Mark and Luiz,

The basic project status at this time pretty much is that we have failed to reach agreement on any specs for the F12. More fundamentally we have failed to reach agreement on the goals that the F12 class and design should satisfy.

Phill Brander and some other designer that Mattaipan is refering to (Scarecrow ?) has decided to work on their own where Phills design will be an OD or SMOD setup. Neither of them have referenced with the F12 project lately, neither in public nor privately to me.

Gareth (Grob) says he has an active project but I haven't seen anything from it since the springtime earlier this year.

Retired Geek is both publically and privately referencing his designs and contributions with the F12 project. He is also helping other volunteers in this project with filling on some of the blanks. He is a team player.

All designers have stated preparing to prototype their designs starting in Januari this year. Note, that this is done without any F12 framework having been agreed upon. Basically the only common feature among all of these designs is that they are all MORE OR LESS 12 foot length. Most designs differ significantly in one or more important parameters like sail area for example.

If all persist at this stand-off then it will be impossible to form a single class organisation around these significantly differing designs.

Without a class, I don't fancy much the chances of any of these designs to become a succes outside of a very localized area.

Maybe we should just accept the split between the Aussies and the rest of us and continue the F12 project with Retired Geek (Grob), Gato, Mark, You and some US volunteers I haven't assigned any tasks to yet.

If any of the volunteers want a F12 for kids below 12 years of age then they are invited to join the Australian project with all others being invited to join the F12 project that is build around the above named persons.

Wouter