I agree with Mark that the jury is still out on this. I'm an "other guy" and I sailed next to plenty of "other guys" with curved boards at the Belmont Worlds. I couldn't see any discernible speed difference in straight line speed between those boats and my Geltek Flyer II with canted boards. Ashby has been sailing his prototype boat in Australia using canted boards waiting on the result of the ballot which is designed to clarify the spacing of board tips. He intends to use curved boards if the ballot gets up. He has been in Europe recently though sailing F18 at Carnac and Texel. He didn't sail the European A titles - so no clues there. They were won by Bob Baier who used curved boards and a small head sail. Second by one point was Steve Brewin using canted boards and a big head sail. How do we figure all that out!!!! I'm just sitting back enjoying all this with my money still in my pocket. Although I have been trialling a big head sail for the last 4 months. It's way faster for me at 90kg down hill, but started out slower than my own sail up hill. I've been working hard with some changes to the top third and it's getting faster up hill. I reckon this has more potential to make me faster than going to curved boards. I've tested this theory by using the sail on a Boyer MkIV with fat straight boards on canted hulls. It's still fast.
I'm using this sail on a Tim Kirkham designed Object in the Top End of Australia Titles in Darwin in three weeks time, so maybe I'll learn more there.

Cheers
John Dowling
AUS9