Some boats are just slow, so yes test sail it!! you don't wanna end up making alot of overhauls/changes to a boat you thought looked fast or taking the word of some "skipper" who just had the cash to buy big. you never REALLY know someone till you have sailed with them...same rules apply for the boat..atleast in my book.
I disagree with that. There is very little variance from boat to boat from any of the manufacturers. Things like clean and fair bottoms, clean foils, decent sails, proper boat setup, and - most importantly - proper sailing technique are what make them fast - there's no magic from boat to boat that makes one faster than the other.
I used to hear the same thing during the Alter Cup Championship where we have 10 new boats and 20 sailors rotating on the boats. The fleet would generally arrive at a conclusion that a couple of boats were the "faster" boats in the fleet. Once we started using a digital scoring and boat assignment system (to make sure everyone was getting rotated evenly on all the boats), I started putting together statistics on finishes by boat number...there was less than a 1.1% deviation in finish positions by boat - and that was consistent over the three years I was involved with the event.
