Ended this season with a stuck board on my M17 (stuck in the "up" position) . . . I'm dreading like the plague finding out what's the matter next Spring, but the problem has to wait 'till then . . . I don't think it's a swollen centerboard trunk, because the "stickiness" happened almost instantaneously . . . But we tried jumping on the cockpit floor over the c-board trunk, pounding a screwdriver into the pendant slot, no dice . . . Anyway, went on my last couple sails with the board "up", and noticed absolutely no difference in stiffness whatsoever, and we sailed in very powerful winds, but definitely noticed the leeway and poor windward progress!!! My opinion: The two Mission Bay sailors may be right about the Potter or the Catalina, but they're wrong about the Montgomery 17'. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerry Montgomery" <jmbn@innercite.com> To: "MC Carpenter" <southisland2@earthlink.net>; "For and about MontgomerySailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2003 4:58 PM Subject: Potter and Catalina I would argue against that as a generality, and particularly regarding the M-15 and 17. Jerry ----- Original Message ----- From: "MC Carpenter" <southisland2@earthlink.net> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2003 9:46 PM Subject: Potter and Catalina Had an interesting conversation this afternoon, with couple of boat owners here in Mission Bay. One person works in the boat yard a another claims to be into marine and navel architect designs. So here goes, this is not my statement and I have never heard this before. "That most if not all the keel - centerboards have less than a 10% increase in windward performance compared to the board being up or down, but the real benefit to lowering the centerboard is the lower the weight for ballast in carrying full sail, or for self rescue" Is any one a designer of sailboats listening, I would like to know how true that statement is. This statement does not include pure centerboard or dagger board sailboats