Thread: Rainbow 12foot sailing yacht

With a 13 trillion national debt, I'm amazed that your army has enough money to do maneuvers (note American spelling! - I can do it) around the back paddock.

Even with repayments of $100 million a day, with no more loans and no interest accruing, the debt would take 3500 years to pay off.

I expect that we'll see ecomonic refugees from the US before long. Par, let us know if you're coming, we'll let you in. I'm sure we'd make you sit all sorts of exams to work as a yacht designer, if we let you work at all, just like I did to practice medicine in the US (8 exams after 14 years as a doctor for Christ's sake including an English test - what an insult!)

Ahoy there me hearties.

Set your mainsail and tighten your jibs and turn the tiller a bit and tack back on course.

Howdy. It is a nice discussion - and I am interested too ... but it is a wooden boat forum.

I know you guys will be nice about such a discussion ... but the risk is that it is an open forum and someone (or several) might roll along and take it in a not so cool direction.

If you feel I am overstepping send me a PM.

MIK

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlBiPCpOfHM]YouTube - rainbow sailing yacht Sonic[/ame]

Sail Boats X 2 (eBay item 110620611383 end time 12-Dec-10 18:39:43 AEDST) : Cars, Bikes, Boats

ebay, one red rainbow, and a free wooden classic thrown in, twoferone 1

lots of sails

Originally Posted by gybey

Sail Boats X 2 (eBay item 110620611383 end time 12-Dec-10 18:39:43 AEDST) : Cars, Bikes, Boats

ebay, one red rainbow, and a free wooden classic thrown in, twoferone 1

lots of sails

The grey one looks like an old Moth? Wow, here is a bunch of fantastic sailing for the lucky winner. What, no crew available for the Rainbow? No problem, just take out the Moth!

Originally Posted by draculam

YouTube - rainbow sailing yacht Sonic

Just beautiful! Well done on restoring a lovely Aussie classic

Dose anyone know of a Rainbow that might be fore sale?

Any condition will do as long as it's pretty much all there restoration is not a problem.

The Rainbow was a very popular sailing dinghy that died out during the mid 1970's in favour of other classes. It was nicknamed a "butterbox" due to its hull shape and construction. Unfortunately its rig was not regulated by rules to constrain cost and it priced itself out of the market.
The easily built Mirror dinghy and its Australian designed and built larger "cousin" the 125 (12.5 feet long hull) pushed the Rainbow off the competition scene. The 125 is easier to build (stitch and glue construction), more comfortable to sail and cheaper. An active and strong Association evolved and the boat is now sailed in all Australian states with some built and sailing as boatbuilding projects in many spots around the world, USA, NZ, Sth Africa, France etc.
Your restoration of an old Rainbow is to be commended. By the sail number this would have been one of the last built and has probably spent most of its life in a shed. It is a pity you did not spend the effort on an easily obtained boat like the 125 where assistance, competition and a resail value is possible.
Go to the website www.125assoc.com to see what could have been your restoration project. Your could be actively sailing it with other sailors and getting full enjoyment rather that a lonely sail occasionally.

The Rainbow appeared on the scene in the early 50's as the southern states answer to the Sydney based VJ. The rigs were very similar and the hull was 6" longer than the Jay, and being a scow,had more bouyancy forrard. We built my VJ in 1959 and the sail number was (I think) 7255.

Great to see a Rainbow again. Brings back a lot of memories.
My second boat was a Rainbow 3149, Scorpio (I think). Cedar ply hull with Silver Ash trim. lovely boat. Used to be a big fleet at Frankston. I sailed fwd in another Rainbow at what was probably the last true Rainbow Aus Championships. I think it was 1983/84 and hosted at Black Rock. At those nationals there were in excess of 60-70 boats. There were strong numbers from Vic, Tas, SA and at least one boat from NSW. Pretty sure the winner that year was Mark Williamson from Frankston. Some of the Rainbows had all the latest gear on them but most were fairly basic. I recall a few being glass with ply decks but most were still ply. Mark's boat was quite an old ply hull and certainly nothing fancy. He and his (female) crew just sailed consistantly well. The other contender that year I remeber was a fellow from SA. I pretty sure he was know as "Cappie"? Mark's boat used to stand out because he had a large red Pegasus insignia on his main. I can't remember the boats name but for some reason I don't think it was Pegasus? It was not unusual the Rainbows to have individual insignias such as this on their mains. I remember one boat (from Tassie I think) called Chauvinist. It's insignia was a large Wild Boar on the lower roach.
It was a time before kevalr or spectra. The kite sheets for the flat kites with the big kite pole meant significant loads on the kite brace. Hence most if not all boats at the time had kite sheets with wire cores to avoid stretch on the shy runs. In light air we used to carry the flat kite to windward, which made tacking very interesting. Most boats had kite poles which carried a standard Ronstan beak on the outboard which was conected to a SS ring in the clew. The inboard end generally had a custom plywood yoke which simply rested against the fwd end of the mast.
My memory from that time was of a very vibrant class. Most who sailed them at the time were in their teens or early twenties. However, the class suited all ages.
That same year (Easter '84 I think) there was a small group of us that went up to the NSW championships at Lake Illawarra to support the locals there who were trying to mount something of a revial of the class there at the time.
A couple of years later I was at the Olympic trials for the Seoul Olympics being held in Adelaide (competing in the 470 class). Whilst I was there I visited one of the SA clubs who were hosting the Rainbow champs. From memory there we about 4-5 boats contesting the championships and all from SA. So sad to see such a great class of little boats go from being so strong to obscurity in such a short time.

You might like to have a look at this link to the DN Goodchild site for plans. Looks like a very easy boat to build.

Plans for Sail Boats

3.40 into MIK's video shows two sails, mainsailon one side, another on the other side.
Whats the second sail?

left field here.

Sonic is a lovely boat/yacht. Once she was cutting edge right?
My opinion/observation.

I'm looking for a small sail boat at the moment (therefor I will accept that all fast light sailers deserve to be called a yacht! I'm not too proud to accept what scraps I get thrown... just don't draw attention to it or I'll 'get my back up')... and I can buy a sail boat for peanuts.
I put this down to 'competitive design rules' and clubs based on classes, mix in the fact that Aussies have been playing with developing small and fast sail boats for a while.

Its a bit stupid though.

As soon as the class changes the design rules, down tumble the prices as boats are no longer competitive and need to be replaced to 'stay in the race'.

Lucky for me, I'm spoilt for choice. A fully set up 5 year old 29'er on a trailer and with a dolly and good sails - $2500, NS14's, a few sail sets, trailer and dolly - $1000... about that for a Laser or Taser.

Design and development is good, its why we are not still sailing log's with an animal skin....however...
5 years to turn a $10,000 rig into 1/4 that! Even considering depreciation based on damage/'useage and abusage' it seems a bit mad.

Sonic should be able to sail in whatever class she wants, why the heck not? Just set up a handicap system.
This could see puddleducks, GIS, NS14's off all era's, Rainbow's, the latest Moths and all the big boat fleet, join the run for the race out of the heads for the Sydney to Hobart... depending on the sailer all have an equal chance of winning.

But then again, life isn't fair, and I'd rather cheap sail boats/yachts for sail then have them all holding their construction cost.

That Rainbow is still 'good' in my books....