Steve-
Kris and I sail at ~130 Kg and we feel pretty quick. That said 125 kg is probably the bottom end - it is a big sail.
Obviously we should have an advantage in lighter to moderate conditions, and should have a bit of a disadvantage upwind once we get overpowered (but we haven't really sailed with the top guys in much breeze yet -- at least not since we started going better). Downwind I am not sure we will ever be at a disadvantage - we should always be able to sail deeper at the same speed. So the bottom line is that we don't know yet. And since we are buoy racing we never really have to reach - then we would get buried in breeze!
As to trimming the main - we have a 10:1 mid-boom setup, and I can play it just fine. Kris at a whopping 110# would have difficulty with it but she is concentrating on driving. Downwind Kris has a 5:1 course tune on the rear beam which is plenty, but she pretty much only needs to play the traveller anyway.
As to cost. These boats are actually pretty darn cheap by comparison. With a used boat (2003 ICCT) someone could be fully competitive in the US today for around $10K. Tops they would spend about $12.5K.
Yes there is a certain individual who has probably spent close to $30K - but most of us have just bought new sails (which we needed to do anyway after a couple of years). Bob Hodges won last weekend on a basically stock boat (with current generation sails), and our boat is basically stock w/ new sails and a different rudder and we went 2-1-2 on Sunday to win the day (didn't race Saturday - big bummer).
If you want to you can: cant your hulls; grind off all the gelcoat and put on fancy metalic paint; glue down carbon beams; buy a gucci marstrom snufffer and rudders; test 4 different mainsails; etc. etc. But you don't have to.
If someone buys a used boat today all they really need to do is spend about $1000 on a new higher hoist chute. If they are coming from the top of another cat fleet (tornado) they might want to buy a new main, but the Petruccis are pretty nice - I wouldn't spend the money for a year or two.
I am sure that over time there will be big developments, and the next generation boats may cost more (although the class may commission the next boat and keep the costs down that way). Another thing - these boats get bought directly from the manufacturers so there is not all the overhead of a dealer network of marketing. On the other hand when something breaks, your support may be in Europe. So you have to be pretty self reliant. I like it that way but others might not.
Right now, I am done playing with this boat - we have it set up the way we like and we are just going to go sailing for the next year or so.
Hunt
18HT USA 14.
