When you put beachcats on hydrofoils, is it still the same sport?

I seem to remember many tirades on this forum on how the A-cat had only a few very open rules and allowed "fantastic" development and modification of boat and that it was therefor the king of all cat classes.

Yet, everytime something REALLY interesting is being tried we see the class for what it really is. Scared shitless of any REAL development.

Now I don't mind if the class decides to progress either way (development or a strictly controlled class) but can we please also cut the BS about the A's being such an open class with only 3 to 4 class rules (length, width, weight, sailara area) ?

Personally I always felt the A-cat anti-foil rules were insufficient in preventing any projects in this direction. The definitions were not precise enough and left open alot of grey area.

Personally I would not even have any trouble if canted or curved boards were to be introduced in the more strict formula classes like F18's and F16's. If it works it works and as somebody else has said. We already allow alot of sail design and rig changes, why disallow boards changes ? Such a thing almost resembles a double standard.

Wouter

I seem to remember many tirades on this forum on how the A-cat had only a few very open rules and allowed "fantastic" development and modification of boat and that it was therefor the king of all cat classes.

Yet, everytime something REALLY interesting is being tried we see the class for what it really is. Scared shitless of any REAL development.

Now I don't mind if the class decides to progress either way (development or a strictly controlled class) but can we please also cut the BS about the A's being such an open class with only 3 to 4 class rules (length, width, weight, sailara area) ?

Personally I always felt the A-cat anti-foil rules were insufficient in preventing any projects in this direction. The definitions were not precise enough and left open alot of grey area.

Personally I would not even have any trouble if canted or curved boards were to be introduced in the more strict formula classes like F18's and F16's. If it works it works and as somebody else has said. We already allow alot of sail design and rig changes, why disallow boards changes ? Such a thing almost resembles a double standard.

Wouter