Rater Development
Over the years raters have developed extraordinarily tall masts and high aspect mainsails to meet the local conditions, and catch the wind above the trees and other obstructions along the banks. Their sails were always large, but originally they had long booms and shorter masts, but over time the booms got shorter and the masts taller. At first they used the so-called balance lug rig, then the Gunter rig, before moving on to the current Bermuda rig. Over the years bamboo spars were replaced first by wood, then aluminium, and now mostly carbon fibre.
Read more about this topic: Thames A Class Rater
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)