Actually this point makes both sides right and we were all just a bit unlucky to get such challenging conditions for the event.

If the mast-rig combo is so tunable then there is certainly an argument to be had about having only one setting for all crews. Otherwise one crew good indeed stumble on a "good fast in high wind" setting and nail the race. And lets not forget that is not uncommon for racing crews in round robin formats to mess with the boat settings before handing it over to the next crew. I think the Alter Cup committe has a strong point in keeping everything identical. In making this choice you have to decide on which settings to use before the racing starts. So what do you do ? Go for some average (10 knot) setting.

If the weather had been 7-14 knots then I'm sure the chosen mast setup would have been fine. Maybe some could have be gained by retrimming but that would only be speed oriented and not control oriented. As indicated by Mike Kranz in his quote :"On the plus side, it sailed exceptionally well in 15 knots and flat water.".

Indeed on practice day they had 8-12 knot winds and everything was fine till for the real races it got up to 14 to 20+ knots. Matt and some other crews know what can be done to adjust the boat to these conditions by some retuning but within the Alter Cup round robin format this really can't be done. Nor would that have been fair to the crews new to the boat.

I guess Matt and VWM, naturally looking to achieve the best showcase for their boats, simply got a bit of bad luck here with the winds piping up. Despite their best efforts.

Afterall you don't really want to sail a F18, A-class or Tornado in 20+ knots wind with its 10 knots rig settings either. This is just the nature of modern racing boats.

So interestingly enough both sides of the argument are right.

But indeed the interest of the Alter Cup fairness of racing could only take precedence over the business interest of VWM. Still I don't think the reports are too shabby despite this small conflict of interests.

Nor should any of us fear critical reports. No boat is perfect and if the bad points are (as of yet) only encountered in big winds and on one specific course when you are not retriming then I think we should be quite pleased with that ! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />


More reports please !

Wouter