L4000 / 29er ratings

Is that a special 29er word?  Can you translate for everyone who doesn't sail one?

When you get a bit of real breeze* 4000s and 29ers (and pretty much everything else "modern") don't sail to their handicap as they are still on the beach with the boat tied down.

*Real Breeze is the wind range 25-35 knots when the Contender and Fireball sailors are thinking about maybe pulling a bit more cunningham on....... For proper sailing conditions, you also need waves at least 10 feet tall.

Ah, the arrogance of youth.

So you expect to be getting steadily worse at sailing as you go on, do you? Might as well give up now.

There is another factor with the 29er which I'd not thought of. The 29ers are sailed by young fit kids who generally don't give up (not sure if this is because of their enthusiasm or the fear of Daddy telling them off if they retire from a race). Therefore there will be a number of 29ers in club races (which is probably where the people just starting out in the 29er sail it first to learn how to sail it!) who actually finish on the water back with the GP14s etc. because of the large number of capsizes which are inevitable when changing from a Topper / Oppi / Cadet into a high performance boat. This will really help the handicap end up slower than it should be.

For the "once a month overweight" types, after about three capsizes in a race, the prospect of an extra pint in the club bar is better than a miserable last place finish!

Of course the 29er kids are too young to have been corrupted by the evil influence of alcohol and see the bar as somewhere where their parents sit while watching them sail and would never be tempted by the prospect of an early pint 

You've got that the wrong way round. To end up with the handicap "slower" than the boat actually is, you actually need a lot of not very good sailors in the fleet, so the "average" 29er sailor would not be as good as the "average" 4000 sailor for this to happen.

The more likely "cause" of the problem is probably that your club is somewhere where the conditions favour the 29er (I'd guess on flat water, generally fairly breezy). The 4000 leaves 29ers for dead in very light winds (it can also leave 49ers behind if they can't fill their kites ) Also in a really harsh chop the 4000 is probably quite a bit quicker as it won't get chucked around as much by the sea - something which certainly happens to the B14 and really slows you down.

All the new "skiff style" boats will get left well behind on handicap in a really big sea though by genuine seaworthy performance boats such as the 505 and Osprey though, but very few people sail handicap races in these conditions.