Interesting what you say about flutter. On the Tornado we regularly lost grip with the leeward rudder when flying a hull and hauling the main tight when going upwind. I dont think there were any flutter as there were no noticable vibrations and no escalation. Rudder loads were light and we did have positive rake on rudders vs pintles/angle. However we were sailing with 200kg on the trapeze and class standard mast rake. This problem went mostly away when we used less mast rake. My conclusion back then was that we overloaded the rudders and experienced loss of lift as the poor rudder was asked to balance too much total load.
I am fully with you on the foil balancing to avoid a heavy helm and flutter as it is defined here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroelastic_flutter#FlutterCudos for your willingness to experiment! Wires are a worst case for drag I think. But seriously, we should look at our bodies and how we dress onboard as well. Drag reduction is the game for optimization!
For width I always enjoyed the curves showing righting moment vs angle of heel. Decreasing the max widt also decreases max potential RM. By going less wide the boat should in theory not be faster and heel angle should, again in theory, be controlled by crew positioning. What I think you imply is that we, the sailors, are not good enough at getting our positioning correct (we dont move our "behinds" inwards from the hulls)? Where do you notice the most difference with a less wide boat. Upwind, downwind or even?
We drilled the beams for max width when assembling the platform, but beams are affordable
Thanks for sharing Wayne!
