Racing catamarans may spend most of their time at sustained speed. But any good cat racer knows that its Blasting off the startline and smooth tacks and bouy roundings are where most of the ground is made in a steady breeze. Accelertion to top speed is essential for this.

I know what you do for a living, you've told everyone it seems. I just believe you are grossly over complicating the argument. Im suggesting that you should go back to the basics to get a better understanding of whats going on.

I try not to spend too much time decelerating when racing so i dont need a heavy boat.

Sue

Are you explaining junior grade secondairy education physics to me and then misapplying it ?

You really have no idea of what I do in my professional life do you ?



of which the drag forces are an very important part as the accelleration is only the result of the net difference between drag forces and drive forces. When both are equal and opposite to eachother the boat stops accellerating and had achieves max sustained speed (=topspeed).

Newtons second law of motion is therefor not a factor with respect to sustained straight line speed (=topspeed) which is what racing catamarans spend by far most of their time doing.

Of course, in reverse, a heavier boat decellerates (slows down) less then a lighter boat in the lulls and when encountering waves. A light boat may win at the start-line but will loose in the lulls by the same token.

You cherry pick concepts and then simply ignore the reverse effects to argue your case. A failing grade skill level even for a junior secondairy level pupil/student.

Wouter [/quote]