Hi Jake,
Racks added to a N6.0 would definately make the boat faster than it presently is in medium and heavy weather and smaller people could sail the boat better/faster in stronger winds. These are all +++++s.
There was a time when boats were 8ft wide with double trap and sail areas were around 210 sqft to 220 sqft. Now we have added 0.5ft or 6% to the width of beach cats and the sail areas are up 20% to 30%. What's going on? Where's the balance? Ans: The factories have added sail area to their new products to make them faster than other new products. So what has happened is the new products are faster in light winds but they are slower when the wind blows and they now favor people of greater weight.
Notice the jam-up of Portsmouth Numbers around 60 + or - 1. There are boats of different sail plans and hull shapes and board and rudder shapes and rigging arrangements but they all run to the same PN which says these boats are the same performance level within 1 PN point. What is causing that???
These boats have one basic design measurement in common, the 8.5ft width. Boat width sets maximum righting moment. Max righting moment sets maximum sail thrust and maximum sail thrust sets max boat speed. So you give all these 20x8.5ft wide boats the same max sail thrust and they all go the same speed within 1 PN point.
Look at the CFR20, 20x8.5ft. A 275 pound boat with 287 sqft of sail on a 34ft mast and. Everybody thought this boat was going to be a rocketship being 150 pounds lighter than other 20x8.5ft wide boats plus it has a big unirig sail plan which is supposed to be more efficient. What is its PN? Guess what, 59.4. I point this out only to show how basic to performance 'boat width'is. Boat width is king when it comes to performance for boats of the same length. As long as we stick with this 8.5ft wide thing, we are going to be stuck with boats with a PN of 60. You can spend thousands of dollars and have all carbon everything and take a hundred plus pounds off the weight of your boat and your PN is still going to be 60 as long as the boat is 8.5ft wide. When are we going to break the barrier? When are we going to step into the world of really fast boats that the average size person can sail to its maximun in strong winds?
Bill