I will run by the various designs and give my feelings about them. I have a homebuild Taipan F16 whose construction was the first under the F16 ruleset at the start. Other commercial boats, the Stealth F16's, were completed sooner however. I have no affiliation to any of the builders or dealors and these are all my private views.


General discussion

All commericially build and optimized F16's are excellent boats in my opinion. Each has its strong points and weak points but the overall picture is pretty succesful in handling and performance despite this balancing. The differences are more like nuances then real drawbacks. All modern style F16's carry crew weight surprisingly well. The Taipan were noticeably best when you stayed below 145 kg, but the modern F16's with the redesigned hulls handle weights up to 160 kg competitively. Recreationally or in fun racing the F16's go up just as high as any F18 which is just under 200 kg combined weight. However, all F16's remain sensitive to weight placement on the boat. Meaning, you have to work as a team to keep the weight distribution optimal at all times. The punishment is loss in performance. The F16's are less like a sit and sail fast boat then other classes, the crew and boat are one unit that has to be integrated with eachother for optimal performance. This is a skill that needs to be acquired. But after a while it is a responsiveness that you will miss in other classes.

Overall boatweight doesn't appear to influence overall performance much at all. After acquiring the proper sailing skills, having the right sails is much more important. Any factor beyond that is almost negligiable.

All F16's can be righted singlehandedly either with or without a simple righting aid like a waterbag (pillow case). I know of persons weight 70 kg and higher that right F16's without aids other then the standard righting line. However, they typically need some wind to perform the trick. Righting in absolutely flat water and no wind is the most difficult and I would say that any singlehanded sailor would need to the between 75 and 80 kg to right an alu masted F16 then, using only the righting line. For the carbon masted ones you can subtract maybe 5 kg's. Please note that righting any beach cat in flat water and no wind is a hard thing to do and I think only the A-cats are easiler to right then the F16's in this respect. All other makes requirding more body mass or righting aids. There are plenty of singlehander beach cats on the market that require quite strong winds and waves to be righted without aids. I refer specifically to designs like the Hobie FX-one where I needed all of my 86 kg and something like a 15 knots of wind blowing direcly onto the trampoline and sails to be able to right it. In the same conditions I would only just hang of the F16 righting line under a 45 degree angle and quickly stop hanging for fear of picking up to much rotation speed and capsize the other way due to momentum. At your weight you appear to be just at the threshold of rightability in all conditions including flat water and no wind. For conditions you would typically capsize in you are heavy enough in my opinion to right the boat. Therefor you would need only an back-up righting aid for the times you are unlucky enough to go over in conditions where you really should have gone over in (light winds etc)


The Taipan F16

The benchmark for the F16 class of the past. Still one of the very best singlehanded F16's. Has the least bit of volume in the hulls of all F16's and doesn't really like crews over 145 kg. It still has excellent light wind performance that the modern F16's can only claim to approximate. The modern F16's are however noticeably better in the rought stuff. An commerically build Taipan is right on minimum F16 weight and that is very nice in handling. Put a selftacker on the boat and a modern mainsail + spi and it will be a very good F16 to start out on. It's only real drawback is its dive tendency on a screaming reach, in severe chop and when bearing down at the top mark. You get used to it after a while and it typically pops back out of the water but every ones in a while it doesn't and you know it ! This is quite excellerating but less fun in a race where you are pushing things. Note however that it is still heaps better the H16 in this respect. On the downwinds, you'll quickly learn to ALWAYS pull the spi, even in nuclear conditions, as that significantly improves the dive recovery.


Stealth F16

This boat has one great advantage in comparison to all others, T-foil rudders. These simple work like a charm. The boat feels rock solid and behaves in chop and gusty conditions like a 20 footer. This boat can be pushed hard in any conditions and any sea-state. Its light weight carbon mast allows lighter righting weights and sees it weight at or below minimum class weight. Additionally, it is the most inexpensive F16.

Personally, I like its appearence less then that of the others and it "speaks" less to you as a sailor. The other boats maybe feel a bit nervous but the Stealth feels to me a bit too sedated.


Blade F16

There are two versions of this boat. The one build by Vectorworks Marine in USA and the one that is homebuild or build by Formula Catamarans in Australia. Just recently VectorWorksMarine (VWM) launch a new F16 design called the Falcon F16 and I expect that this version is very comparable to the Aussie Blades.

I sailed the VWM Blade F16's quite a few times and I especially like the Alter Cup version with the Glaser sails. That is a fast boat that will have you battling it out with F18's sailed by equally skilled crews. No doubt about it. This version of the Blade has all the good stuff of the previous designs and improved on all drawbacks. However, with one small exception. Its dive resistance is better then the Taipans but it is not fully where it should be. Mostly because it has a rather sharp threshold. It has more dive resistance but as its threshold is alot more sharply defined as well it feels more on its toes. With the Taipan you got ample advance warning, with the blade you have to know where the threshold is or risk crossing it suddenly and unexpectedly. I think this too is a skill that can and will be acquired when sailing the boat, but I rather see it improved in the next design. But havind said this, my friend (who owns a Blade) and I appear to have sassed it out and can push it quite hard nowadays, we are 157 kg combined. Harder then I can push my own Taipan F16.

Apart from this I can not find any real drawbacks.

The Aussie Blade has taller bows and higher freeboard and I suspect more bow volume as a result and it appears to be just right in this aspect. I fully expect the new VWM Falcon to have the same improvements. But it is too new to tell.


The Viper F16

This design too has a taller bow and increased volume compared to the previous designs and it too is judged to have improved on dive behavior and handling in severe chop. In my opinion it is the best fitted out F16 available today. It is overweight by some 15 to 20 kg and I personally don't like that but with my one boat being 121 kg I can't say that it is a biggy. I haven't sailed this boat myself but it appears to me like a very capable F16 that has its design fully dialed in. It will never become a 20 footer as no F16 every will with the possible exception to the Stealth F16 but it appears to have adressed all outstanding points succesfully, as the Aussie Blade and possible the Falcon F16 has done. As a result it will be a significantly loighter and more sensitive F18 with equal performance to the F18's. One that can also be singlehanded with similar performance, as all F16's can.


Falcon F16

Not much known yet. But I think it can be said that it is an evolution of the VWM Blade F16 and must be ranked together with the other newly launched designs like the Aussie Blade and Viper.

Time will tell !


I hope this helps and I really do advice you to get a test ride on at least one of these models. Just to get a feel for what F16 is all about and whether it is something for you.

Wouter