I believe that "solid, articulated wing masts/sails" were rejected by the "A" class due to the potentually HUGE costs that would been incurred by the sailors to remain competitive, if and when some one set one up and used it successfully, they would have wiped the floor with all non wingged A class cats thereby, at one step making every other A class in the world obsolete. This obviously had the potentual of, not improving the class, but of totally destroying it. The same reasoning can be applied to the "C" class catamarans! You will never see them sailing around in great numbers at a club level, it requires an irregular, prestigous International challenge, just to get two on the water at the same time.
Darryl J Barrett