This boom vang is made of fiberglass rods that hold up the boom. The problem is it always supports the boom. So in light air when you ease the sheet the boom goes up not out. The middle leech goes loose. My recommendation is to take it off. Or at least make it so it doesn’t work during a race. The only way I can see it working is to regulate the vang constantly. A solid vang is quite different in that it doesn’t keep applying pressure as it get higher.

You need high tech tapered sheets. Going from heavy 5/16 or 3/8 sheets to really thin stretchy light air sheets is not a good option. You loose power when a sheet acts like shock cord. If you get nice high tech sheets they are lighter than the little thin sheets and stronger than the big heavy regular sheets, you can save them for the big regattas and they will last years. You are sailing against boats with tapered sheets with titanium shackles to save weight. Eyes (thimbles) on the twings which are tapered (cover off) lines also.

You don’t need these as badly as spinnaker sheets but I noticed Convergence and Lightning have very nice high tech sheets tapered (cover off) with a press lock shackle.

Check with the fast guys and your Sailmakers but a highly tapered batten in the top pocket drives the draft forward. In most sails the full length top batten is not tapered, or is just slightly tapered

The carbon poles are not critical but I would recommend them.

Mount a cleat or double clear on the mast for the spinnaker halyard. If you need a picture e-mail me

Many of the top boats are using them. They have been used on the T-10 for 20 years and are still fast. Rigging on is in the old Doyle tuning guide. That is on the T-10 web site. I can send you one also.

They are your engine. You wouldn’t enter a car race with an old engine that had never been tuned up. With the sail limitation you have to get new sails and stockpile them if you want to be competitive. Don’t use the good ones in the Mac

Sail up wind and get compass headings and set you trim. Put our spinnaker up and figure out the angles.

8-10 degrees

If you think you are going to be competitive with just painting your bottom you are mistaken. Wet sanding part of the sailing game. Pretend you like it. Board sand bottom, I could be wrong but I would bet all the top 5 boats have used long boards on their hulls.

I also think all of the top 5 boats have templated their keels. I know for a fact 4 of the 5 have had keel jobs. It costs about $3000 a nd unlike sails the job lasts the life of the boat. If you want to do it yourself I have a write up somewhere on how it is done. Thin is beautiful in keels.

Thin is also beautiful in rudders, but you have to be careful you can ruin you rudder by grinding too much.

Whenever you are you are getting used to it even powering along. You need to get comfortable steering so you can look around without changing course.