Bill,
I was only trying to point out the difference in boat performance due to hull "Fineness Ratio". I was not attempting to explain the race results.
If the Booth boat had 100 pounds added to the main beam near the center of pitch rotation and the other boats have that same weight spread out over the entire length of the boat, there is going to be a very large difference in pitching moment of inertia between these two configurations. The boat with the centralized weight sailing downwind is going to pitch more and to a greater degree and more quickly and more violently than a boat with the weight distributed over its entire length. The low pitching moment of inertia boat is going to be more difficult to sail downwind than the standard boat.
The boat with the low pitching moment of inertia very well could find a slight speed advantage sailing to windward in a chop where it could respond more quickly to the changing slope of the surface of the water. The normal boat will tend to crash through the chop/waves more where the low pitching inertia boat will tend to ride up and over the waves and not crash through the waves as much.
This is not the first time the F18ht rear beam dragging problem has been brought up on this forum. Sounds like a design goof to me or a boat designed to sail on small lakes, small chop.
Bill