I don't mind people designing whatever they want, hobie can add 10 more small cats to their product line and I won't loose any sleep over that. Hobie will simply not succeed at making any of them into a viable class anyway.

The issue I see with prototyping before any agreed ruleset is that when all the prototyping has been done we'll get into a right "Battle Royale" about the rules. Afterall, at that time everybody wants the rule set to fit their boat as there is no point in wasting all that invested effort and money. When the designs differ significantly (as they are very likely to do) then well end up with no agreed rule set. Basically if we are having trouble now, think of the trouble we'll encounter then when designers are entrenched and more emotionally committed to their own specific design choices.

I'll give you an example that is not intended to diss anyone. Phill makes his boat narrower and with less sailarea then all others as he want the boat to fit between the Blade F16 hulls on his trailer and to be sailed by 8 year olds. I will make my F12 2 mtr wide so a 40 kg crew (12 year old kid) will be able to hold down the 7.00 sq. mtr. rig. Now when both boats have been prototyped and found to work (which is very likely) on which maximum F12 width and sail area shall we agree ?

If we agree on Phills specs then we can just throw out all the effort associated with the other projects like RG and myself. Most likely result is that we won't agree to that and form our own class. If we set the specs to suit my design then Phills design will be dead in the water with respect to any level F12 racing (= more serious racing for youths). It will significantly underpowered. We already know that Phill won't agree to entlarging his design and he will just continue as his own OD class.

Basically, we won't have a viable F12 class beyond the situation that we call any and all 12 foot catamaran a F12. This situation will be impossible to convert into a true international class like the optimist of laser 4.7/radial which was afterall the REAL intention of the F12 project.

Maybe everybody for himself will work in Aus (but I doubt it) but such a setup will most definately fail in the US and EU were organisation is of paramount importance. You will not be taken seriously by any organisation and sailing club if you don't have a real level racing class, either OD or formula.

Now we can indeed do our own things and have our own Battle-Royale-to-the-Death, where like the Highlander movies "There can be only one !" in the end, but I don't really enjoy competing other peoples efforts to extinction, I think it to be a great waste of resources and skill actually.

Wouter