The idea is to take as much of the boat out of the equation as possible so that it is sailor against sailor. If you are familiar with the NASCAR IROC series, this is the same thing. All the boats are setup identically - batten tension, mast rake, rig tension, diamond wire tension, spreader rake, jib clew attachment point, etc. Sailors are only permited to make normal sailing adjustments while underway (ouhauls, downhauls, sheets, etc.).

We use 10 brand new boats because 20 would be too much for a manufacturer to justify. We use 20 teams because the yacht clubs couldn't pay for the event with only 10. In other US Championships, they use a pre-determined boat and sailor rotation schedule and you could (and they have) end up with a 1st place team that never beat the 2nd place team when they met on the water but still wins the regatta. For our championship, John Williams when he was chair of the event in 2005, introduced the promotion/relegation system that was an adaptation from model sailboat racing. A-fleet is the top fleet and each round, the places eight through ten are relegated to b fleet and places 1 through 3 in b-fleet are promoted to A. This way, the top sailors are racing the top sailors.