Skiff 4 Girls: The new RS 900 during the test drives
From 2016 onwards, Olympic grass will also be a woman’s affair. The women's skiff competition will celebrate its premiere in Rio de Janeiro, it is still questionable which device will be used. The evaluation of these boats and the mixed multihulls, which are also new to the Olympic program, will be carried out by the World Sailing Association (ISAF) from March 17th to 25th in Santander, Spain. Which boats will be selected will be announced at the ISAF meeting in May.
Skiff 4 Girls: The new RS 900 rigged up on the beach
For this purpose, the British manufacturer RS Sailing had the designer trio Alex Southon, Nick Peters and Phil Morrison develop the RS 900, which is supposed to be adapted to the needs of lighter crews (between 110 and 130 kg) without degenerating into bone-gnawing fun allow. The strict ISAF guidelines had to be complied with, which demand robustness, safety, cost restrictions and good sailing performance between 5 and 25 knots.
Space sheet course under gennaker
Made of epoxy sandwich aminate with carbon fiber reinforcements, the RS 900 has solid wings, a splittable carbon fiber mast, double trapezoid, square top main sail and mast top gennaker, similar to the 49er, but the hull is significantly shorter and narrower and also has less freeboard. Seen in this way, the RS 900 is actually more of a cousin of the 29er, which in a version pimped out with a larger rig and double trapeze than the 29er XX in Santander will be one of the direct competitors in the evaluation.
On-board camera on a cross course in medium winds
On January 14th and 15th, the RS 900 will be ready for testing at the new RS Sailing location near Southampton. More at RS Sailing.