Jaybird,

In the F16 class we actually race uni-rig and sloops directly against one another and yes indeed what Jake says is true.

Pointing is only halve of the equation, boat speed is the other halve.

There are indeed two ways to achieving a high VMG.

The first is by pointing high and not loose too much boat speed

The second is by pointing a little lower and achieving sufficiently higher boatspeed.

Often the sloops excel at the last method.

Also most of the jib related discussions along the lines as you provide are just BS. Jibs are not inefficient sails, to the contrary. Adding sail area to your mainsail actually lowers aspect ratio and does not increase it as you suggest. Really high aspect mainsails have to be depowered significantly sooner, losing all their advantage in the higher wind ranges. For designs like the A-cats higher wind speeds mean anything above 8-10 knots.

A-cats not so much fast boats because of their uni-rig status, The fact that they have highly developped masts and sail and weight next to nothing has something to do with it to.

In the F16 class we use exactly the same hardware for both roles and indeed losing the jib while keeping everything else the same (like the number of crew) is slower upwind despite being able to point higher.

Wouter