Wouter,
Forgive me if I have missed things in the plethora of posts, but is your design going to include trapeze and spinnaker? I'm thinking NOT, based on the unstayed mast-sail rig being proposed.

I have been trying to think where your design fits into the big picture of youth sailing. When we are talking about youth sailors from 13-18 years of age, most of those with any sailing experience are able to handle the Hobie 16 and the SL 16, which are the boats being used for ISAF World Championships (both using spinnakers).

Seems like your boat, being smaller, lighter, home-buildable and therefore less expensive than the bigger cats the kids are using for the major sailing events, would be a great trainer boat for those who cannot afford to buy an SL 16.

Maybe what we ALL need is just a good, small, light, easy-to-build PLATFORM that can be used with a bunch of different types/combinations of sails and standing rigging, depending upon how any given sailor wants to USE the platform -- ages, weights, goals of entry level or racing level, etc.

The options and combinations for rigs are endless -- sprit sail, lateen rig, Laser-type rig, windsurfer/landsailor rig, traditional stayed unirig, sloop rig, spinnaker, reacher, boom or boomless, fully battened or no battens, traveler systems of all different kinds or boom vang if there is a boom...

It would be so interesting to have a platform that everybody can build and that everybody can decide what they want to do as far as what they put ABOVE that platform in terms of sails.

I know you don't like all the "round and round" discussions, but I think of it is sort of like panning for gold. If you pan long enough, you might get a nugget of wisdom, a flash of gold, out of the stream.