I have recently relocated to Florida. I would like to be able to just rub it in to all you Northern guys out there about the greatly extended sailing season, because normally at this time of year I would be carefully watching the weather reports to get in that last sail before the water turned hard.

The rub is that being an active racer as well as a recreational sailor, I found that my current boat will not work racing here (Just 1 more increase in my cost of living). As they have about equal distance and bouy racing with the complete gambit of boat types from waves to I20s etc, the racing is typically portsmouth. I can race my H16 to the numbers, but becuase of the vast difference in the numbers between the "top dog" boats and my toy boat, the outcome of the race is too dependant on the conditions.

I digress. This post is not to bitch about handicap racing, but my goal in racing is to race as close to head-head with the best sailors I can. As most of the big dogs are on I20s etc that would be the boat I would like to sail. The issue with this is that I am light, (I met my wife sailing at a nationals, and I wish to continue sailing with her) and am not willing to add a gazillion pounds of dead weight to my boat. Its not safe, and more importantly its not moveable and representative to true crew weight.

Most of the posters asking about which boat they should purchase, end up with a list boats promoted by their owners.
This is OK, but I am not a novice, and with the exception of some of the European models, I have sailed on most of the boats out there already. I've been searching the net for info and rules on the various boats, but am having difficulty completing the table to compare the readily available models.

Looking for:
1) Handicap number as close as possible to I20 or equal for close to head-head racing
2) Designed for spin (needed for this Florida light air)
3) Has class rules that allow for the lowest minumum crew weight
4) Has a strong enough presence that there would be races in the US where it could be raced 1 design

I have been looking closely at the Hobie Tiger, as it loosely fits most of these requirements, but if there was something else out there that did not weigh quite so much, I would gladly look at it.

Thanks in a dvance for any input you may have.

Needing to go faster

Matt