The one thing I did not understand (well, I understand the logic but I disagree with it) was why, when you have the Blade Expert on site, who could easily tell you where the spreaders should be, how much prebend would be good, etc, and maybe even put on a Q+A period before the practice race, why would you NOT use him for this given that most crews had zero time on the boat??

I realize some may have thought that if Matt were to help set up the masts, then someone might claim he had some kind of unfair advantage. Still, that's no reason to set the mast up wrong, just so nobody has an imagined "advantage". I would trust Matt to set them up for the conditions and tell the crews how to best operate the mast/sail combination, as he has much more invested in the boats performing well vs. winning the regatta.

He was really put in a no-win situation. If he had set up the masts properly and won the regatta, there would be acusations of him setting up the boats for his sailing style.

As it worked out, the masts were not set up right, jibs were poked by spreaders that were not raked back enough and main sails couldn't be depowered enough for the 20 knots because of the spreader set up. But at least all the boats were equally improperly set up so there was no unfair advantage for Matt...just potential customers who didn't like the way the mast was set up!

I was told this came about because last year, they used the Inter 20 and crews tweaked their own rigs, but when they swapped boats, the settings were all different, so it was harder for the crews to adjust to.

Still, when you have a brand new boat and an expert right there...why not use him and the settings he knows that work?