Well please don't appologize Matt,

It is not you who has anything to appologize about.

There is just a considerable history between these two classes and indeed as a result I can't stop rolling my eyes when I read Taipan 4.9 specific stuff.

I will fully admit that I got problems with the Taipan OD class policy and indeed not always are they based on judicious examination of the points. I've been down this road lots of times and truth be told, Stephen is right mostly. Although people blame me for lots of stuff I'm really not responsible for. The Fosters issue, for example, was actively and fully opposed by the Australian F16 rep and myself. It was a loner action by some Taipan sailors unlinked to the F16 class. So don't blame us for their mistake. We knew better. We sought cooperation between the classes to reinforce one another. But we always collided with the hard core group in the OD class who resisted anybody and anything not sharing their extremely conservative views. Finally we just gave up and "flipped the bird" in their general direction.

I sure as hell wasn't going to get my behind handed to me on the modern day European race course because some Aussie dad felt it in his gut that he could't handle a different cut mainsail when teaching sailing to his kid on some backwater. Because that was the issue it finally came down too. They were willing to totally sacrifize the international penetration of the Taipan design and leave the non-Australian sailors unsupported in order to not offend the gut feelings of some recreational sailors.

But lets leave that in the past. I'm intrigued (I almost wrote "amused") that the Taipan class is now considering an F16 mainsail upgrade which is not officially called an F16 mainsail. Deep down in the core I think it is a good development. I still don't think it will get passed though, but I love to be proven wrong.

But now matter what written above, don't feel you have done anything wrong personally Matt.

Wouter