Good points. Most of the safety concerns can be solved with good engineering, like rubrails, righting pole, some reinforcements in the right places, etc.
With respect to the right pole. The design that Phill shows in his artistic impression won't need a righting pole for persons over 40 kg, irrespectibally of the conditions. The latter means that a 40 kg person (or heavier) can right it even in flat water and no wind.
This does assume that Phils design uses a plain alu mast and rig setup as given in this posting :
http://www.catsailor.com/forums/showthre...ge=0#Post124554I've already run the full body mass and length data on the F12 design that is very similar to Phill design and these are the results. Using the US demographic data, a 12 year old kid (both male and female) weight (on average) 41 kg. Beyond 15 years of age both will weight AT LEAST 40 kg.
A crew of two 8 year olds will also weight at least 40 kg combined; on average two 6 year olds will already put in that weight.
My basic point here is that we should start looking at real scientifically derived numbers and less to what we feel is the case. The scientific numbers show that the Blade 12 (and F12) designs are pretty well suited to these young teenagers and even crews of 2 made up from smaller kids.
Wouter
