Originally Posted by Rhapsody #348

My comment is this is great for PHRF but doesn't make a bit of difference for OD if everyone is required to use the same sails. PHRF-NB does not penalize for sail cloth, only sail dimensions, thus racing this sail in PHRF is an advantage becuase there is better performance with no PHRF penalty. I am sensitive to the desire to keep OD costs at a minimum. Thus, if the 0.5 oz spinnaker were allowed in OD, everyone would feel the need to carry both a 0.5 and 0.75 ounce spinnaker, increasing the cost for OD. The class rules allow a backup spinnaker if the primary spinnaker is destroyed. My backup is an older 0.75 oz class spinnaker that is well used but serviceable. For the "arms war" reason, I would not be in favor of adding the 0.5 ounce spinnaker to the OD sail inventory.... but could see a rules change similar to something proposed below.


We bought a .5 OZ when I had slingshot, and it made a huge difference in the NW. It was necessary to stay competitive, so we had it and an older .75. So this rule that is supposed to control the costs for one design would actually increase the cost for us doing one design. Our .75 wouldn't be competitive against the newer ones of the guys who don't have a .5OZ, so we'd need to buy a new one to consider participating in a traveling j/30 regatta.

When we raced one design in the NW, we didn't enforce the sail material rules. We had people with string sail mains and lighter spinnakers, because that's what they used the rest of the year.


Grady Morgan
Slingshot - Hull #112