My intention was to say that, in order to remain competitive, you will likely find it necessary to go to stronger, more expensive planes. This makes it harder for sport flyers who do not have big budgets to enter into a competitive position. Harder? Sport flyers are competitive the minute they enter a contest. IF they put what ever ship up into 10mins of air and put the nose on the spot, their personal score will the best possible. A 'sport flyer' entering a contest with a Perfect, Insanity, Supra, SuperduperSupra, or DPCougar doesn't put him in a 'competitive' position. He'll still only pilot that model to the best of his skill, experience, practice and talent...which isn't going to equal those pilots. We have all ended up with better scores than guys with 'better' sailplanes.
So lets drop the argument that having weaker winches will some how make our contests a kinder gentler more inviting place for newbies and sensitive types. 2007 had less broken lines than 2006 due to the new line (maybe more pop offs ), batteries are something we replace each year or so anyway, so where's the beef? (I think clubs using Optima's will agree that they seem to have a little less punch so that would take some edge off launch stress). Gordy **************************************See AOL's top rated recipes (http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)