RS Feva - Quick Notes on this As Your Club Choice of Youth Boat

Firstly, in choosing the RS Feva for 11 - 15 year olds you have made a very good choice!!!

Where and Why Does the Boat Fit in with Youth Training ?

 One weak point here for a club running them: teenagers will grow too big for these things when they are about 5'6" and 120 lbs- I cannot double hand one as I am just too big and heavy so that hinders my teaching in them.  Also it is a big jump to boats like the 29er and the 420 because of the standard kite however the Feva spans a very large part of the learning curve.



Our best team are now 18 years old up there in the 29er national rankings top three places and we have maybe 40 29ers on the circuit / Nationals here, so the feva is a really good introduction to assy sailing.


They are pretty indestructible apart from hard groundings on the centreboard which are not good. Also some early centre-boards were sinkers- check yours float!! They should be secured with the bungee and hook supplied, and we sail with them down all the time.


There are a couple of good tuning guides you will find on the internet and some great RYA britain videos on their web site about the boat


On Tuning-

We were recommended to run a hard jib wire / luff using a knotted purchase on the halyard and we had the national champ here on that basis: However that prove to be a little slow internationally at the "world" championships and you need jib luff sag to power the (rather heavy) boat up in light winds or chop.



Kite is usually hoisted while kneeling over the centre line as this is stable, but for smaller sailors they should stand such they get used to skiff style hoists and use their full reach with elbows . Getting the kite down is problematic unfortunetly- worth some special lube on the pole - it does take some brute force. Dousing the halyard too early will resuilt in an under bow fishing tour so watch out!



You can rig a strop release for the halyard and some other bungee cords for the forward cockpit, but we felt that this was too much hassle for beginners / intermediate sailors. The spinnie halyard will jam in the cleat or knot up in a fankle pretty easily especially when coiled, so it should be stowed in the tidy bag when flying and then flaked out zig zag behind the cleat on the douse.



I think the rudders had an issue with staying up due to the cheap plastic wing-nut affair, but no doubt RS have sorted that or you can find class legal tips.



Bit on safety: that the boats have pretty high volume top sides and thus they turtle over after just a little while, so you want to teach the "stand on mast, leg over when you reach 90 degrees over " rapid righting technique that the 29ers do. They also will sail them selves when righted if you have the large battened mainsails, so teach the kids to hold on to the boat.



On this point - DO NOT FIT THE BOATS WITH CLEATS FOR THE MAIN SAIL SHEET!!! just use the ratchet setting on the block - i think the block on the boom also has a ratchet or using one is class legal.


Our best team are now 18 years old up there in the 29er national rankings top three places and we have maybe 40 29ers on the circuit / Nationals here, so the feva is a really good introduction to assy sailing.



wishing you best of luck and lots of fun with your youth members!!!



Freddie