I love how every arm chair sailor can make such specific observations from still shots.
Lets see who these arm chair sailors are ?
Maybe Terry Back :
"Dunno' about Team Hess, but I was spectating just leeward of C and saw a couple of boats with the main sheeted "out" and traveller out ... we all commented about the boat ... "that mast is going to fold" ... it didn't but ohhhhh boy ..."
Timbo Bohan maybe ?
"I was there most of the day with Terry. (thanks again to you and your Dad for taking me out to watch the racing). ... I had to leave before the third race so I didn't see what happened with the mast failure thing. I did see some crews going downwind under spinnaker with the mainsheet eased WAY too far off, and you could see the mast bending the wrong way. I was amazed a few didn't break.
And the pictures provided certainly don't seem to go against these eyewitness reports.
<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> GASP !! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />
They were actually there and wrote the very same things as I did ! How can that be when far off mr Pecorak and Ingram just KNOW that what these persons saw happening in front of their noses wasn't really happening !
Now all we need is some 15 year old daughter telling me that I don't know [censored] about F16's.
Wouter