Don; First a few specs. I have an, early vintage, 1979 O'Day 30 center board. One of the ones that had lead for ballast as opposed to cast iron, consequently 600# heavier than later models. Which, by the way is accounted for in my handicap. I race this boat fairly often and here's my dilema. getting enough crew that race the boat together on a regular basis. This boat has a rather long :J: 13'6" for 30'boat, and is a masthead rig, hence it has a very large chute that is a bear to handle when the wind picks up anything past 10 knts true. Therefore we need at least 5 crew to be competative, pref. 6. We also race it extensively in non-spin class with two head sails. The boat seems to be most competative sailing in the 75 to 120 deg. apparent range. Sailed any deeper and we're dead. However, sailing this high and hot requires a lot of gybing. which on this boat is slow, because of acceleration problems with its given heavy displacement and we are up against J24's in our spin class, which as you know, can gybe and accelerate quickly. I have a sail which the sailmaker calls a "sidekick", which is a downwind genoa, cut to the 155 PHRF rule. It has a 4% curve cut in the luff and is used free flying. It is made of 1.5oz. spin cloth, cross cut panels. We have done some playing around with it and it seems that if we use a bow sprit (temp made up using the whisker pole)its a lot faster. PHRF would allow me to have a bow sprit up to 25% of my "J" with a penalty of 3 seconds/mile. So to break even, I figure the boat has to be at least 6 seconds/mile faster off the wind. Do you think that it would perform at least that much better off the wind? We are also seriously considering getting rid of the sys. spin and going to an assy. spin so we can get away from the big crew requirement. Now the real biggie! I can't find anywhere, and no one seems to know the lateral loads that will be on the sprit. It would be nice to know ahead of time if I'm dealing with 1000#, 2000#, or whatever, at the tack. If I go with the sprit, I intend to go the full amount for my 3 seconds, which is 4'5". A new rule was enacted on the Chesapeake Bay this year regarding fixed vs. articulating sprits. Now there is no penalty for having an art. sprit. Do you think they have any advantage over the fixed ones, speed wise? One other item. Do you know if any one has polars for this conf. and vintage O'day. Or do you have to develope your own? Thanks for any info and light you may be able to shed on the matters. Capn Jim of Que Pasa?