[quote=samc99us]I'm glad to see the race is back, but more effort is going to be needed in the future to get the numbers up. I think the OA knows this, but the inevitable question is what are they going to do about it? Getting costs in line is step 1; sorry to say but this race is going to be on a spin boat, its just a matter of which one..next step is better marketing...see St. Barths Catacup, they have to turn entries away!!!
@ropewalker, all of the major F18 manufacturers have had seam issues on boats in the past (though none on boats built in the last 5 years that I am aware of). This was an older C2 and had done a lot of beach launches and landings with subsequent issues. This is not a race to come into half-assed, and people always question why I'm working on my boats, but its to ensure that I can go out and sail 100 miles with no or limited breakage.
This year was relatively benign so the boats got through relatively unscathed but personally I have a hard tim justifying running a new boat of any type up the coast for 10 days. Its a ton of wear and tear, and if you break a carbon rig that is a $7k+ cost...essentially the price of a good used F18.
I would prefer that the OA's mandate one boat, F18's, for the event. F20c's are cool and all and there are better than 50% odds that if that direction is chosen for 2021 I'll have a boat in a container but those decisions need to be made in the next month or so. Waiting until January 2021 to finalize the rules isn't going to work when you need to have an order in with Nacra 1 year ahead of time to guarantee delivery (yes, often they are much faster but I said [i]guarantee[/i]), plus have time to sort out teething issues.<!-- editby --><em>Edited by samc99us on May 21, 2019 - 10:26 AM.</em><!-- end editby --> [/quote]
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