In fact ORMA tri designers and those of larger offshore multihulls tend to disagree with you and your H16 sailors. Now, please don't make the error of putting up the strawman argument that these designers are saying to lots of flexing is good, they don't. They are mere saying that overdoing it on the other side of the spectrum is not desireable either. As so many times in life the optimal point is somewhere in the middle of both extremes.
Other then that your argument resembles the situation where a man who is exhausted from thirst is best helped by thowing him into a large lake. I dare wager he will die either way. If one thing is "not good" then chance are that 100% of the opposite is not good either.
Wouter
Wouter, you either don't know are are not telling the full story with the ORMA 60 issues.
The reason they had to allow the boats to flex was simply that they could not make the entire structure stiff and strong enough without developing a hard spot in which the failures occurred. Generally this was in the float to beam joints. The boats that had this problem were the full nomex cored boats that were stiffer (and faster) than the foam core boats. So then they moved to a mix of nomex and foam to ensure the longevity of the boats. This was a compromise with the speed... I will say this very clearly: The foam (softer boats) were not as quick as the nomex (stiffer) boats.
On a small beach cat where you can build a very stiff platform without the risk of breakage in 10 meter seas.. Stiffness is good, simple as that. But it costs.... I think I have stated many times in here that a full nomex cored, carbon boat will be stiffer and faster than a foam core, carbon boat.
This would appear to be in line with the statement of Bob Baier and I think any of the top level sailors will agree. You can however continue to think otherwise, it makes no real difference to the world of sailing as you are never on the water anyhow..
