Sam,

Thanks for your reply.

You said:
>> While I agree, in general, with your technical conclusions, I disagree with your subjective conclusions. The "fun" in racing is beating the other sailors in a fair race, (or so I have been told). The true "skill" in racing is being able to make a given boat perform up to its maximum around a course. There is no moral victory if you are on an over-powered, over-complicated boat and barely survive the race and get beat(handicap) by a well sailed H-16.

I think you may have read more into my comments than I intended when I wrote the post. I certainly didn't intend to define what is fun about cat sailing or racing. Of course this is a highly personal and subjective thing. In fact, I didn't even specifically focus my comments on racing. I was simply trying to get poeple's sailing experience comparing lighter vs heavier cats specifically as it relates to ease of maintaining control in difficult conditions for someone still on a learning curve with cats. My reference to "fun" was an echo of what I've heard many proponents of lighter designs state. So as far as my post was concered, I wasn't aware that I had arrived at any "subjective conclusions".

You said:
>> History has shown that most people don't like complicated boats. The market is causing the complicated boats to become simpler; one-line spin launch and snuff, self-tacking jibs.

I'm not sure what prompted you to bring this up - you're reading more into my post than I intended. I didn't mention complicated boats in my post, only lighter vs heavier ones. Granted, the examples I used for lighter and heavier boats are modern designs, but that is because I am interested in buying a new boat. In fact, there are far more complicated boats around than the boats I mentioned so I'm really not sure where you were going with this. As an aside, and not to be argumentative, it's actually not clear to me that history shows that most people don't like complicated boats. Maybe it depends on what you consider complicated. If you consider complicated boats to be current production boats from the major vendors selling production F16's, F18's, and various one-designs in the 16-18' range than I would have to respectfully disagree with you here. What makes these boats complicated? The fact that they have a spinnaker? Seems like many people are adding spis to previously simple boats including H16's. Many people do like these boats and they do seem to be selling well. Notice, however, that I'm NOT saying that many people don't also like more simple boats. It's a matter of personal preference. There's room for them all. Personally I think they're all great.

And finally you said:
>> If you want to know what the rock stars like to race, it is all over the web. Look how many F18, A Class, etc. champions are also H-16 Champions. The skill is in pulling the lines just right and pointing the boat in the right direction and it is just as critical on all cats.

Actually in my post I didn't ask what the rockstars like to race. I also think it's great that so many fine sailors started on a H16 - good boat. But what does that have to do with my post or my questions? Also, "pulling the lines just right" and "pointing the boat in the right direction" sounds like good general advice, but kind of misses the point of the original post.

Jerry