Mary and Kevin,

The reason not to do the race with the build your own boat format is that I understand in years past most boats did not make it to the finish. It would not be very good for media and spectators to watch a few boats trying to make it up the coast and not even being close to each other. I agree it would be fun to see the designs though.
As far as putting in all the check points, it is better for media and spectators to watch a start and finish each day. If you just raced the whole distance without any stops teams would be spread out all over. Spectators would only come to the start and finish (that would be two media events compared to 26 with check points).
I think F 18 or F 20 would be good and you would be sailing boat for boat and could have different manufactures competing aginst each other.