>>Forget what I said about the IOR stuff before. Actually, that was probably one of the more interesting and salient points in this discussion.
My old boat was designed when IOR was at the end of it's (mercifully short) life span. It really had very little to do with IOR, other than the fact that Bob Evelyn retained the somewhat narrow stern sections and slightly pinched transom of IOR boats designed in the HayDay IOR. But interesting enough, the FO of my boat, who is a well-known and realtively successful racer in Annap, actually ADDED 200 pounds of lead to the boat...in the form of loose number 6 shotgun pellets! He basically reinforced the mast step (notoriously poorly constructed on E 32-2s) and the keel sump (also dreadfully underbuilt) and then poured in 10 twenty pound bags of loose shot. These little bastards would find any available opening to leak out under the cabin sole and then everytime we'd heel, they'd run out on to the cabin sole, so that going below in a breeze was like going roller-skating...really treacherous and plus they'd find their way into the bilge pumps and generally mock up everything they could. He added the weight because the boat was too "corky" in the light stuff and wouldn't track as well as the Frers 36 's and C&C 35's he was racing against back then. Also: current thinking in the J35 class is to load the bow up going downhill in light air...the V-sections in the water forward help the boat track straighter, less helm required, and less wetted surface dragging along behind. SO maybe Dave H. is on to something??? tf
