Bob Hodges wrote that article and it was highly informative for me as well. He tunes in on occasion and is still at the pointy end of the fleet so let's hope he updates it for us.

The advice to me from Lars Guck was ... If you have a 2002 design or later the boat won't hold you back for at least a couple of years at the national level...(flyer wave piercing design innovation) for a club level racer lots of designs will work and it just depends on how good of shape the boat is in. Get a good boat and go sailing.

After that... it depends where you are in the pecking order and what level to you want to race at for the equipment to really matter.

Good luck