Mark, I'm a systems engineer and program evaluator, I look at the big picture for a living (and get into more than a few arguments). The reason there is a class is because a group of people committed to one-design sailing has kept it alive for almost 25 years. There is a process for changing the rules and it's been that way since the rules were codified. Nobody _dictates_ anything! We have been through this process several times in my involvement with the class to change other rules. We have a set of District Governors who are the governing board. _Anything_ which changes the rules has to be done through the current process. It's not just a case of Annapolis-based sailors sitting around and thinking "hmmmm...let's not change the rules just to screw the PHRF sailors". Nothing could be further from the truth. The governing body is composed mostly of people who sail both PHRF and one-design. In fact, the current
J/30 Class co-Presidents are Carl Sherter and John McArthur from Long Island Sound and the past-President is Dennis Bartley from Chicago. Both of these sailors, sail more PHRF races then one-design (as Dennis stated above). Look at the Governing Board page on this site. As I count it, the Chesapeake Bay has exactly one sailor listed on the Governing Board, Larry Christy who is the Ches. Bay District Governor and Class Measurer. We've been down the sail change road before and we've made changes when they have been shown to be cost-effective. Dennis Bartley, in the posting above, echoed that sentiment.
A light #1 will not turn a J/30 into a light-air sled -- it ain't gonna happen! Is a J/30 slower than a S-2 9.1 in light air? Yes, I think it will be. Could it have more than a little to do with a masthead genoa and the ability to project more surface area (472 vs 444 sq ft for 100% sail area)? Perhaps .... I know where I'd bet.
Another question is, will a light 155% be significantly faster than a slightly heavier 163%? I don't think so. Notice, we're not talking about bulletproof storm-sail material here, the rule is 3.5 oz material. The laminated genoa is not heavy material. We weighed genoas about 3-4 yrs ago when we were considering a change to a "bag weight" rule for the genoa, We found that the high tech constructions were no lighter than conventional mylar laminates. How many folks have actually gotten a bunch of genoas and weighed them? We're talking empirical data here! This is what one-design people do in the interest of the class.
A year of so earlier, we brought in a bunch of sailmakers to discuss changes in the inventory. Some of them had run velocity prediction programs to evaluate changes ... again real data, not speculation. Their consensus was that there wasn't a cost-effective reason to change the laminated mylar genoa or the cross-cut main. On the chute, they were specifically asked to look at polyester spinnaker cloth, because that was all the rage. They felt that it wasn't a good option for us. In fact, their comment was "we could make a lot of money selling you guys these sails because they would explode the first time your chute emptied and filled, but we don't think that would be good for the class." The one change that they had a consensus on was the move to a kevlar #3 because of the better high wind tolerance of kevlar vice the dacron material. The Governing Board then voted to change the rules to allow Kevlar #3s for the following season. No one is trying to go back to Egyptian cotton sails dyed with tan-bark. It's a question of having real data and then following the Class' process for making a change to the rules.
Whew, I feel better now! :-) As Mark said before, this is not meant to be an attack on anyone. I do however, feel strongly about these issues.
[This message has been edited by jmruzzi (edited 08-28-2003).]
