Wouter at al,

Quoting the times for the first leg amy not give a lot of really usefull info as if one of the boats got a less than optimal start it might take them a few minutes to get out into clear(er) air and so get back up to a more optimal performance. What were the mid and final split times, these might give a more accurate performance comparison. Again this is still potentially flawed as there could be different wind at different times on the same bit of the course. I think that Texel (or any other large race like this) is not the ideal race for comparing times.

What was the course direction from the start to the lighthouse ? was it up or down wind, this could also make a big difference if one of the M20 / M20 platform based boats had 10 boats above them for a couple of minutes etc.

All interesting stuff, but not 100% sure the comparisons are very valid....