5.5m Lake Garda, Italy (BIG image)

[Kim Whitmyre]

http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums/uploads//post-10-1100195331.jpg

Beautiful scene!

[Spokaloo]

Spent some quality time on Lago di Como last year, next door to Lago di Garda. This photo brings back some memories to say the least!

Another common sight out on these lakes, Hydrofoil ferries!

http://trecento.com/pics/locations/como/hydrofoil.jpg

And the slow ferries:

http://www.stevefazzio.com/images/Northern%20Italy/Lake_Como_to_Bellagio/como_ferry.jpg

and finally a traditional boat to the lakes region, which is rowed Venetian style:

http://www.stevefazzio.com/images/Northern%20Italy/Lake_Como_to_Bellagio/Lake_Como_Boat.jpg

Thanks for starting the thread!

E

[Kim Whitmyre]

Gorgeous geography, how nice to have been there :cool:

[bamamick]

the displacement keelboats out there (not including the class libre stuff on the same lake). The least expensive of the development classes, there are usually two or three boats built a year by Wilke in Switzerland.

The boat in the picture is one of the 'Ali Baba's' and as I understand it has already been replaced with a newer design. 5.5's share a lot of the design characteristics of the ACC rule and you can see the hull shape having a lot in common with those boats in the photo.

In today's yacht racing market 5.5's are failry reasonable in cost. For about 125K euro you can get in the game new, and for less than half of that you can get a good used 'modern' hull ready to go. 5.5's race in three divisions. 'Classic' 5.5's are those with the full keel and rudder attached. 'Evolutions' are those with a seperate keel and rudder up to about 1990. Boats built after that time are considered 'moderns'. 5.5's allow carbon everything, any sail material, etc. They are a development class, and as such you have a lot of options in what you can do to with your boat.

The biggest fleets right now are Switzerland, of course, Finland and Norway, and Holland, but there are fleets all over Europe. The only modern 5.5's in North America are members of the Bahamian fleet in Nassau, but there is a fleet of 'frozen' 5.5's (a one design fleet of fiberglass hulls built by Columbia Yachts between 1961 and 1963 iirc) sailing around the San Francisco Bay area.

DonZ and other folks can give you more information, but the 5.5 rule is in no way connected to the Universal or International rules that have discussed so well here in the past. These boats, though close in length to a 6mR, are about half the weight, with shorter rigs and jibs as opposed to overlapping headsails. I had a Columbia 5.5 for a couple of years and I can tell you that they are a joy to sail. Not as beautiful to my eye as a 6mR or a Dragon, but quite nice to sail.

Mickey Lake

[rbgarr]

Love IT!

[Ocean Spray]

Mickey, what is the line or sheet that is running from the luff or leading edge of the jib just above the deck?

[bamamick]

I don't know why they don't use launchers like the more civilized classes do :).

Mickey Lake