Phil,
I tend to agree with you that more agile boats will be more excting to watch. I have owned two SuperCat (ARC)22s and loved them both, however they were not very good bouy racing boats. When my brother Tracy (a better sailor than I) sailed our SC22 and I sailed my old I-20 in bouy races the outcome was always the same. The more agile boat, the I-20, would win boat for boat! On the open water in a distance race, the SC22 would show its stuff and sail away from me on my I-20.
The idea of a circuit with $$$ purses is to enhance the specator's experience, therefore making sponsors more interested. More interested sponsors allow even more $$$ for the purses. The lighter, more agile 18 and 20 footers would be a lot more fun to watch, IMHO.
A test event for a planned purse circuit ($5k min purses) will take place in Va Beach on July 20 and 21in conjunction with the Chick's Beach Summer Sizzler. The GOLD Fleet boats (boats racing for the cash) will be limited to F-18HTs. The F-18HT class assigns spinnaker colors/schemes to the membership, just as they assign sail numbers. This is unique to catamaran racing classes and will make following individual participants much easier for the spectators. The agility of the F-18HTs is excellent and I feel unsurpassed in double-handed cats (IMHO) This dinghy-like agility will make the boats more fun to watch than slower tacking/manuvering SC 22s.
Other factors favoring F-18HTs over 22s for semi-pro circuit racing include, speed in set up and take-down (important at some downtown venues), managability for wider range of crews, and cost of the boats (you can almost buy 3 Jav 2/F-18Hts for the cost of 1 ARC 22 Carbon).
I am obviously biased toward the F-18HTs and the Javelin 2s, however my second choice would be Inter 20s, based on their availability, cost, set up time, and agility. During my days of racing I-20s, there was some talk to having a semi-pro circuit, but nothing ever materialized. Now, the bull has been grasped by the horns!
