This is a concern that only people that have never sailed a loose footed  
main will raise. First of all, the Rhodes, although being quite nimble, is by no  
means built for racing. If you are going to race, the IMF is probably not the 
 way to go. The greatest asset of the IMF is the ability to change the amount 
of  sail that is out to accommodate varying wind conditions. It also allows 
you to  get away from the dock and be sailing faster than any other boat in the 
marina.  The amount of speed lost isn't more than a tenth of a mile per hour 
at most.  Tell the old sailor to stick around and find out when you get your 
new  boat. You will be the envy of every other sail boater out there. If you 
really  want a batten, order Stan's new battened main sail. It has one vertical 
batten.  I could spend a great deal of time describing the many adjustments 
that can be  made to the IMF, but I don't have the time right now. There is a 
lake wind  advisory for our lake and I'm off to go sailing.
 
Rummy
 
 
In a message dated 5/11/2008 2:00:23 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
dawnandmichael at comcast.net writes:


I  had an older sailor/racer raise concerns about buying a boat with an IMF  -
as it has no battens , he asks how does the sail maintain shape,   and stay
rigid when needing to ?
-- 
View this message in context:  
http://www.nabble.com/How-well-can-the-IMFmain-be-shaped-and-controlled---tp17170623p17170623.html
Sent  from the Rhodes 22 mailing list archive at  Nabble.com.

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