49er sails

The question is why increase the mainsail to accomidate the heavyweights in the fleet. There are many pro-sailors in the fleet and although I'm not getting paid to sail my boat at this stage, I could easily drop 5-10kg to stay competitive, so surely the guys who are getting money for sailing could easily make the drop. The sailmakers aren't wanting to alter the sail design, and putting a square top on is going to negatively affect the upwind performance of the boat for arguably better offwind performance. I'm seeing a real good argument for carbon masts but have doubts about if the mainsail needs to be increased. Most of the weight in the current masts are low down in the bottom section so the centre of mass of the mast is low down already. Putting a carbon mast in its place will lower it slightly more but it isn't going to have that great an effect on the righting moment needed to keep the boat upright. Think what the B14 sailors were saying earlier about there experiences with the conversion makes sense, Carbon masts will help aid better performance but won't turn the whole fleet on its head.

Surely carbon wings will cost more than a mainsail.

Why change a boat with such good fleets and competition just to fuel a few ego's?  Being the quickest isn't the be all and end all (although granted the 49er does get a lot of press for its reputation of being fast).  And to cater for the heavyweights, surely the suggestion of weight equalisation is best, or you end up with the RS300 type A rig/B rig scenario, where the A rig just isn't as quick. 

The new rig will have to be perfect in order to make sure that it powers the heavyweights along at the same speed as the old rig does the lightweights. 

Didn't the original 49er in the trials have adjustable wings? Looking at the pictures, I'd have thought it would be possible to set the same wings further inboard? Not that I'm at all sure that it would be a good idea. A bit like forcing formula 1 cars to put treaded tyres on to make them slower...do they still have them this year? 

That would help shave a bit of weight of the boat, but the new wings would probably be on a par expense-wise to a new main-sail, and from a logistics sense, easier to distribute new mains rather than 2 wings.

If the plans were proposed today and I had to cast a vote for them, I'd support them. When I heard about it at first, I was quite but reckon that it will be quite positive for the class in the future. There has been talk of the main area being increased, but does anyone know if there will be an increase in kite size? I'm guessing since the Bethwaite site is quoting 50sqm at the present moment, that might be a hint at an increase.