Tom-
Location is Lake Maumelle, about 10 miles west of Little Rock, AR. Jody is here from Chattanooga, TN on his Blade and Rob is here on his Taipan from Tyler, TX, Bob from College Station, TX had last minute family things come up so couldn't make it. We had great (for us!) wind today and rigged and tuned against each other most of the day but managed one race. Jody won with myself second and Rob third. Planning to do more racing tomorrow. Jody and I traded off boats for awhile and that was interesting comparing the Taipan and Blade back-to-back. I would have to say the most prevalent "feeling" we each had was the comparative "size" of the two boats, with the Blade feeling much "bigger" than the Taipan and we both felt that way! In terms of speed there was not much difference and it was hard to tell what accounted for what difference there was since there were numerable differences between the two Taipans and the Blade. I was using my bow line "tacking" Goodall spinnaker with a cobbled-together "snuffer" and was able to stay with the other 2 F16's using conventional poles/midpole snuffers and spinnakers. Wind was 8-12mph and somewhat flukey but we did some very long spinnaker runs and whichever boat managed to get a puff or was sailed better got the lead. Jody and I are planning to see you in B'ham in October!

Kirt