That's brilliant!!, I hope the event is very successful.



As for assistance in boat speed I doubt I can personally help you as I've only had my 4.9 for a couple of months. I am trying to collect as much information on sailing Taipans as possible for inclusion on my website:



http://www.users.bigpond.com/robandheath/atca/



At the moment there is an excellent article on sailing the 4.9 cat rigged by one of our top cat rigged sailors, Darren Peters. There is another article in this forum on sailing cat rigged by James. You'll notice the approaches are different but have both resulted in wins in National Championships.



I'm having trouble getting tips on sailing sloop rigged but there are some brief but useful tips from Daniel van Kerckhoff (a former Australian sloop champion) on sailng the 4.9 down wind.



There is also an article written by Jim Boyer about the principles of sailing with the superwing mast. This, and the above mentioned article are excellent starting points I've found.



There is another excellent article on sailing the 4.9 sloop written by Greg Goodall on the new AHPC website:



http://www.ahpc.com.au



I hope this has been of some use. The best way to learn to go fast on the 4.9 would be to come over and sail in the Australian championships in the new year. The exchange rate is very favourable at the moment. Details on the Australian Championships can be found on my website.



If you have any questions about sailing the 4.9 post a question on the Yahoo Taipan forum and you will hopefully get a useful reply. Details on the Taipan forum are also on my site.



I'm going to write a news article on the website about the first Taipan championships in the US to go on my site. As soon as you have any more news and results I'll put those up too.



Rob

Taipan 4.9 AUS175