........ On these boats, being so small, low overall volume, don't you find that the boat with the least weight wins?
not all the time..... like most other classes its a combination of a skilled skipper and a light boat that's hard to beat.
The thing most people miss-understand about "fast boat" design is the one critical fact we for some unknown reason seem to overlook.
Like any other class, the Mosquito hull design / shape has a limit as to how fast it can be physically pushed through the water. Terminal velocity exists on every hull shape and like every object we push through the air or water there's a limit as to the speed and we simply cant push past that limit.
the key tho is the acceleration rate of a light boat over a heavier boat.
Example:
every tack will see the lighter boat move ahead lets say 2 boat lengths, on a course with several tacks and varying pointing requirements that acceleration gap comes into play in a big way...... a couple of boat lengths soon becomes half a leg if not more.
I've sailed against boats that should out-run my old tub easily, but for some reason she seems to stay with them reasonably well right up until that first tack..... I'd loose a couple of lengths and yet I was still there.... a few tacks later and the distance had grown out to a point where getting it back is beyond the boats capability.
Staying right up at the front and running against A class's during one race had me stuffed as to why.... but as soon as the tacking started I slowly drifted back through the field and watched that gap grow each lap of the course.
The Mosquito has a minimal weight, a boat built to that weight wont be any faster than a boat that's 10kilos heavier, it just out accelerates it at every turn.