I did scoring and boat rotations at the previous 3 Alter Cups and the data from those events points to the boats being very evenly matched. Boats were tuned (by Robbie and his crew) to the same settings and checked regularly during the competition. 20 teams sailed the 10 boats in an average of 20 "heats". Without looking back at the data I can say with a fair amount of certainty that all boats had at least one first and at least one last place finish. Theoretically, if 10 races (20 heats) are held all teams would sail each boat once. In reality, after the 9th race there was usually 1 or more teams that had to repeat on a boat, but we always made it to 9. If the boats had completely equal finishes they would average 5.5, I don't believe this varied more than one point either way. The sailors I asked said they saw the boats as the same.

That being said, I bought a 6.0 from the 2000 (I think) Alter Cup (I was fortunate enough to get to pick second) and I think there was some real disparity amongst those boats. Several stayed in this area and we saw some real differences. I asked the competitors at the end of the Regatta and they had some real favorites and some they thought were dogs.

AHPC quality control vs. Nacra quality control? Beach crew quality control? Some of both?