BIC O'pen
2008 June 6
June 2008
Dinghy
If you want to teach your young son or daughter self-sufficiency, I don't think there is a better way of doing it than shoving them off in a small dinghy. I started my two sons, ages 8 and 6, in an El Toro dinghy. It was a very exciting day for me when my eldest, Max, went for his first solo sail in the El Toro. He sailed straight out from the beach. I yelled, "tack!" He put the helm over, but not enough, and promptly went into irons 100 feet from the beach. He opened his mouth in one of those Charlie Brown gapes and started to cry, or maybe it was a scream. I yelled at him to shove the boom to weather until he got some helm and soon he was headed back to the beach. I waded out waste deep, caught him, turned him around, and shoved him back out. We did this several times and finally I said, "I'm not going to catch you this time. You will have to tack." He spent the rest of the afternoon reaching back and forth and making the 8-foot El Toro go like only a 60-pound kid can. I was really proud.
In a dinghy, far enough off the beach to be out of a parent's yells, a kid is on his or her own. Tantrums don't work out there and they will find their way back to the beach despite your concerns. They just do it. Get the brochure for the BIC O'pen and look at the faces of the kids sailing this dinghy. The looks go from ecstatic to intense. Pushing a fast dinghy to its limit can be serious stuff and it also can be a lot of fun. I'm not sure if these kids sailing dinghies look like adults or we adults sailing bigger boats don't look like kids. Either way, I'm not sure there is another experience available to kids that can impart the same feeling of total self-reliance that dinghy sailing can.
The choice of boat is very important if you want to teach your youngster to sail. The problem with the El Toro I had was that it could swamp easily. Once swamped you had to get it back to the beach to bail it out. The O'pen looks ideal to me for the job. You cannot swamp it and if it capsizes-and it will capsize-it can be very easily righted. Part of teaching your kid how to sail involves teaching him capsize righting techniques. Obviously safety has to be paramount in choosing a trainer for your kid.
The 9-foot O'pen is a thoroughly modern design that looks like a high-performance dinghy. Kids want to know that they are sailing something that is state of the art. Beam is only 3.74 feet. The bare hull weighs 99 pounds. That's considerably heavier than a boat built in composite materials, but the O'pen is built using "twin-sheet thermoforming technology." This differs from rotomolding. The main difference I think I see is that there appears to be a hull-to-deck joint on the O'pen, and that would not be there with a rotomolded boat. The O'pen is very durable and easy to sail off a rocky beach. There is even a "nose guard" on the bow to protect it from abrasion damage. The rudder and centerboard are composite epoxy.
Recommended crew weight is 143 pounds, and this means that two 70-pounders can have a ball in this boat. Max recommended crew weight is 198 pounds. The sail has 48 square feet with full-length battens and a high-tech looking fat-head cut.
I'm a couple of pounds over that max crew weight but I'd love to give this dinghy a try.
Dinghy
If you want to teach your young son or daughter self-sufficiency, I don't think there is a better way of doing it than shoving them off in a small dinghy. I started my two sons, ages 8 and 6, in an El Toro dinghy. It was a very exciting day for me when my eldest, Max, went for his first solo sail in the El Toro. He sailed straight out from the beach. I yelled, "tack!" He put the helm over, but not enough, and promptly went into irons 100 feet from the beach. He opened his mouth in one of those Charlie Brown gapes and started to cry, or maybe it was a scream. I yelled at him to shove the boom to weather until he got some helm and soon he was headed back to the beach. I waded out waste deep, caught him, turned him around, and shoved him back out. We did this several times and finally I said, "I'm not going to catch you this time. You will have to tack." He spent the rest of the afternoon reaching back and forth and making the 8-foot El Toro go like only a 60-pound kid can. I was really proud.In a dinghy, far enough off the beach to be out of a parent's yells, a kid is on his or her own. Tantrums don't work out there and they will find their way back to the beach despite your concerns. They just do it. Get the brochure for the BIC O'pen and look at the faces of the kids sailing this dinghy. The looks go from ecstatic to intense. Pushing a fast dinghy to its limit can be serious stuff and it also can be a lot of fun. I'm not sure if these kids sailing dinghies look like adults or we adults sailing bigger boats don't look like kids. Either way, I'm not sure there is another experience available to kids that can impart the same feeling of total self-reliance that dinghy sailing can.
The choice of boat is very important if you want to teach your youngster to sail. The problem with the El Toro I had was that it could swamp easily. Once swamped you had to get it back to the beach to bail it out. The O'pen looks ideal to me for the job. You cannot swamp it and if it capsizes-and it will capsize-it can be very easily righted. Part of teaching your kid how to sail involves teaching him capsize righting techniques. Obviously safety has to be paramount in choosing a trainer for your kid.The 9-foot O'pen is a thoroughly modern design that looks like a high-performance dinghy. Kids want to know that they are sailing something that is state of the art. Beam is only 3.74 feet. The bare hull weighs 99 pounds. That's considerably heavier than a boat built in composite materials, but the O'pen is built using "twin-sheet thermoforming technology." This differs from rotomolding. The main difference I think I see is that there appears to be a hull-to-deck joint on the O'pen, and that would not be there with a rotomolded boat. The O'pen is very durable and easy to sail off a rocky beach. There is even a "nose guard" on the bow to protect it from abrasion damage. The rudder and centerboard are composite epoxy.
Recommended crew weight is 143 pounds, and this means that two 70-pounders can have a ball in this boat. Max recommended crew weight is 198 pounds. The sail has 48 square feet with full-length battens and a high-tech looking fat-head cut.
I'm a couple of pounds over that max crew weight but I'd love to give this dinghy a try.
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