I had a great time yesterday afternoon chasing a farily new Tornado around the Bay. We did a 2.5 mile run on port then another 1.5 mile run on starboard and there was nothing between us apart from the fact they were both sitting in and I was on the wire. Upwind, astonishingly they were pointing higher but I was going lower and faster so after 2 miles I was in front (No Bulls**t) Needless to say I was quite pleased with the way things were going.
What I do want to experiment with whilst two boat tunning is the Mast rotation in light wind conditions, as people around here are talking about having the spanner pointing at the intersection of the rear beam and hull. In other words a lot tighter than I would normally have it.
Mark,
There ARE 2 schools on mast position in light wind. Pointing as you say above, or fully rotated along the front beam. Needs 2 boat tuning to sort it out.
Also, just remembered that Haken had a kite on his A class as said the thinks it cost him about 2%ish upwind with all the extra gubbins floating around. Then factor in the extar windage of the 16, longer slimmer hulls on the A class, I think I'd be happy with a 10% difference upwind.
Would be interesting, did the OOD at the Nations cup record Lap times. I was catching up the A's on the first race (must remember to count laps). IIRC the last lap there was much less wind on the last run which kinka skewed the results to look at with the extra lap.
