I believe that the mast head kite is also an 6 sec hit to the rating. Ralph Deeds would know for sure. If the conditions are mostly light and you do lots of windward / leeward races it might be something to consider. It is my belief that the gains of a masthead kite are diminished in distance or point to point racing. The mast head kite is not as good closer to the wind. There are instances here in Detroit where we’ll switch to the fractional for reaches even if we are sailing one design. However overall we as a class don’t use mast heads when sailing PHRF, which would lead me to believe that you get diminishing returns if you were to make that switch. But we don’t sail W/L in PHRF and while we do have light winds in Detroit that is not always the case and Lake St. Clair is fluky at best. Dan

:: I'm looking to improve speed of E27 # 75, Ghost, without
:: hurting my PHRF rating too much, or maybe improving it.
:: Conditions here (Narragansett Bay) are light, such that
:: we only once even considered anything but a #1 jib this
:: year, in 20 - 25 races. I'm thinking of going to an
:: asymmetrical chute on a fixed bowsprit of say 18" - this
:: will apparently give a positive rating adjustment of
:: about 6 secs, which would be a big help. Has anyone
:: tried this, and if so, how did it work?

:: Thanks -