Hey John,

This is a longer discussion that we should probably have offline.

For example, having a sail loft provide in-kind support is pretty silly when you can't use sails besides those supplied by the manufacturer in a SMOD class.

As to my also-ran statement, there is a large speed delta between a F20c and F18. Exposure comes to those teams that make it to the beach first-doesn't matter if you are trying to win, if you show up an hour after the first 3-4 boats finish you aren't getting the on-beach exposure of the lead teams.

Beyond that, before last year I would have made the same bet as you John, that on some days the F18's would be at the beach first while the F20c's were still struggling to stay upright in the conditions, but that's kind of been proven to not be the case. The other big change there is the F20c has been seriously beefed up to take the foiling loads of the FCS package (same hulls, beams, trunks, masts between the two) so is pretty strong and I suspect one will win the event on raw time. If handicap is at play, that's a different ball of wax-hard to beat a well sailed F18 on handicap.


Scorpion F18