New Boats and Prices

[Bill Roberts]

Hi Guys,
I just read about the new Eagle 20, a 20ft boat and all carbon. It cost 32K at the factory in Germany. The boat won the Texel Race this year beating a Tornado by two minutes out of a 2hr and 41 minute race ET.
If you add to that base boat price some freight to get the boat to the US and some import duty, a spare centerboard and rudder and maybe a spare set of battens and a nice trailer and sail box, you could easily be talking about another 10K. Since this boat is coming from Europe and it takes a long time to get parts, if you were really serious, you might also order a spare set of sails, spare mast and spin pole for another 10K. One could easily have 50K in this all carbon boat set up ready to race on a serious campaign.
This boat beat the Tornado by 2 minutes out of a 161 minute race. That is 1.2%. If we use this one data point to calculate a PN for the Eagle and the Tornado PN is 59, then this boat's demonstrated PN is 58.3. Forty to 50K is a whole lot of money to spend for a boat that is slightly faster than a Tornado and slower than an ARC22. Who knows, next time they race the Tornado might beat the Eagle by 2 minutes and then this 1.2% PN advantage is gone. More data is needed to say anything for sure performancewise.
But one thing is for sure and that is that Tom Haberman has done one fine job of building you guys a boat that is definately faster than the Tornado and it cost much less than the Eagle 20. Now you tell me, which boat has the best/the fastest technology in it?
Practice more and sail faster, guys,
Bill