What happens when none of the F18's can break through the surf like what happenened in Jupiter last year I think or even worse when only one 18 gets through with a few 20's leaving the rest to go up the coast on trailers.Maybe this is a new thread ,just curious where it leaves the racees integrity.
Now you opened a completely different can of worms there! IMHO, the 20 doesn't have an advantage getting through the surf...in fact, I believe it to be quite the contrary due to the huge fat bows on the 20 really taking a big hit when they try to punch through a wave. The team on the F18 you speak of had very little experience in that kind of surf and, as did Team Seacats and most of the other teams that year, they suffered from it.
As far as the penalty goes, 8 hours added to the last place boat's finish for the day is draconian and will typically take a mid to upper team completely out competition (which our sponsors LOVE (not)). To penalize a team MORE for NOT attempting to launch is even worse.
The penalty should be reasonable. A two hour...or even maybe all the way up to a 4 hour addition is plenty of a penalty to destroy whatever position your team was in but still leave you some clawing you can do within the fleet. You think it's easy to pack up all that boat gear, fix the torn sail, broken battens, tattered rigging? When stuff like that happens, assuming that everyone is still in good physical shape afterward, we're eating that huge penalty AND staying up half the night to put the boat back together and fix everything...there's no tactical advantage to fail getting through the surf.
