"All that stuff underneath that makes them so fast in heavy wind, just adds drag in light air."
Seems to me the only extra stuff is the horizontal wing on the rudders. The "foil" is just a bent dagger board. If they straightened out the foils would they be any longer than the optimized normal board? Isn't there an AC72 formula rule that constrains the foil length, straight or bent?
As Jake suggested, could they have swapped to straight boards in a light air race? Wouldn't the bent "foiling" dagger be pretty feeble going upwind compared to the old straight or banana boards they started with?
