinghy, equally at home in big seas or on flat water.

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There are a few other pics on the OKDIA homepage, but they carried copyright notices so I haven’t included them.

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Here’s a note passed from the OK Dinghy International Association’s technical group.

They want to make sure it’s circulated to all active OK Dinghy sailors.

It’s on the subject of Ultra-High-Modulus carbon in OK Dinghy masts.

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These pics are from the DMYC Frostbite’s Facebook page. I hope they don’t mind us using them.

Sunday was an outrageously beautiful day for February in Dublin, with the RSGYC’s OK Dinghy again getting a lot of attention.

Two good races inside Dun Laoghaire harbour, with the Laser and Fireball fleets sailing alongside the varied PY fleet.

There were Finns, OK Dinghies, IDRA 14s, GP14s, Vagos, RS200s, RS400s, Topaz Magnos, Mirrors, Supernovas, etc., all having a great time.

Between the frostbites, the junior Oppie training, the junior squad training, the team racing, the cruiser racing and the people generally just messing around in boats there must have been 5-700 people on the water.  In February.

There are sailors from Greystones, Howth and Blessington all enjoying the safe harbor of Dun Laoghaire.

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Trevor Fisher, Irish Wayfarer champ and currently building an OK Dinghy (albeit rather slowly) sauntered off to the sun for a little trip.

He stayed in the Northern Hemisphere, but Florida is far enough south to have decent weather at the moment.

The North American Wayfarer Mid-Winters were on at Lake Eustis, and Trevor’s results speak volumes for his abilities.  Remember, this is the guy that didn’t get invited to the Irish Sailing Championship last year.

If he’s equally as good in an OK as in a Wayfarer then there’s a possibility that an initial Irish National OK championships might not be so easy for visiting boats…..

By they way, in case of confusion, Trevor is the good looking one in the photo.

There were 7 races and Trevor was first in, ehm, 7 of them.

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Well, it’s not quite tropical, but the frostbiting in Dun Laoghaire can actually have really nice conditions.

And yes, there is an OK in the picture. Starting at the committee boat end.

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[picture from the DMYC's Facebook Albums]

Again, to the chagrin of sailors in the frozen North, it’s summertime down south.

The New Zealand OK fleet was out in the sun for a weekend’s racing, with the 2012 Hurricane Classic in Worser Bay, Wellington.

A full report is available on the OKDIA website, here.

Is sailing in Ireland ever like that?

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Now we do have great admiration for the Dutch….but they are a bit mad.

As you sail around the lakes of Holland or Friesland, you’ll see boats that were built in 1900 or 1930 that are still in great condition and regularly raced….not just sailed, but raced hard.  Classes like the Regenboog (Rainbow) and the 16m2 and the Valk are all over the place and are often “Grandad’s boat”.

Well, those Dutchmen are doing the same to the OK Dinghy.  Three OLD boats are being refurbed in The Netherlands.  One is NED 3, dating back to 1962 or ’63.  Another – NED 497 – dates back to at least the early 1970s

There are some (smallish) pictures and articles in Dutch on their association website.  Google translate will at least give you the flavour.

Madmen.  Admirable and brave, but mad.  Isn’t the world a wonderful place!

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Not too many countries have a dedicated dinghy show, but the Brits do.  That’s kinda handy, since Britain is only a short hop away.

More to the point, there will be an OK Dinghy stand at the RYA DInghy show, which runs on the 3rd and 4th of March in the Alexandra Palace in London.

Thanks to Ryanair, even Aer Lingus have flights that make it possible to do a one day trip to the event – over and back on the same day.

Full information on the event is available at the RYA website. There are coaching sessions, Olympic classes presentations, and the final of a SailX regatta.

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It’s deep dark winter in the Northern Hemisphere.  Nordics are going to the gym to get fit for the summer. Germans probably too.  The crazy Brits and Irish are going to the “frostbites”.

Meantime, down South, those darned Aussies are in high summer.

A full report on the Aussie Nationals is on the OKDIA Website.  Meantime, there are 200+ photos of beautiful Australian weather to make you jealous.

Congrats to victor Michael Williams in Time Machine.  Discarding a 5th, it’s a pretty strong performance.

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As always, one design classes need to keep an eye on technology.  The latest is ultra-high modulus carbon….even stiffer than the high modulus stuff.

It makes your mast a little bit better, but it’s a LOT more expensive.

Having watched developments in the Finn Class, the OK International Association aims to prohibit its use.  We don’t want masts costing 7000 Euro and more.

[Note: more recent discussion on the UK association page suggests this price is overstated and that round section UHM Carbon masts wouldn't be that expensive...but that they would render all previous masts obsolete]

See a statement from the class executive here below, as published on the OKDIA website. There’s also a discussion on the UK class forum.

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Warnemunde is one of the year’s biggest OK events, and it’s every year.

It’s shortly before the 2012 Worlds, so a lot of people will try to do Warnemunde, the Danish Nationals, and the Worlds.

Here’s an offer of help from Denmark.

“For those of you overseas sailors who have the boats shipped to Copenhagen and plan to sail warnemuende week, please let us know how many many as we would love to help with the transport organization. A lot of Danes will sail Warnemuende week, and most of us are able to take an extra boat with us. 

Warnemuende week is also the German Championship and is a four days event this year(7-10th july), preworlds at Hvidovre(next to vallensbæk) is the 14th & 15th july and worlds measurement starting the 21st.

So it is a great chance to have a lot of quality sailing and good fun within a short period of time, so please let us know how many sailors plan for this. as we would love to help and make it happen“

If you want to take advantage, please send a message through the contact page.

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As well as the Aussie OK kit that we showed recently, Christian Hedlund in Denmark – home of the OK Dinghy – has also been working to make the perfect kit OK.

Here are some pics.

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More info as soon as possible.

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Synergy Marine in England has been working to build boats from the old Dave Rose/Skipper mould….a well known mould for fast OK DInghies.

After a period of build and finishing, the new OK Dinghy hit the water today at Alton Water.

Here’s a slideshow of the build, and the finished boat on the water.

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If anyone is interested in having a Dave Rose designed OK Dinghy, built by Synergy Marine, they can build in epoxy or polyester resin, glass or wood decked.

Give Synergy a call on +44 (0) 1473 809298 or drop an email at simon@synergymarine.co.uk  Their website link is in the suppliers’ link list on the right.

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One of the advantages of the OK Dinghy is that you can set a boat up to match your own needs.  Another is that you can find boats of wood, GRP, epoxy, or whatever you fancy.

Another is that quite nice boats can be found at quite good prices.  Here are two for sale in England, for less than you might expect.

Look on the UK’s 2nd hand board for more details.

[update early Jan 2012.  Looks like OK 1745 (the one varnished inside and out) is sold.  It's gone from the list on the UK's for sale page]

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These two (long) videos show the full on-board experience of sailing an OK Dinghy – from the fast rigging process to the more comfortable hiking position to the details of maneuvres.

Each is ~13 mins long, so they’re videos to watch at leisure and not at work.  Kudos to AUS 708, who also has his own YouTube channel to watch.

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The OKDIA has published a new world ranking list, the last until after the 2012 Interdominion Championships in New Zealand in April 2012.  The full list is rather long to post, so we’ve only got the Top 20 here.  Are there any interesting things on the list?? Oh yeah.

• There are seven countries represented in the Top 20, and six in the Top 10.
• #1 on the list is Greg Wilcox, not so young any more but still kicking ass.
• #4 on the list is Nick Craig, current World and British Champ, and notoriously fit.
• #8 on the list is the 21yr old  Bartosz Rakocy, winner of the 2010 Europeans.

This is a class with true international breadth, a huge age range, and a ranking list that’s an honour to head. Conversely, it’s also a class with some of the most fun racing and social scene around.

Here’s Greg, in the 2011 Worlds. Pic by www.fotoboat.com

Your webmaster spoke today to one of the organizers of the Dun Laoghaire regatta.

They’re perfectly willing to consider including an OK Dinghy fleet in the regatta for 2013 as long as there’d be a reasonably substantial presence. Apparently the good example is the Wayfarers in 2011, who promised to turn up with about 30 boats and did, and the bad example was the Lasers fleet, which had more than 10 boats registered but not even a handful actually turned up.  (that was my understanding anyway..hope it’s right)

The organizers would be able to look at including an OK Dinghy fleet in the event right up to the end of next year, so there’s plenty of time to plan and to investigate. If there’s a credible fleet they shouldn’t have a problem with including us….but we’d have to be credible. I didn’t get the impression that they enjoyed running races for so few Lasers. Attendance of “serious” international sailors would obviously give the whole thing credibility.

So, I think it’s certainly worth looking at whether taking part in the event would be practical. In terms of numbers I doubt that an Irish fleet would – on its own – be large enough to make it really worthwhile. By 2015 it should be no problem, but there’ll only have been OK Dinghies in Ireland for one full year before 2013 so I doubt we’d have enough to make such an event truly impactful. However, the opportunity for the British fleet to have a rather special travelling event seems intriguing. Dun Laoghaire can be a special place for racing and racers, and an Irish regatta always has some special feel (apart from speaking as an Irishman, I’ve been at lots of regattas elsewhere too…and know of what I speak!).

So, if there’s enough interest then it looks like it’s possible. Is there interest? Do the dates work? How many could come from the UK? We have a whole year to figure it out, but let’s not leave it that long. If 2013 is too soon then – as Trevor said – 2015 certainly isn’t.

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Robert Deaves has written an article (link below) that summarizes the gear that won in the OK Dinghy World Championships in Largs earlier this year.  It’s an interesting read.

While there may, perhaps, be some slight bias towards Icebreaker boats (run by Alistair Deaves in NZ), the main data point for me is the importance of masts and the fact that the winning hull designs all go back to the 1960s or 1970s. I’ve no doubt that the Icebreaker shape is fast, but just as little doubt that the “nut on the tiller” is still the key component in determining boatspeed.

Four different hull manufacturers in the top 10 places.  Five different sail designs. One winning mast at the moment, although I’m sure other manufacturers would have a thing or two to say about that.

Perhaps the best summary is to quote the article’s key line;

“As ever there is nothing very new in the design of OK Dinghy hull shapes. As long as it is stiff, fair and down to weight, an old hull can be just as competitive as a new hull.”

Alistair Deaves at the Largs Worlds 2011. Copyright Alan Henderson www.fotoboat.com

Here’s the article in Yachts and Yachting

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