On Saturday, February 14, 2015 at 1:29:03 PM UTC+13, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
I have been away from soaring for 12 years and have noticed the open
class now has long wing and much shorter wing birds (JS-1C) competing.
I am curious how do the 21 and 23 meter new ships keep up with the
ASW-22BL's and Nimbus-4's. Are the new shorter wing gliders better
overall (better L/D, better penetration )

If you look at the polars, those old long wing gliders have amazing glide angles at 55 knots, but they lose badly to the new thin airfoils at high speed.


or just better on strong days when wing loading counts more than the
ability to stay in the air?

Yes, exactly, where "strong days" means anything over 1 or 1.5 knot climbs.