Actually I think the Nacra20 sailors are simply getting tired of having to buy poor quality, high priced equipment to remain "class legal". If EP and Nacra could just make consistently cut sails, I could get behind Tad's desire to keep the Nacra20 fleet SMOD. But I've bought plenty of sails from EP over the years for my Nacra20 and they've all been different. Not just a little different, but wow, is this the right sail different. I've heard the "sails stretch" argument, so your old sail won’t match up with your new sail, but that fails to explain, 2 brand new spinnakers being delivered within days of each other that were drastically different sail cuts. Neither of which matched any of the previously owned spinnakers for the boat. Out of the 5 spins I had for the boat, only 1 was worth a damn, but according to the Nacra20 rules, I wasn't allowed to get them recut, so them I’m left trying to retune the boat for a sub standard sail that I paid out the nose for. Is that really in the spirit of SMOD?
It goes even further though. I ordered a new tramp a few years back and was looking forward to having the new side laced design over the original "only tighten it from the back design". Well low and behold, my boat had 12 anchor points on the rear beam, but the new tramp had different number of attachment points on it causing none of the anchor points to match up? WTF? Really? Thanks Nacra.... Or how about the midpole snuffer hoop, that was designed for the Nacra F18, but is the only legal mid pole option for the Nacra20. Problem is, the hoop is too small for the size of kite. Does it work? Sure, but it sucks buoy racing with it.
I'm all for racing one design, if all the equipment is the same, but the reality of the situation is, none of the sails I got from EP were the same cut, so it's not a fair and level playing field.
Unfortunately it's all too little too late in my eyes. The class is dead, the boats are wearing out, new boats aren’t coming onto the scene, a lot of the top talent has left for the F18s and distance racing doesn’t seem to be as popular as it used to be.