A while back someone asked about the weight of a bare Venom US1M hull. I finally found my photocopies of my MY magazine from back in the mid 90s.
Sadly for that person bare hull weight is 3.5 oz. The whole boat weighs 5 lb 7 1/2 oz with a 4 lb 1/2 oz lead bulb. So the ballast to overall weight ratio is 73%. Pure thin kevlar hull.
Can anyone build a comparable balsa glass boat? I doubt it.
Sometimes due to no one good showing up or an 80 foot boat running over the fastest boat (and excellant skipper) a heavy boat can even win a National Championship, but boat for boat a Venom that is built like this 1st one belonging to Bob Sterne is going to be much faster all around the course than a boat with a vastly different ballast to weight ratio.