Mary,

Thanks for the great input.

Regarding reducing sail area, how the boat's balance/helm are effected probably would depend on just how you did that but I suspect that both reefing and cutting a sail for higher winds by taking some area off the leech it would be possible to keep the center of effort relatively constant in the fore/aft dimension (although the CE might be lower with a smaller sail that would be an advantage due to less heeling moment and shouldn't effect helm). I know Brobru in the carribean bought a custom smaller main for his I17 and he thinks the results are great.

Regarding reefing, I guess there's a "zipper reef" option for the Wave (if that's still available). Has anyone seen that and sailed with it? Any impact on boat helm?

Jerry