R Speculation

Mylar is (apparently) not well suited for unstayed rigs because you have to stretch the sail to get the shape right.

The boat is genuinely very light and that is one of the key differences to anything on the market. 

The design is by Jo Richards and two prototypes are sailing. 

The mast and boom are carbon round poles and the current sails have conventional luff ropes and are hoisted on a track. Personally I far prefer this over a sleeved sail. Whilst a sleeved sail is possible a tiny fraction more efficient (especially round an old aluminium drainpipe!), with current slim carbon masts its irrelevant and a tracked mast is much easier. 

The mast is unstayed, so doesn't have an adjustable forestay per supernova/phantom etc. The depower comes from a flexible carbon mast and the fathead main which twists off or can be depowered by the cunningham - it works well. Controls are the usual, main, conventional kicker (Gnav would be pointless as the cockpit stops behind the mainsheet), outhaul, cunningham. The current sails are Dacron and as Martin says are three sizes. I was also initially surprised to see them in Dacron, but its very good Dacron and they do work well, stretching where needed. I don't know if Mylar will be tried, but it may not work as well on this rig.

The design is simple, clean and has clever inherent structural strength. In terms of laminate, it's following the well trodden RS laminate construction as used in the 100,300 and 800, all of which are known to be very tough and long lasting. 

It is a very simple boat and not covered in loads of string so would appeal to a broad church. As the D-One and the RS300 show well, an unstayed carbon rig can do a lot of the work for you without resorting to a spiders web of control lines. 

Its simple, modern, very light and quick.

Oh yes .. you'd better drop a note to BA ...