That's a curious story you have about the beams Darryn. It just doesn't match with what I've seen. My boat is nearly 10 years old, has been raced hard all it's life, as a sloop for the first 5 or 6 years, then with a spinnaker for the last 4 years, one of those as a sloop with spinnaker. The old beams are still going fine!

Oh yes, and the edges are rounded!

My previous boat broke a front beam, but that was very badly corroded (and did not have rounded corners). Where it broke it was eaten right through, so it had to break.

Are the SA beams coming from a different source to the Victorian ones? I'm amazed you are breaking new ones.

Hell, Bob Wilson even takes the centre beam off his boat and it still hangs together !!!!!!!

Not sure what you mean about "badgering". I'm not aware there's any moves afoot to change anything at all right now. There's a big difference between talking about stuff and actually putting in a rule change proposal (which, by the way, any member can do).