Just imagine if every business deal / situation you did appeared on OSO (glass houses anybody?) - You wouldn't have time to do any work! And people wonder why our sport has not grown like other popular motorsports? These " so called" informitive posts are nothing but axe grinding jabs at APBA Offshore! By the way I consider Lance Henrichsen a good friend of mine and strakes , weight or a fine will not slow that boat down - so all you Skater fans quit worrying! BH

denied
 

Pete B:

No way I'll accept your request to change your avatar! Some days it's the only smile I get on here - haha - BH

Shane:

According to the latest point of view....all boat racing...... of any value....was invented in 1999.

T2x

I wish mine were, I couldn't buy that kind of advertising.

All else aside and with all due respect to all parties, I would consider altering a boat in any way, including weight and balance, running surfaces including strakes, etc. is no small undertaking. Actually, it sounds like quite a large undertaking including tooling, manufacture, testing and time...In my humble opinion, I would think that such an investment would not revolve around a frank conversation...I would insist on a written statement.

In my line of work, there is no change without written authorization and approval. It would only mean chaos and plane crashes...I would like to think the same would apply here.

Rules are rules are rules...
Okay, I'm done.

Baja,

Remember, the changes were/are made for safety and admittedly will slow the boat down. Would it not be more of a "level" playing field if the Skater went slower?

baja'
"It would only mean chaos and plane crashes"

remember this as well there certainly are more planes in the ocean, that boats in the sky, thats why your rule applies to planes" when tings go wrong there you cant shut the motors of and get a tow back to the dock.

BH
i wont be request a new avatar any time soon. :)

Good analogy or bad analogy; that's debatable...
But making significant chages without written authorization; I think we can all agree that' not a good thing. ;)

One has to see things in different views to appreciate things that are being said here.

For one, the past is the past. If the APBA was to provide rumors of the past violations, then they should have provided proof of past penalties for said violations, else it’s merely a smear to help facilitate their premises of this argument.

The basis of this argument is fairly simple:

In Key West, the Skater 399 V debuted, and by all accounts was written off as a non contender. Everyone from racers to potential customers did not hold the new boat in any regards as being good or competetitive or worthy of buying.

Skater has cured the handling problem which they openly admit to what they did; design one additional strake for the hull. Someone then added a single strake to each aft side of the hull, nothing more. (I’ve heard of teams removing strakes, but not adding them for greater speeds)

This was and is the first Skater V Bottom as I have read and they had to make a minor design change to modify a bad handling craft into a safe one.

Now the situation of the Skater 399 has been viewed differently. No longer is it a flop, as it had originally been seen to be, it has actually seen a bit of success in one race so far this season and all heck has broken out.

Does anyone actually expect a manufacture that has a substantial investment in their boat, not to mention a reputation, to not want to improve the boat itself and make it better? At what point and who should they have contacted for this permission? After all, a committee did not design the boat in the first place, nor did one cure its aliments.

Should they have left the boat alone and quite possibly never have made another one?

Who would this serve best?

Your missing the point. Nobody said anything about changing or not changing a design needs written permission from APBA
To RACE the boat is where the documentation of the changes comes in to play