>>>The other aspect you and wout are touting that we have to swabble over dwindling numbers of sailors , -THIS IS ABSURD ,
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<br>>>>is no reason to exclude them from racing any boat they choose , -
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<br>The reason to haggle over these weight spans is equality and fairness of racing while keeping costs acceptable.
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<br>I will put it into a question :
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<br>On a nice warm day with a 5 knot wind I bring my regular crew of 400 lbs. You look at the weather and decide that the winds are light enough to bring your little nethew. How can you explain to me that this racing is still fair ? Fair as intended in the formula class.
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<br>Now you could reply to my question by saying that you will just pick the smallest of those 5 spare rigs (main, mast, jib and genaker sets) that you always cary around in your modified trailor. But how can you sells this to a crew starting out in the class and that can not buy 5 complete rigs of different sizes ?
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<br>The Only you can do in that situation that would be fair is to take along all your nieces and nephews untill you make minimum. you can still race with your younger familiy members and I don't have to give you a 180 lbs weight advantage. and thus practically give you the line honours and the price of the day.
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<br>That was talking about your class. Now move down to do smallest class.
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<br>There, there is no minimum and you can sail solo with nephew and even with you wife. And no heavy crew can complain to you that you are unfair by being so light. Why because there are no teams in that F class that are heavy enough to notice a real disadvantage. Even a adult with small kid will weight in at at least 240 lbs so the biggest weight disadvantage will be 90 lbs. Also way less than the 180 lbs in the earlier example. No solo sailors are lighter but are also at a disadvantage with respect to handling.
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<br>Now look at the mid range class lowest is 310 and highest 350. Only 40 lbs difference. Now this must be the class with the closest racing !
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<br>So everyboy is catered and not subjected to accusations about unfairness.
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<br>And this is the strength of a three length formula framework.
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<br>Wouter<br><br>