You may want to consider maximizing the boat with the frac setup and seeing how you do before taking the hit for the masthead. My experience has been that we've got good downwind speed in just about all conditions relative to most boats except the big suckers with high aspect mains and enormous chutes (read: C&C's, T-10s, etc). Assuming we've got somewhat flat water (which we do in Baltimore in the evenings, not out in the bay - ever), we just didn't need a performance boost downwind, or anyway one that would cost us 6-sec/mi. Your experience may be different depending upon the sea-state. Upwind, I'd gladly take a hit for more sail area, but that's pretty much impossible...maybe I should try one of those Pearson 30 165% gennys or something. We are talking about the possibility of some "level" mid-130 racing with boats like Soverel 27's and for that, I will probably look more closely at a masthead.

Our ODR (frac) rating on the Chesapeake is 144, which I assure you is far from a gift, esp with the short chop, light wind and heavy current we get here. Good Luck!

:: We are in a light to med wind area on mobile bay.Our
:: PHRF class is J 30s, Pearson Flyers Olson 911's Santa
:: Cruse 27 and others. We all rate 3 seconds of each other
:: with the express @141 and others @138.Would a mast head
:: spinnaker work in these wind conditions with a 6 second
:: hit and would it pay to cut the pole back and only take
:: a 6second hit from our base of 144. istead of 9seconds
:: total. thanks P S the boat goes back in the water in 2
:: weeks and I need to have all my bases covered as I brag
:: alot. thus I'm keeping the old name on the boat. EXPRESS
:: YO SELF