Personally, I try to stick to the ideal of not introducing anything new at a Nationals or above... the mast is a pretty big change, and surely sheets differently. I don't want to be learning something new - my two or three days on the water before a Nationals or Worlds is to make sure everything is working on the boat, and getting a good look at the race area conditions. Of course, sometimes I've had to break that personal guideline - at the F18 Worlds in Long Beach, I was on a completely new platform, without even other people's experience or a tuning guide to work with. I was grateful for the opportunity, but we didn't do the boat justice at all - too much to learn, and the wrong time to be learning. At least for me - obviously, some sailors can hit stride right out of the gate. My neural pathways are too calcified.
Sure, but would you want an N17 with all its high-tech gizmos and narrow performance groove for recreational sailing?
Stuff built strictly for speed (IMHO) seems to take some of the fun (read: ease) out of recreational sailing.
Now that I'm down in the 175-180# range, maybe I can fit on your teensy boats again... If I can find a scrawney driver...
But I will have to put a swim noodle on the boom. Packing 6'1" of me under a deck sweeping boom in a chinese gybe gets a little tricky (gotta work on my yoga pretzel moves). As Seth knows, it doesn't take much for me to sweep a driver off the back of a boat...
Major differences between N17 and F18 are the curved foils and the carbon rig. Like any high performance boat the issue is when the breeze builds, tough to sail any of these without good crew.
If I'm stuck without a crew for a Florida event I'll let you know