I think the problem is actually the other way around.

Some people perceive everything to be cheating, they are so insecure or uneducated, that they feel they need a 100K laser apparatus to check a hull for compliance.

Basically, so what if a hull is 5 mm out of line ?

In the F18 class we see designs fight for 1st place (sailed by olympic sailors) that differ a rediculously amount more then "just 5 mm".

The way I see it is that alot of officials are just what they are : "officials". This kind of person is better known as a politician. They are not engineers or 99% of them don't harbour a single creative thought that goes outside of the official stated policy.

For years now, politico's (officials) have been inventing (perceived) cheat after cheat. They are also the kind that think that having a 60 kg skipper race against a 80 kg skipper on a strict one-design Laser is fair !

They will go to extreme lengths to make every single boat the same, down to the amounts that only a laser can measured (several microns) and then totally ignore a 20 kg weight difference ! Not to mention the fact that the different sail lofts making One-Design laser sails produce OD sails that differ enough for an elite team to test tens of sails and allotting different sails to different grading events depending on the expected conditions.

It is time for the politico's to understand that :

a) One-Design doesn't really exist
b) Doesn't create additional fairness in racing NON OD crews.
c) A couple of mm here and there DOESN'T affect performance in any measureable way.


I also find it interesting that it is actually cheaper to have a new die made for an alu Tornado mast and have 40 masts produced then to buy an Carbon OD mast from Marstrom.

In that batch of 40 masts you surely find 1 to 3 masts that are of your liking. That is the result of basic probability theory. It is actually the way large manufacturers "make" highly accurate interlocking products these years. They make both components using rather inaccurate means and then just match accurately fitting pairs from the larger pool. Probability theorie proofs that for large enough pools you'll always find perfectly matching pairs. This way of producing, with the same high accurate results, is actually cheaper then accurately producing the parts.

If people or an organisation can be said to be way behind the curve then it is the politico's (officials) and organisations like ISAF. They are about as progressive as the Catholic Church. Remember who enforced the "Earth is flat" and "anti-evolution" the longest ? Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary ?

With respect to anti-evolution theorie supporters, ask them to explain how large numbers of modern bateria have become resistant to penicillin, when they were not 50 years ago ?

Wouter