The Buzz is a sailing dinghy designed in 1994 by Ian Howlett and John Caig and manufactured by

Reg White Reginald James White () was an English boat builder, sailor, Olympic champion and world champion. He won a gold medal in the '' Tornado class'' with John Osborn at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal Montreal is the List of tow ...

Limited of

Brightlingsea Brightlingsea (, traditionally , , ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the Tendring District, Tendring district of Essex, England. It is situated between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea, at the mouth of the River Colne, Essex, River Colne, on ...

as part of the "White Formula" range of boats originally marketed by Topper International Ltd but since 2013 by Vantage Sailing. The Buzz is a double handed racing boat, with a single

trapeze A trapeze is a short horizontal bar hung by ropes, metal straps, or chains, from a ceiling support. It is an aerial apparatus commonly found in circus performances. Trapeze acts may be static, spinning (rigged from a single point), swinging or ...

for the crewman. The boat has a fully battened mainsail, furling jib and an

asymmetrical spinnaker An asymmetrical spinnaker is a sail used when sailing between about 90 and 165 degrees from the angle of the wind. Also known as an "asym", "aspin", "A-sail", or gennaker, it can be described as a cross between a genoa (jib) and a spinnaker. It is ...

. There have been around 500 boats built. The Buzz is designed to be an easy to sail boat, but it can also be raced competitively.

Performance

The Buzz is similar to the

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

racing dinghy, it is scaled down version of the larger boat, being 10 kg lighter and with a smaller sail area of 12.85m², compared to the ISO's 14.74m². However, unlike the ISO the Buzz does not have the option of wings to assist the righting moment for shorter or lighter crews. The Buzz can be an exhilarating boat to sail and is claimed to be a safe starting point for asymmetric skiff sailing. The boat also has good performance, making it suitable for racing by more experienced crews. The Buzz has proven itself to be easy to right after capsizing, and it is straightforward to re-board the boat from the water, partly due to its low centre of buoyancy and self draining cockpit with its open transom. The open transom also means that the boat drains quickly on righting doing away with the need for self bailers. The Buzz can be sailed by a wide age range; in the UK National Championships for Buzz's the crews who won the individual races varied greatly in weight, proving that the Buzz offers opportunity to sailors of all ages and weight. The Buzz has a beam of nearly two metres, giving it a very large width, which means that it is easily accessible to older or larger sailors.

References

External links

The Buzz Class Association HomepageBuzz Details and Information at go-sail
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buzz (Dinghy) Dinghies Former classes of World Sailing 1990s sailboat type designs