Is that really the case ?

I mean do they really sail that much faster then an Olympic tornado which used a soft luff spinnaker. That is without accellerating the movie material to make it appear that way. As far as I know even the Volvo Ocean and the Race boats had soft luff spinnakers in their suit of sail next to their code zero's (or what they call a screacher)

Personally I think it has alot more to do with the fact that a screacher of that size is easier to handle than a spinnaker of that side.

Try to hoist and snuff a 75 sq. mtr. spinnaker. Compare that to furling or unfurling a similar sized screacher.

Wouter