There are a few widened Taipan 4.9's around and have been for several years. About halve of them have been converted by AHPC themselves upon request by buyers. All widened Taipans used the same main beam section and AHPC simply used the same dolphin striker setup but with a longer strap. Non of these have ever shown any issues in whatever way possible. I refer to these as one would expect these to develop issues first because of the larger leverage forces due to being wider. All wide Taipans did however replace the rearbeam with a longer round tube 80x2 with a seperate traveller rail, most for convenience as the square rearbeams come cut to length from the factory and AHPC still had these beams from the time when the A-cats had alu beams. The homebuilders used these as they are alot easier to get hold of and give a little bit more stiffness to the wider platform as well.

Apart from that all spinnaker equipped Taipans are stock with regard to the main components like platform and mast/stays and none has experienced issues so far. I think Phill said it ones best. He said :"the loads of a jib and single forestay on an upwind leg are just so much larger then any spinnaker can generate when downwind that the original design will take a spi in its stride" I think this to be the best short explanation of the situation as we now know it = not a single failure worth mentioning with spi equipped Taipans. Hell, even the masts take ALOT more of downright spinnaker abuse them we ever expected them to. I think we have all seen the pictures showing the mast bending forward with the mainsheet slacks and the spi tight. I can't report a single mast being broken that way so far, although there is sure enough going to be a time where someone will push it too far that way but it hasn't happened yet; despite clocking many sailing hours with many boats over many years so far.

I'm absolutely convinced that the basic Taipan design (no reinforcements) can take the spinnaker without a hitch structurally wise.

Wouter