Talk:420 (dinghy)

Untitled
It should be pointed out that the I420 is not a competitive in anything less than a force 3 with PY handicap with ideal weight crew at club racing level.

Also it does not get the full benefit of it's handicap until seriously high winds of the type most race officers will get very nervous about sending a mixed fleet out in.

Not a good PY handicap club boat. However at force 4+ the 420 is a blast and comes highly recommended.

For fleet or team sailing it's a great boat and a fantastic learing boat for perfomance symmetric one designs but in club handicap racing you'll spend most of your time racing underpowered...:-(

Ed. RTYC.

Image:420SailingFlag.jpg
I have disputed the claim of fair use for Image:420SailingFlag.jpg; please see the image description page for my reasons. If I am mistaken (which is not unlikely, as I don't really know anything about sailing), kindly correct me. —Bkell (talk) 05:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

HISTORY
I first sailed these at university in 1969, not much since early 70's, great boats for teaching people not to be scared of big winds and big seas on the Tay, as mentioned above.

I propose the following: revisions welcome.

Designed in the 1960's (date, who by?) as an inexpensive general purpose two sail, transom sheeted, non-trapeze dinghy, with modest easily handled sail plan, the class developed rapidly in France, being adopted nationally as a youth trainer. In the late 1960's the class was adopted by a few UK university sailing clubs for training and team racing. The class organisers adopted a policy of "prudent evolution" so as to allow development without making existing dinghies obsolete. The spinnaker, trapeze, mast gate, and centre mainsheet had all been introduced by the early 1970s, as had the 420S (Solo) single hander rig, supposedly being able to race boat-for-boat with the two-handed version.

The hull's seaworthyness and stability at speed proved to be better than most of its contemporaries, and this together with its modest sail area make it fun to sail in heavy weather and thus an excellent youth trainer, qualities that lead to its adoption for that role by the RYA in the mid 1970's. (date etc?)

The combination of effective class management, the boat's inherent sailing qualities, and prudent evolution have contributed to the classes continuing success.

NOTE: The dinghy is referred to as the "four-twenty" in English, while in France, its country of origin, it is referred to as the "quatre cent vingt" (= four hundred and twenty). GilesW 16:33, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

The sail area numbers are wrong. 13 square meters is about 140 square feet. 110 square feet is about 10 square meters. I don't know which is right for this boat, but the area in square feet and in meters should agree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.47.147 (talk) 18:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Flags
Maybe a "little" too big flags for the organising country. 85.217.38.114 (talk) 14:26, 17 December 2011 (UTC)