OK, let's stop dancing around the real issue here and discuss that instead. As I understand it, the Charter Waves will have Stock rudders and Stock sails. Fair enough. But the Other Waves might have "Special Sails" and "Special Rudders".
OK, why not have 2 divisions then? Stock and Non-Stock? 3 more trophy's to hand out, that's all it would take, everybody's happy, you could even turn it into a "A Fleet, B Fleet" type thing.
Hey, some people just want to buy a Wave and go racing and -not- have to buy a custom sail and custom rudders too, think of the added expense.
You guys in the Non-Stock division can spend thousands on custom square tops, carbon rudders, etc. if you want to, but don't make it so that a guy on a stock boat won't be competitive.
And obviously, if you are going to allow custom sails, you have to Measure them. Somebody needs to step up and do it, that's all.
At the Wave Midwest Championship Regatta in Indianapolis on May 16 & 17, we had a Gold fleet for the serious (non-stock) racers and a Silver fleet for us casual racers with stock boats. I won the Silver fleet and came home with a beautiful trophy.
We had 7 boats in the Gold fleet, from Indiana, Ohio and South Carolina; and two boats in the Silver fleet from central Indiana. I think this was a very fair way to do it, and it illustrates that the folks who are serious enough to travel will be the ones serious enough for custom sails. I can't afford to travel or buy custom sails, but I love my stock boat and enjoyed joining in on the regatta, win or lose. Since I have a stock sail, it wasn't measured, but I think there was some comparison of the non-stock ones to make sure they were okay.
I overheard a conversation that some of the "serious" racers who wanted to attend Havamega were planning to charter boats but bring their own sails, and that was what got nixxed, so they decided not to go.
I have some photos, but I haven't figured out how to upload them with the new forum software yet. Hopefully a full story will be coming out soon.
