Ballgunner,

You're absolutely right by mentioning that replacing the keel (and rudder) makes it class illegal.

In Europe however, I'm not aware of any Fairwind regatta sailing, so the only ones we see, sail in our so called "Open Class".

The bulk of the boats in this class at the moment are Graupner Saphirs (and the odd T.T. Voyager) and the Comtesse and Fairwind pilots were quite fed up of being smoked by them (a.o.)...

Instead of buying a new boat they updated theirs, with baffling results, as these boats are the ones to beat now.

Regards, Jan.