flaming2

If you definitely want A sail at that size, and to win under IRC, then I cannot think of anything that would be a better bet than the J97. Although it is worth noting that in the UK a few J97s are starting to go to S-sails for round the cans. If you're not wedded to A-sail then there are several options in the thread above that will either a: be better on the ww/lw track. (eg JPK1010) b: have better interior for family cruising. (eg Elan 333)

A Sunfast 3600 called Reshift Reloaded just pushed Yes all the way in the UK IRC national champs. Yes being an especially tricked out JPK1080.

If you want to increase the spectacle of the sailing, and you define that as close racing with lots of covering tacks and gybes etc, then you have to make tacks and gybes cost a lot less. Quite how you do that I'm not entirely sure, but having an automatic ride height might well help a lot as the risk of a splashdown would be reduced. Then if you can make the whole platform a lot more manoeuvrable, probably at the expense of some top end speed, you could even go back to a more traditional match racing start. And stop the stupid pumping just to generate hydraulic pressure. Stored power for foils and conventional winches for trimming only.

BAR have gone 2-0 against Artemis. Both sailed in reasonable breeze. I wonder if the kiwis will consider picking SoftBank and letting BAR have another crack at Artemis, maybe thinking there's a better chance that way of not having to face Artemis at all?

Do they feel that designing the boats so they could be IMOCA compliant will compromise what could be achieved performance wise in a 60ish foot foiling mono platform given a completely blank piece of paper?