Stretch
Yep we've all got prebent poles to. We use Dyneema rope so no stretch there. But if you sail in decent breeze you'll have a fair bit of compression on the mast i.e. the side stay will go loose by a bit and that allows more slack in things. Even though we sail with almost 0 downhaul downhill, everything gives a little.
Most of the compression on the mast goes down the leeward side of the mast tube, becouse the windward diamond is supporting the tube very well. Mainsheet is also supporting the tube through the roach/cloth of the main. There is not a lot of compression on the mast compared to twin wiring upwind. The only way I can see to get 8cm of dynamic movement in the spi luff is by tuning the kite on the beach with a 200Kgs gorilla jumping up and down in the trapeze at the stern, some serious flex somewhere or a mainsheet released completely.
Pulling the Viper, Taipan and Blade up the ramp at the end of a sail it's Taipan, Viper, Blade in terms of 'easy'.
Pulling up the beach
Taipan is easy because it feels tiny after the Viper!
So why did you rank the beach handling with Blade as the worst? Should it not be Taipan4.9, Vectorworks Blade, Viper?
I am part of a group building three woodie Blades just now, so this is all very interesting. A lot of what you say dont make sense to me, like the above and why you need to strengthen the hull in front of the mainbeam becouse you put a different F16 rig on the platform. Is the water more viscous becouse of the new rig?
