Okay summarizing :

Trey and Alan 172 kg (380 lbs)
Tad and Bailey 181 kg (400 lbs)
Chums and Corpus 190 kg (420 lbs)


Trey and his man can get by on the F18; they are above the fold but not by that much. In a race like Tybee, that 1% difference is not going hurt as much as on a regular congested course. Getting stuck in the surf by more then 4 min compared to your competition will already do that for you in a 7 hour race day. And we have seen more then a few boats get stuck by that amount.

The other two teams, well yeah, they ARE above the fold for the F18 in the way of competitiveness. Still doesn't mean they can't race it and do well, but they'll need a tad more skills to win out over a team at about 150 kg. They must expect about 2.5-3.0% performance diff around a race course.

To put things in perspective, this would amount to about 1 hour and 40 minutes over the recent Tybee if (and that is a big if) the final result is 100% dominated by boat speed. However, I remember Mischa commenting on a particular day that it was mostly about finding the right spots with wind and hardly about boat speed. And either team totalled up a delay of 6 hours to their fellow and first N20 anyway.

But anyway, there is no reason to ditch the N20 so this is all academic anyway.

Wouter