The answer to the Uni vs Sloop debate was found a long time ago.

It goes something like this.



Give me your uni-rig design and I'll put a 25 % jib in front of it and beat you.

You will come back of course claiming that this isn't fair, because I have more sailarea.

"Naturally" ; you say :"if I can put that jib area in my mainsail it will be more efficient"

So I give in and allow you to put the jib area into your mainsail.

Then I ask to have your uni-rig again so I can put another 25 % jib in front of it and beat you again.

By now you are getting angry at me or you start to realize that the benefit of the sloop rig is not found in whether it is the most efficient rig of them all but in the fact that it can hold enough sailarea to compensate for the reduction in mainsail efficiency and still get some additional drive.

Of course at some point the mainsail is maxed out in area, adding more area will not add more drive. At that moment a sloop rig can still add 25 % more sail area by having a jib and get roughly 20% more drive while the uni-rig is stuck at being maxed out.

And this is the reason why unlimited racing classes like the 18 foot skiffs have never gone down the uni-rig route.

Now set the class rules to a total area that is 125 % of the amount that you can realistically have in your mainsail and the uni-rigs can shake it.

Anybody who doesn't believe these comments is welcome to come to any Tornado or F18 event and race the sloops rigs as a uni-rig by leaving the jib in the bag. You will learn soon enough that the additional pointing ability is not enough to compensate for the lost drive c.q. speed upwind. I think this was the experience Tornado_Alive shared with the world a few years back. The difference may be small but will definately be there. And of course as soon as you are on a shy or broad reach (non-spin) it will be bye-bye baby.

So basically a sloop is not losing on the upwind in VMG while does retain "another tool in the shed" when the racing goes below "pointing as high as you can" due to a windshift, overstanding the mark or doing a distance race.

End of story.

Wouter