malc,
I just gotta tell a story on this subject. We bought our first Hobie back in 1980 -- a Hobie 18. We took it to its first regatta at the Sandusky Sailing Club in western Lake Erie. Lots of boats there. And we had been hearing rumors that the Hobie 18 "top gun" was going to show up -- John Barnett!

He pulled in late with this extremely ugly boat. It had gray hulls, as I recall, and they were a very dull gray. He had taken off all the striping and decals and wet-sanded the hulls top to bottom, stem to stern. It was very intimidating.

Here we were at our first Hobie race, with our brand new, shiny boat; and the top sailor in Division 10 had a boat that looked like it belonged in a junk yard. We knew we were in trouble.

Well, we won the first race, but we lost the regatta to John. So, of course, we wet-sanded our boat, too.

And that's the way it goes. A top sailor does something, and sailors new to the class copy it. Does it work? Who knows. We did really well in Division 10 with our dull boat, but was it because of the dull?

We did not wet-sand our next two Hobie 18's because -- well, because it is a lot of work, and we really didn't think it was necessary -- and it is really hard to re-sell a dull, ugly boat.