Hello Thom,
Thanks for your confidence comment on Tom Haberman and myself. The ideal boat you describe is very close to an RC30. The RC30 has a 45ft tall carbon mast and 550 sqft of working sail area. I have tried several different cut screechers but I am having faster success with spinnakers from one particular sailmaker. Also screechers are twice as heavy as spinnakers. Roller furling gear is really heavy!
As far as boat width goes, I have 5ft wide wings on each side of the 30 which brings the overall width up to 26ft with a 30ft LWL. The weight of the boat is 1000 pounds.
I do not understand your comment about Afterburner and GMsails. The boat was a winner in New Zealand before it came to the US. It has been a winner ever since it has been in the US. So, what is this big difference that GMsails has made. All sails get old and have to be replaced eventually.
The RC30 is a breakthrough design. It has a lower Portsmouth Number by US Sailing than an F40 and it costs 1/20th as much. The people that sail the boat can take it apart for trailering or put it together for sailing. It can be towed by a normal size automobile or a van. The F40 requires a crane for dismasting and loading the hulls onto a flat bed trailer. A tractor is required to tow the flat bed trailer. It takes two people to carry the mainsail of a F40 down the dock. The RC30 mainsail weighs 36 pounds with battens. Winches are required to trim the sails on an F40. Winches are slow to respond with to changing sail trim/requirements. Pulley systems and cam action jam cleats are quick to respond with. Two guys can pick up a 175pound RC30 hull and move it around, load and unload etc. A crane is used to pick up an F40 hull and move it around. A crane steps the mast on the F40. The RC30 uses a gin pole and the mainsheet pulley system.
When boat size goes beyond 30ft, boat part weights quickly become greater than people can handle. For example, hull weight varies/scales with length cubed, l**3. A 175 pound hull at 30ft scales to 302 pounds at 36ft. Two guys can pick up a 175 pound hull easily. A couple of NFL linemen could pick up a 302 pound hull but not two 160 pound average sailors. The 30ft long beach cat is at the practical upper limit of manageable size boat components. Go beyonnd 30ft and things that increase in weight as the cube of their size just simply get out of hand for people to handle manually. For boats larger than 30ft in length and masts taller than 45ft, cranes and tractor trailer trucks are required and then the cost of boat ownership just exploated. That is why the whole F40 and Pro Sail thing failed, COSTS. If it had been done in RC30s, it would still be thriving today. The RC30 continues to turn in the lowest ET's and PN data that US Sailing has ever received.
Good Sailing,
Bill
PS I want to hear about you winning some races out there in Texas.