Speaking of crew weights, we weighed in at 344 #'s, min wt for F18 is 330 for large sailplan. There were only 5 teams heavier than us, and the 5 heavier teams were not the ones protesting.
Just a note of interest about the class, our boat is 1 yr old, and there are already new rudders, new mast and new sails available. The STX main is pretty sweet too, along with the new Tiger spin that Greg and Jacque were using. (Just for fun try to order a blue one....)
Any advantage? Hard to tell, but its a cutting edge class, exactly where this kind of sailing should be, advancing the techmology for all of us.