Anyone know anything about National 18s?

The points being made to you by myself and others is that your nudge-nudge wink-wink 'web approach' is fundamentally misguided and the concept of a necessary protest etc seems to have gone over your head.    If taken seriously it creates precedent that makes a joke of historical and proven approaches.     There is already standard method and procedure for flushing out anything 'suspected' to do with racing.  Would seem the sensible point to have started from....  IF that failed at some level THEN you might have had had something more tangible to squawk about.  Might not be the most ‘juicy’story though I guess....

From the little I know the crew involved apparently sailed a class demo boat that fully meets the requirements and standards of the class concerned.... I have no idea whether they carried a formal class certificate, racing insurance or vaccination certificates or whatever   .....  But if I was that bothered, as you obviously are, (or are you really just the stalking horse for  those mysterious and obviously rather shy  ‘others’ ) I'd have protested as should have they ....   Do remember most SMOD classes, and they constitute a very large proportion today, do not even issue certificates. And as an aside I don’t recall anything of the sort to do with board racing way back ... the reasonable presumption was  the stuff flogged by the suppliers would measure.  Please tell us it did ...

It is very possible that the crew are totally ‘innocent’ of your charges and the boat has always been within the measurements and requirements  of the class anyway.    Would they have known even if a CA certificate was still pending or required ?   Are you or is anyone else therefore suggesting  or insinuating that this boat was NOT a regular N18 but was say carrying larger sails or was lighter etc?  Generally demo boats are hardly ‘specials’ – and rather more often are the opposite given the hard life they ‘enjoy’.    

For the record I don’t have any connection with the N18 class, have never sailed one and don’t currently know anyone who does  !    But I am delighted to see that the class is benefitting from all the attention here – and good luck to them.    Perhaps you should ask them for a demo yourself – with your collaborators perhaps.  It would make a great follow up line.... still time to be at the next  ‘Oxford Blue’ SJ event  in a couple of weeks.