dont get me wrong i love my hobie and dont plan to go back to dinghys, and i understand the lure of speed having sailed painfully slowly most of my sailing life. in our club on the southeast coast most of our racing is light air and can be very shifty. we sail a mixed fleet, lasers, mc scows, jy 15, etc. a lot of these guys seldom go out just to relax, theyre either racing or practicing racing. racing is a game, like chess, and speed is somewhat irrelevant. in the ten seconds that a cat took to tack john potter would have tacked three times, with very little loss of boatspeed, and stayed in phase with each shift as it occurred. feeling his way upwind. i have a hard time keeping up with that, though i love the challenge. i am surprised at how fast and high i can point my boardless h16 against this fleet, given a long enough leg i can walk away.