As virtually all my racing is based around SCHRS handicap racing then Bitsa has to conform to the pecularities of a rather antiquated one calculation fits all system. We as solo sailors are penalised in my opinion and few Uni boats can conform to their ratings, one only has to look at the F16 rating between solo and dual, both being the same rating. Can a solo boat beat a dual boat, I think with the new powerful rigs and sail handling systems available, it is now very very very unlikely.

So how do I "trick" the boat out to try and get any sort of advantage. The only real way in my view is to use very well developed mast and sail combos ( A Class ) and hull design to suit the Uni sailor rather than the hull designs which suit the dual sailors weight ( RM ) and extra drive of the jib.

I chose to go to the narrower beam for a number of reasons, pricipally it helps a lot in reducing the handicap rating in SCHRS, enough to allow a lighter boat and more high aspect rig. Secondly to get a faster hull ( in theory although I think some of the new designs are proving otherwise )one has to increase the hull width to waterline length ratio. Once we go to a finer hull as I have tried to do, immersion from the RM becomes a problem ( drag through the water )however by using angled boards creating lift this can be reduced somewhat ( think A class with their new C boards ). So lots of design factors here being influenced by a handicap calculation.

Last but not least, when I moved from the Stealth 2.3 to fitting the full 2.5m beams, it was very noticable in the handling at just how that 200mm effects the boat. The boat became much easier to control the heel, it became much more likely to bury the nose in a tripping sort of way, it became much more sluggish in handling,it became possible to over load the boards and start going sideways rather than tracking true.

So by choice wishing to compete under SCHRS handicap, I went narrower and probably would go narrower even further on real life experiance. It would certainly make for a very lively boat and probably only the very experianced sailor would be able to get the best out of it, but it would lower the handicap significantly and allow even finer hulls that would benefit from C boards.

Bitsa has become about the package under SCHRS I'm afraid to say, one cannot compete at F16 meets due to the anomoly of our class rules so one has to compete on handicap.