Ditto to Mary's post.

First off, if you're going to race consider taking the wings off. They're great for cruising and fun sailing, I think they're added weight and windage for nothing when racing.

On my 18 I almost always had the mast all the way forward unless it was honking. Even when I put the spinnaker on it. As for the diamonds - the original spec for the 18 called for the loose diamonds, with different settings for different wind ranges to use in concert with different spreader rake settings. I used to spend a lot of time messing that stuff until reading Catsailing for the 90's.

That's when I set my spreaders forward and tightened the diamonds until they were tight but not tight enough to pre-bend the mast on their own. Then I used the downhaul to force the bend and depowering. I got to quit thinking about all that other stuff, and the boat was faster.

Also, my original set of Hobie sails were horrible - to get any consistent shape the battens all had extreme different levels of tension. When I got my new Hobie sails, they were wonderful - only had to tension the battens to take out the wrinkles and the sail had a nice full and consistent shape. Get a new set of rags if the current ones have any age to them.

I really enjoyed the 18, nice boat.