My thinking is that more RM dont always result in better speed, but there is a sliding scale. Anyway, if you sail in a strong-wind area and you care about it, go max beam (there is so much psychology into this, so if you think you are at an disadvantage, do something to equalize it).

Simon,

since we have the advantage of having the SCHRS guru in the class, how much would the SCHRS rating change in this case? Always useful to know a bit about how large the theorethical difference is.