>>Phil Agur wrote:
Tim,but the high end of the sport went beyond that when they removed theoretical from the equation.<<<
--------------------------------------------------------- preeeee- cisely. that was sorta my point.what I love is a boat like "Cone of Silence"...30 feet overall, (not counting the monster prod) it can keep up with and sometimes pass the Maxi's, powered up
downwind (doesnt have a prayer upwind, but....) so....it's a whole new ballgame out there (perhaps less so if we were talking about displacement hull mota-boats.... which we weren't ;-) when I'm racing a pretty small OD boat (J24), a hundredth of a knot advantage in speed over a mile long leg translates into a a boatlength or two...theoretical hull speed is not a discussion one hears much anymore in racing these days.This might sound counter-intuitive, but I always set my speedo up (on the evelyn)
at 110% of what my polars indicate. Why? It gets the crew more involved and usually translates into a more confident and focused bunch. (shhhhh...they dont know it's at 110%). Seems to work with my bunch.so, we look for target speeds that probably have little or nothing to do with
theoretical hull speed. certainly the 13.8 kn we saw in Leukemia Cup three years ago didnt!! har. tf go the cone!
<<attachment: TheCone.jpg>>
