Doing the things to really lighten the boat would include things like:
Dynaform wire or carbon standing rigging
carbon beams
carbon rudder castings
carbon mast
carbon boom
(seems like a lot of carbon hu?)
Ti bolts and metal fittings

the cost/lb is MUCH higher for the carbon parts. I was told what a set of carbon standing rigging for the M20 costs (have forgotten it now), but I amazed by it's cost. As a comparison, the I-20 mast costs something around 3500 dollars (if I remember right), the 6.0 mast is like 1600 i think (don't quote me). I'm sure that Bill's 27/30 mast is not cheap in AL and the cost of a mast goes up exponentially with it's length (last I heard an ACC mast ran something like 1/2 million...don't quote me again...just working from little bits of memory)

Things like beams and castings made of carbon are also substantially more expensive than their AL counterparts. You hit what we called in engineering class a point of diminishing returns. You can keep dumping money in, but the weight you save/dollar keeps going down.

Bill saves the big pounds where it is easy (in the hulls). By building in carbon, not only does it save weight, but it also increases the life of the product. I have to admit that I don't really agree with the way that either Bill or Wouter are trying to scale hulls and boats up or down in weight. Bill is building in carbon while most boats are glass (apples and oranges). I think to properly compare the two, you must use the same build process.

There are also some other weight factors that will not change as much with size as some things do. No matter the size of the boat, there will be a minimum attainable weight in rigging. As the boat goes up in size, the rigging does not change as drastically in weight as does say the hull weight (just an example, there are several other things that would follow the same principle).

The only reason I participated in this conversation was to try and add another view, learn some and hopefully get some feed back on my thoughts. It's been fun, hope this doesn't turn into a name calling contest.

Will

p.s. this has got to be some sort of record setting post