I feel ya, and I have no illusions about my abilities, probably the inverse in fact. Like I said, I'm talking boat speed, and height, not the good calls where you make a good call by going right when the fleet goes left, I'm talking side by side. The Viper flat out smokes in heavy air with a heavy crew. I'm not counting the moments of brilliance, or the blunders, thats why I say my results from that event aren't a good example because we f'd up a lot. (hell, we managed to hit a moored boat while leading the last race against the boys who we had probably 100lbs on at the time) Plus I was very new to the Viper at 2010 Nationals. But we had speed, dirty nasty speed. In the light air, you do get beat up pretty good, but on average it comes out as a net gain running her heavy. The mid range winds, it doesn't seem to have a massive effect one way or another, which is probably true of any boat.

Reiss/Chu were something like 260lbs at Tradewinds this year. I can tell you from how Robbie set up their mast that they were way too light, and they had the had their hands full. Spreaders were just about maxed out in rake, and the diamonds were so tight, that the mast was bending, but not pulling anymore tension on the wires.




I just don't like the illusion that the F16's can't handle weight and still perform.