A few more clarifications:

1. weeks prior to the event the OA encouraged me to attend, thinking that 2 or possibly 3 I20's were likely to attend. I was also in communication with two I20's that expressed interest...but none of these ultimately materialized...the "herding cats" image springs to mind.

2. In all the incidents I have referred to, I was not a victim of blatant on the water fouls like had happened to the OP with the mono fleet. At issue here is the verbal swearing and intimidation that occurred by SOME teams in the F18 fleet. Yes, this is technically a sportsmanship foul.

I believe over the course of the 7 races I started in, there was one actual foul against me shortly after the start. We had (another) lousy start, getting stuck behind 2 or 3 F18's, one of which was over early and created a parking lot off the line. By the time the jam cleared and we crossed, a port tacker was coming at us and there was no way he'd clear us. It was too late for him to do much, I luffed hard head to wind and loudly expressed my frustration with "Come on guys!"...They were quite apologetic was they went by, saying something like "Sorry, we'll buy you a beer later". While it would have been nice to see him take a penalty to be "Fair" to me and even his other competitors, at least the attitude he presented smoothed out my feelings. Had his attitude been indifferent or worse, I might have resorted to a protest.

At the Commodre's Classic Regatta put on by MHRA MHRA at Huntington Lake a few months back, there was one start for all classes (12 H20's, 2 Tornado's, 1 I20, 3/4 N5.8, 5.2's, 4 A-class plus other random cats). All but the 20's were Portsmouth-scored together...all started together and sailed the same course. Racing was tight with lots of crossings up & down wind on the multiple zig-zag course up the somewhat narrow lake. There was even hundreds of dollars worth of sponsor prizes on the line (MauiJim Sunglasses to the winners)...so it wasn't a beer can event. All boats, regardless of fleets and scoring implications, kept it civil and it was a wonderful event...best I have been to in many years. Maybe it was the spectacular scenary and 7000ft elevation that helped?