Whoa.
I asked Larry every question I could think of and he was patient enough not just to answer, but to explain his responses as well. Two things Larry told me have stuck in my mind:
1. How a little thing can affect balance at high speed.
To help keep their boat level when it's airborn between waves (and to prevent landing nose-down, "submarining" and being buried beneath the next swell), the navigator is constantly pumping 25 gallons of water ballast back and forth between two tanks located fore and aft.
I asked if 25 gallons of water-weight really made a difference.
Larry nodded and emphatically added, "Ten gallons makes a big difference, not just for performance, but for safety. You do not want to be airborn at 90mph pitching your bow down into the next 6-foot swell because you'd shear off the canopy, and the occupants, from the boat."
I had a hard time believing it. A gallon of water weighs just 7 pounds, and moving a mere 70 pounds of water a few feet forward or backward inside the hull can keep a 5100-pound boat going 90 mph balanced?
"Yes," Larry confirmed. "Because conditions like wind, current and fuel consumption are constantly changing during a race and affecting our balance."
2. A race doesn't last last 90 minutes: races are won during all the time spent in-between.
