Let's hold off the lynch mob heading for EP for just a little while - they seem to have had an honest quality issue with the glue on the sails and have expressed an open willingness to deal with the issue. Besides being a little extreme, if we continue down this big negative loud path, it could actually inhibit an agreeable resolution.
This kind of thing is NOT that uncommon. As was recently relayed to me by another Tybee sailor, a similar thing happened with Melges 24 spinnakers made by North Sails some time ago with them blowing apart at a steady pace at a North American or World's Championship (I don't recall which).
Give EP a chance to make it right - I'm sure they will as they are a reputable sailmaker and have been making Nacra sails for a loooooong time and I would say that, in general, their quality is at least on par (if not substantially better) than many other manufacturer supplied sails. These things do happen in all kinds of business and technology and while I think it's reasonable to expect recovery on the equipment loss/failure, we should also focus on learning from it and add one more sewing/reinforcement task to our preparation for a race like this.
