As far as South Australia goes, I think it is simply that the spinnaker was first flown in Victoria. Other Victorian Mosquito sailors saw how it performed and rigged spinnakers and so it snowballed from there. South Australia has been pretty isolated from all this and the SA sailors haven't seen much spinnaker action (I've flown my spinnaker in the invitation race at most nationals since 2001 to get it seen, but the wind and course have been rubbish for the spinnaker every time).
I think once a few SA sailors get spinnakers rigged and put in the time to master it (don't expect to sail to VYC 80 on the first day out!), more will follow suit.
Tim,
I was watching you in the invitation race at Meningie, it didn't look like fun. I've also been watching the drops at the leeward mark, seems like the helm is so busy dealing with the spinnaker it is hard to keep a good lookout for other boats, is that true?
How do you go on handicap against standard Mosquito if you sail a triangle/loop/triangle with the reaches to shy for a spinnaker? Seems like a lot of stuff to carry for 1 leg of the course.
Of course you could just sail windward/returns but non-spinnaker Mosquitos (Mosquito classic?) wont want to do that and since class racing is much better then handicap
racing it makes more sense to race with the Mosquito Classics unless there are a couple of spinnaker equipped Mosquitos which there isn't in SA, yet.
I hope you bring your spinnaker to Christies for the invitation race, we often get a good bit of breeze and some waves and I reckon when I see you handle those conditions and beat MK1's and Mk2's around the course I will be convinced, others too.
Darryn
1704
