Ultimately the view of the Class Executive is that no decisions affecting racing in such a significant way should be made so close to the World Championship. The rules stand as they are and gennakers can be used upwind.
After the light day at the Kiel Europeans where teams hoisted their kites upwind and were faster, the topic of using gennakers upwind has been high on the Class agenda. There are submissions to be voted on at the AGM next week about changes that the Class could make to better accommodate the use of gennakers upwind. The Class was contacted a number of times this week, after a day of training in 9 knots in La Grande-Motte, where teams successfully used the kites upwind, but with some breakages and images of the masts being significantly strained. The view by some sailors is that we should not allow the use of gennakers upwind for these worlds.
One argument to allow gennakers upwind is simple speed. It is faster in light conditions to use the gennaker upwind. It also adds color and additional tactical considerations to keep racing interesting.
The counter argument is that the boat was not built to handle the loads of a gennaker upwind. The masts themselves are the original design and have not been redesigned to account for upwind gennaker sailing. To be effective, teams will need to flatten their mainsails by applying cunningham, which further stresses the masts. Using kites upwind will raise the average crew weights, a negative in a mixed class, and all the hardware would need to be reinforced and upgraded to handle the loads. Finally, the crews would need to act as human cleats, or cleats be added to the boats.
From a technical point of view, and Nacra have made explicitly clear, the mast is not designed to handle these loads. When it gets trimmed properly the mast loads are too high and the kite, pole, and the hardware components, are not rated for these loads either.
This topic was discussed by the Executive this week. It is relatively simple to restrict upwind sailing with gennakers for the World Championships next week via the sailing instructions. The Nacra 17 Class Executive discussed the topic. We considered putting it to a vote of sailors at the Worlds next week but the timing is too late. Ultimately the Executive decided that no racing decisions should be taken so close to the World Championship, so the rules will stand as they are today.
The topic is on the agenda for both the Open Forum and the AGM. Any decisions affecting Class Rules will be brought to a vote by EGM this winter.
Marcus
