I am interested in hearing everyone's opinion on our class rule for spinnaker material and the spinnaker restrictions. Right now we are limited to 3/4 ounce (Nylon) equivelent per the rules. This is the same as .6 0z polyester material as well. Both of these materials are pretty much obselete as most of you probably know. We are mostly using AIRX material now because it is much stronger than the other materials but we are limited to a very heavy version of this cloth.

To give you a comparison, the Farr40 fleet uses AIRX500 for all of their chutes and has little or no problems with the strength of them. AIRX500 is basically a .5oz material which we are forbidden to use in our class.

Our class rules state "The material shall be no lighter than 30 x 30 denier, nominal 3/4 ounce per sailmaker's yard woven polyester, also known as 0.6 oz. polyester spinnaker material." So it is hard to relate the AIRX material equivelent but it is approximately AIRX650 or 700 I believe and these are both very heavy and indestructible cloths.

So I am proposing that we either lift the restriction on the sail material completely or simply add that all versions of AIRX material should be allowed.

Now on the use of the sails side of the coin, I propose that we get rid of the one old and one new spinnaker and simply state that an owner who has owned their boat for greater than one year is only allowed 2 new sails per year. The idea here is that you are allowed an entire new set of sails when you buy a boat, but after one year you are only allowed two new sails per year. We would still be limited to sailing with 6 sails per the rules except that now your spinnaker doesn't have to be 18 months old.

Let me know what you think by posting your comments here.

Thanks.