I fully agree that we need sailmaker input before we start doing testing, and drawing on other boat experience is valuable, but why do we as a class want to authorize a sail for class use if it hasn't been used in boat on boat scenarios? I.e, why use a sail plan that isn't GUARANTEED to be faster than the current sail plan. GUARANTEED? Your kidding? IMO, this requires a good sailor to use the new sails and NOT GET SCORED at a major regatta, i.e, nationals Ain't gonna happen at a nationals! or tradewinds, and do some boat on boat reaching. Why? From what I've seen, the top 4 boats at Tradewinds all had roughly the same boat speed, so it should be easy to see the differences.
Sam, your really hung up on this boat on boat testing, research, etc. Look, the sail design is twelve years old, built under the SMOD environment. Any sail built today will be better. That's the reason we're even having this discussion. It ain't rocket science. Even the first set of sails for the aluminum rig hit its mark, right out of the box. The time and testing was time on the water to learn the new sails sweet spots, how to tune it, how to sail it. You know you're making your own argument to open up the sails.
