Steve, I respectfully disagree with your characterization. The key difference, to my mind, is that the prior "liberalizations" have been made for good one-design or cost/benefit reasons. For example, you mention the spinnaker pole track to the deck. That decision was made in direct concurrence with our operating philosophy that equipment which came from the factory is, de-facto, one-design compliant. In that case, there were boats delivered which had the spinnaker track to the deck. We didn't "liberalize" the rule ... rather, the class was required to accomodate boats which were delivered that way, just the same as the fact that we don't require the dining table to be on the boat when racing -- it was an option at the time of purchase. Similarly, with the high-tech halyards, we used the "equal strength" provision to allow a safer and stronger material which had performance equal to the traditional wire-rope halyard. To me, the carbon spinnaker pole and adjustable genoa cars have almost vanishingly small benefits at a very high cost.
[This message has been edited by jmruzzi (edited 09-10-2004).]
