Dear fellow F16 sailors and enthousiasts.
A year of testing the framework has passed and the time to evaluate the F16 framework is at hand. I've contacted and been contacted by several builders, homebuilders and Sailors and we, as a class, have a few points that need discussing.
Ofcourse the intent of this is to modify the rules were necessary and reconfirm the rules where it has proved to work. The final result will be a frameset that will be permanently fixed and that can only be changed in increasingly rare cases of inequality or risk of personal injury.
All in all not a unimportant excersize.
The issues will each be discussed in seperate post linked to this thread and each issue will be decided by a vote which is open to all enthousiasts. Feel free to contribute and vote.
The current message functions as an announcement and to give a describtion of the current situation so that everybody is voting on the issues with equal knowledge of the background.
First of all :
- The builders -
Are at this time AHPC (Taipan); Stealth Marine ; Bimare
With added boats of comparable performance made by Swell Catamarans (Spitfire) and Ventilo (Zipo 16)
There are two persons/companies on the side who are currently investigating producing pure F16's of their own; One of them has just indicated willingness to build a prototype.
- The class-
The main stay of the F16 class is currently the USA with some 15 boats; next is The EU with a total of 12 boats (not counting the German Taipan + spi sailors or the Spitfires) ; Ofcourse Australia is slowly getting more involved through Rob Wilson, James Sage, Phill Brander and Steward. Some other crews next to these have also shown interest or even have put spis on their boats.
Currently Rob Wilson is helping the class out with a new website which will replace the old website that is frequently in breach of the monthly transfer rate and amount of webspace.
Class ratings have been attained under Texel and the US portsmouth systems and we are currently discussing a rating under ISAF. The Australian Victory system is expected to get a comparable listing when the Taipan + spi are entered in open races there. The last can well be a matter of days.
The class has been succesful in making the class known to several sailmakers; A quick list : Randy Smyth, Goodall yacht sails, Peter Vink, Arjan Kooij and Redhead sails. All of these know what the general setup is, where to find the rules and how to contact the class.
Currently we are trying to establish contact with German?polish catbuilder to see wether they are interested in boosting their prototype 16 footer to the F16 specs.
The immediate next goal of the class is to improve the website and the availability of information on the class as well as the individual designs. Parallel to this, the framework will be evaluated and permanently fixed.
- The ground principle of the class -
A simple affordable boat with enough flexibility to be sailed and raced competitively solo, with crew made up of teenagers, parent and child, a man and a woman or light to medium weight males.
The versatility has been confirmed by sailors like Micheal Coffman, Phill Brander and Mike Crawford. Micheal is a light weight guy of 135 lbs (61 kgs) and was very comfortable sailing the Taipan 4.9 solo. He also sailed the Taipan with spi with his wife and found it to be just right; his combined crew weight was about 265 lbs = (120 kg's). His setup closely resembles the overall weight what you expect from a crew of teenagers, parent+ child teams and light husband and wife teams.
Geert Reusink and John Pierce showed that the F16 concept was competitive in relation to F18 designs with a crew weight of about 300 to 310 lbs.
Mike Crawford showed how to exploit the flexibility of the F16 boats by taking on a novice sailor and leaving of the jib and spi in a distance race. The Taipan showed to be fast and exciting in comparison to Inter 20's without overstretching the crew.
Both Kirt Simmons and Chuck Harnden showed that even a F16 in uni-rig mode without a spi was a very competitive design and wouldn't be left behind by TheMightyHobie18's and H20 in open fleet regatta's. Bill Moran has indicated that he thinks that this setup is a very good setup to start out on the learning curve of a modern style high performance catamaran.
To finish of the describtion : Elliot Tonkes showed by a well executed mathematical analyses of the Taipan 2000/2001 and 2001/2002 nationals that it can be expected that the F16 framework would centre its ideal competitive crewweight around 135 kg's (= 300 lbs) with a rather flat weight dependence over the range 120 kg's to 150 kg's. The last with regard to doublehanded sailing ofcourse. Most crews will fall into that range; especially the teenager, parent+kid, male-female and light to medium male crews.
Several sailors that have sailed with the 21 sq. mtr. and 17,5 sq mtr. spi have indicated that the 17,5 sq.mtr. is the better balanced chute for the F16 platform. It sits right, it is handled well by novice crews and wifes and doesn't really feel any slower at all.
This confirms the choice for this (maximum) size of the F16 spi.
Solo sailors on the Taipan and Stealths have indicated that the current mainsail on the F16's has plenty of power and is about right if not “maxed-out”. One sailor expressed that he felt more comfortable on these platforms than on an A-cat and that the difference in performance felt small. He may be very kind to the F16 concept as the A-cat is undeniably an upwind monster. But the point here is that he felt more comfortable on the F16 than on the A-cat without feeling noticably slower and that was just the point we were aiming for.
Comments made by other solo sailors confirmed that solo sailing the F16's is demanding but within the reach of relatively inexperienced crews. These skippers felt challenged (some say exited) but nevertheless still comfortable and in control. David Swingle expressed similar comment with regard to singlehanding the manual spi setup as do I myself. Snuffers would be even more comfortable.
How about affordability ? Well that is one topic that will be voted on. Several builders and designers have indicated that they can reach a minimum weight of 100 kg's but that it would involve much higher costs than would be adviceable. For now lets say that wew are still a considerable amount cheaper than our direct competitors like the F18’s, I17R’s and FX-ones.
So here it is; over the coming week I will add more and more topics to the discussion and I’m looking forward to closing the discussions with a vote before halve oktober.
If anybody has issue with the rules that now is the time to express it.
With kind regards,
Wouter Hijink
Chairman of the Formula 16 HP class