"I often think that the demise of the 18sq fleet in the US was the fact that the prototype boats would pull a horizon job on the production boats."

This doesn't seem to be a problem since the closest thing to a production F14 is the A&O and it's a full carbon rocket...If a "prototypes" does a horizon job on the fleet why can't the "fleet" step up it's game?

It seems the only accepted method of dealing with such an out come for the majority of cat sailors is to dumb down the better performer to make it "fair". Makes me wonder how much faster and more efficent our boats would be if not for all of the self imposed rules that tie our hands behind our backs.

The better question is why did everyone give up on the class just because one sailor found a better way?