Carl <br>I have a Clinical Engineering background; in short I am responsible for patient safety (when any equipment touches a patient) in a health care facility in Boston. <br>The major problem I see is the selling part. The graduated weight to sail area scale may be the most perfect system to sail under but the average guy is not at home figuring out which boat at which weight will have an advantage. It is way to complicate for the average guy looking to get into the class. How do you convince Mike Hill that if he makes certain changes to his boat he will be fast? Some people wouldn’t spend a dime on different sail to sail in the class unless it is proven the boat with the changes is fast. <br>I would not add a bigger spinnaker to the I20. I have an aerial picture of my boat at the Curacao Regatta. Looking that the picture the mast is really bending off. These were extreme conditions but we weren’t pushing real hard. Adding spinnaker area to the I20 would be asking for disaster. Under the rule it would fit into the rules but I wouldn’t be maxing it out like others will. Who is going to cut down a Tornado with a new sail plan? Everyone that has the new sail plan is racing in the Tornado class. I could get a real platform and built up from there but it would still cost $6000. Ok for some people to spend but not doable for most. <br>Who is your audience? The only boats that are interested here are some of the I20’s and none of them are really interested is anything other that adopting the iF20 rules or a slightly modified version. <br>If it is the dead boat society than that won’t be easy. The Hobie 20 is a dead class here. All of the active races have gone to other classes and the only boats leave are basically pleasure sailor. It’s not the 6.0 class. They get 15 boats at every race. They are a tough one-design class with some very good sailors. They will not split their class in half to go formula. If they want to go with spinnakers they will race with their class spinnakers. <br>Where does that leave all of the boats to come from? <br>What 20’ boats in Michigan are “hardcore” racers but don’t have a class? <br>Is the existing I20 class there willing to welcome me in their fleet with a hot-rodded 20’ boat that is optimized to the max? I have the financial means to do that but my best friend (sails a 6.0) doesn’t. We had a blast racing one-design against each other. How is he going to feel in this formula when I show up with a tricked out boat to race him. I beat him because my boat is better. He won’t be racing for long. <br>I hate to be negative and I know how much work as gone into the project. I think the cart is before the horse here. It is a marketing project and needs to be treated like one. The first question is who is your audience? How much of this audience has sent in info on the F-20 issue? Are we going in the direction that our audience is leading us to? <br> <br> <br>Thanks Carl <br>Happy Thanksgiving <br>Barry <br><br><br>
