I like this thread. It's so long now it's hard to remember where it all started. It was Gordon asking 8 months ago if anyone thought we should bring out the big head mainsail change proposal again. The responses seemed to indicate no.

We have nine rule change proposals up for the next AGM in January 2007. Eight of those are to fix up mistakes, inconsistencies, obsolescences, and contradictions in the wording of the rules - no actual changes to the boat. The other proposal is to add an appendix which sets out measurement rules for the spinnaker, if one is used.

You can't stop people putting a spinnaker on their Mosquito, so it is probably best to have some guidelines so at least they are all a similar setup. The Taipans tried to stop their members using spinnakers and look what happened to them.

Just because Mozzie sailors like to talk "what if...", doesn't mean the boat is going to change. I don't understand why people feel the class is so threatened by just talk. Do we have to employ a class censor to stand around the camp fire at regattas and stop any conversations straying dangerously toward "changes"? Do we need a moderator to delete all posts on this forum that suggest changes? Of course not, it's just talk, and talk is healthy. If someone suggests something that others disagree with then they can get on here and disagree. Until a few months ago these kind of discussions were held in private. Now the whole class can get involved. This is great!

The "red rag to a bull" reference is just regarding that comment - "15 years ago ...". The rules didn't change, the class almost died for other reasons, and many of those who fought hard to stop the class changing left anyway (so what did they achieve?). Most often I've heard the "15 years ago ..." line used by people from other classes who want to put down the Mosquito. That's why it bothers me so much.

Now we have people from other classes who feel threatened by the Mosquito because they have seen how it performs with the spinnaker, and obviously they will argue that the Mosquito shouldn't allow spinnakers, for their own reasons.

The people who really believed in the Mosquito continued to sail them through the 90s and kept the class alive, so we can enjoy it now. Thanks to them.