12 foot skiff photo's

I know.. I didn't want to play there but that's where my coach put me! Worked better as a loosy, but back row is so much better 

.........small boat though

Yeah but considering that we have to bear-straight down-wind in heavier breezes, the extra area would be causing extra drag, reducing overall speed. Think its been proven before that more efficency can outweigh the advantages of having more sail area.

Yes... But that is why they have 3 or 4 different rig sizes. They always aim to be slightly overpowered. Huge kite in no wind, smaller kite in a fresh breeze. Was chatting to Yabba when he was over last summer and he reckoned the 12's were the same speed or faster than the 18's off the wind so they can't be that inefficient.

Fair points and I'm not doubting that a 12 can go faster than an 18 or a 49er but within the actual class I reckon that carrying the largest kite would be a disadvantage due to the extra drag it would create. The RMW 18 was notoriously fast off-wind and they were using kites that were smaller than the majority of the class at that time. The better cut and usuage of area seemed to give then an advantage and the less drag created seemed to help boat speed. Would be interesting to explore the area more and would be good to get some feed back off some 12foot skiff sailors to see how it actually works out in their class.