M_Boats: Mast Rake

Have often read in Jerry's emails that he prefers to rake Montgomery masts slightly because it makes the boats go faster. Is the relationship to mast rake and boat speed unique to Monty? Back in the old days when my gut was small enough to let me use hiking straps, I raced Thistles and Flying Scots. We tried to get the masts perfectly verticle or raked forward just a tad because it improved windward performance -- better pointing. Were we kidding ourselves? Perhaps we were trading reaching speed for windward performance. Dick Straubel --------------------------------- How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low PC-to-Phone call rates.