It becomes a continuous cycle that is very advantagous to the life of the class.
I can't even count the number of manufacturers of the F18 on two hands.
I can count the number of manufacturers of the N20 on one finger.
The number of F18 sailors are 10-fold that of the N20.
The scale of the situation makes it different for the N20 in regards to sail development. I think you'd be hard pressed to get economies of competition by opening up the sail plan to all lofts when a lot of those lofts will be starting from scratch on sail development - and they'll likely need at least three different sail versions before a competition one is ready. With the chance that they would maybe sell a handful of those sails after they are developed - I don't know if a loft would be willing to put the R&D effort into an N20 sailplan that they would into a F18. We have a commitment from EP because they would be the only legal game in town.
I'm not OPPOSED to opening up the sail plan completely, but I don't think its fair to hold up the A-cat and F18 classes as comparable. I think that what others have mentioned - that if this does indeed lead to the resurgence of the class - then opening up the sail plan would be a definite possibility.
