I'm afraid we are flying alright where we should be standing with both feet on the ground.

>>one thing that compromises most boats that now carry spinnakers is that most class rules limit pole length to 80cm beyond the bow, I don't know why they do this, but Formula 16, formula 18, Formula 18Ht, Tornado and Formula 20 all do this,

Formula 16 does not.

Formula 16 specifies a pole length of 3.50 mtr in front of the beam. This is 1 mtr in front of the bows. And no matter what skiff lovers say the cats beat them fair and square. A 49-er with spi has a rating about equal to a Prindle 16 without a spi.


>>hence the reason why poles are generally short on cats compared to skiffs,


I don't know about that, the 49-er spi tack isn't much further in front of the mast than the F16's. Same for 29-er and javelins (I think cherubs as well) and lets not even start on 505, 470 etc. Only the int 12 ft, 14 ft, 16 ft and 18 ft classes are unrestricted in this and have those massive poles. Look up those ratings if you have the time. Not very impressive. Only the 18's would impress a catsailor.

What am I saying here ? That I think it is funny that we are taking advice from a design concept that has yet to outperform Prindle 16's and Hobie 16's when having massive amounts of sailarea and almost no weights.


>>also skiffs have a neat way of getting around the lee helm problem, they sail them upright upwind and lean them to leeward downwind, the rig, and hull shape then creates a torque screwing the boat upwind which goes some way to balancing the leehelm effect of the kite way out front, cats obviously aim to fly a hull as much as possible so they can't do this.


This is not true. Take the 49-er again. Come to think of it I'm probably the only skiff sailor in this discussion group. Anyway. The 49-er has MASSIVE weatherhelm that is fully camouflaged by a balanced rudder. It is the reason why it is a non-kickup rudder setup. Leaving the beach and landing is a real pain in b*tt. And I know because I do it regulary. You can hardly pull in the main as that will weather vane the boat. It is also easy on the 49-er to overload the rudder and get a spin-out. Rapid and big turns need to be accompanied with significant mainsail sheeting. The RS 800 and laser X*1000 use kick-up rudders. Man ! do you learn to hate those. The rudder only needs to slip a little and all that weathelm is right on your tiller. Eventually we learned to lay the boats on their ear right after leaving the beach and to jam the rudder as far forward as we could and TIE it into place. And to top it out the 49-er may still have lee helm under spi. It is a BIG spi.

And one more point. I'm standing far more to the rear under spi than I do on upwind or even reaching courses. Does this imply a net lifting force of the spi ? Or that the spi actually presses the bow down that I push up again with my weight ?

Wouter