Graham Bantock showed an experimental oval bulb at the UK ranking event at Falmouth over the weekend of 6/7 September 2003.  It was about as long as the current SAILSetc bulb, and had a similar shape -- just somewhat flattened...

Apparently some experimental work had shown that an oval bulb could give slightly less drag in breezy conditions, so Graham wanted to follow that up with a trial of a prototype.  After the event, though, he wasn't convinced, feeling that the bulb was about as good as his regular bulb on the beat, but not quite as good on the run.  More work needed, then.

2005-12-18

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