I thought the narrow board trend came out of the America's Cup. Please correct me if I am wrong, but at the A worlds in NZ which was soon after the 2003 Americas Cup one of the Team NZ designers put the A through the program and found that the boards at that time on the Flyer were too wide. By moving to the high aspect board currently seen on the A and keeping everything else equal, the boat would be 6 boat lengths quicker to the top mark on a 1nm beat. Don't know what wind strength they were using and the other assumptions, but this started the trend to these boards in Aus starting in late'03/04. One of the A sailors brought these back to Oz for the Flyers with converter kits.

Don't know how the high aspect boards would work on a Taipan as there are different fundamental aspects to the rocker compared to a Flyer (or the F16 case the Blade).

I know that when I first sailed the Blade with their slightly longer retro-fitted Taipan boards, I felt that this one of the boat's weaknesses. It just didn't feel right with the board lift etc. I had just spent a week sailing a Capricorn so knew what to expect but the stubby fat Blade boards just didn't compare.

I know that the AC has changed foil design in race yachts with most new designs having thin narrow sections with large T-bulb. Interesting to see how this has crossed over to cats.

Cheers