Hi Mary -

I'm not one to suggest that if you don't weigh a certain amount that you shouldn't consider racing. That's absurd. I sail very light on my F18 often - well below the minimum and I have to carry corrector weight even with the small sail plan. But I am not one of the tip-top skippers in the fleet. It is futile to deny that each boat has a preferred crew weight range in overall conditions - when you claw your way to the top like these Nacra 20 teams are doing, it is the tiny discriminators that make a difference between 1st and 3rd. The Nacra 6.0 was vulnerable when under-crewed, and the Nacra 20 is even more so, in my opinion. That doesn't mean that a minimum weight (or less) team can't be competitive throughout the season. When Kevin Rejda and I were seeking the 6.0 Championship back in the late 1990's at minimum weight, it finally sank in that one windy day at Nationals was all it took to take us out of contention. We were a top team and raced everyone hard, but sooner or later, the breeze comes up and the first one to max out the downhual was the first one to travel down... at that point, you're just not going as fast and as high as the boat can go.

But do you think that is discouraging? I don't - I'm still sailing light and pushing as hard as I can. Breeze came up at Hartwell for a day, and Tina and I hung in there for a third in the biggest breeze.

edit:: Remember when the first question on the beach was "how much do you weigh?" Back when I raced 16s, I got asked all the time because I was small and the 16 likes a minimum weight crew - same as the Nacra 20, only reversed. The weight thing has been around a looooooong time. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />