Mary,
I agree with you about the (obvious to me) greater fun found in one design racing. I can recall numberous races where I beat a close competitor (or lost to him) by less than a boat length. There is no way anyone can convince me that such a situation, whether your the boat ahead or not, is less exciting than finding out later on shore, after the math is done, how you finished.

In regards to the faster boat syndrome, I'll take a stab at it from my experiences in racing motorcycles. In amateur road racing, what I discovered was that there were two types of semi-serious competitors. One type wanted the fasted, coolest, baddest bike whether or not he could win on it or not. He enjoyed the glamor such a bike brought while in the pits. Serious racers, many on smaller budgets enjoyed beating that competitor with inferior equipment, but always were looking to improve their equipment. The second type of not-so-serious racer wanted a machine that was not quite competitive as this gave him a built in excuse for not winning. This rider was concerned about winning, but, I guess, just didn't think he could ever do it. Both of these not-so-serious racers enjoyed the sport, even if they didn't win. The serious guys wanted the best they could afford and did the best with what they had--usually doing quite well, even on inferior equipment. I think there are similarities here, especially with my first example of some skippers enjoying the WOW factor of the fastest, coolest boat on the beach. For the other example, the portsmouth system builds in a ready excuse whether or not a skipper wants to rest on it.

I think cat sailors though are a different type of sailor. They are not bound by tradition nearly as much as other dinghy sailors seem to be. They also have more "hot rodder" in them and like the speed for its own thrills. This factor leads cat sailors to probably be less brand loyal and always looking for the next hot boat (withing whatever economic limits one has).

This desire for speed leads to the splintering of owners at the upper end of the beach cat scene. We have far fewer participants than motorcycle racing has so the splintering severely limits classes.

Following the analogy, all motorcycle racing is, in effect, formula racing. The manufactures definitely play a game of trying to leap frog one another to have the hot machine in the class each year. It works because the number of participants are larger and there is a (relatively) huge population of street riders who will buy the machines new and used, so its easy for racers to switch and keep up. But it is definitely NOT one design.

David
H20