A few things to note


Sailing with a hooter type of headsail under BOTH texel AND ISAF would force us to sail of a rating that is faster than the M20 and that is also probably the fastest rating for cats under 22 feet. It is not only Texel who does this. It is the ISAF system as well. We are of course an international class and these things, however unfair, should be taken into account.

Further of the original open classes : A, B, C, D and 18 sq. NONE except the C-class exist in their orgininal form. A-cats have introduced extra rules limited foiling etc. And the B, D, 18 sq. classes are pretty much dead or never got of the ground. The C-class of course is way out of reach of normal sailors and currently only 4 boats in the whole world are in ready to sail condition. When we compare this to F18, F20, F16, F18HT and even the new F14 we see a clear trend. Both sailors and builders like freedom and they like to tinker with their boats as wel but they DON'T like wide open class rules.

The F16 class specified from the beginning that we wanted to be a regatta boat (= open class handicap racing everywhere except the US) and that she wanted to race first in wins with F18's on a fair basis. This meant that we had to be veru comparable in setup to the F18 setup to avoid being to different in performance to make racing unfair to either one of us. This together with the ISAF regulations lead to the inclusion of the mid grith spi rule.

In order of openess and allowing creativity the list is (going from restrictive to open)

-1- SMOD classes : H16, Dart 18, etc
-2- OD classes : Tornado, Taipan, etc
-3- Formula classes : F18, F20, F16, A-cats, etc
-4- Open classes : A-class (not the same as A-cats anmore !) , B-class, C-class, D-class and unlimited class.

Note how a design made within the old A-class box rule as specified by ISAF years ago may NOT be compliant with current A-cat class rules ! Arguable the A-cat class rules are still the most open of the formula class rules but they are more and more edging their way to a formula structure.

So the F16 class is pretty high on the list of allowing creativity and differences between designs. At least more so than SMOD and OD classes but also with respect to F18 and F20 classes which use more rules and restrict more. They even specify the minimum weight of daggerboards and such. Things the F16 class does not do.

Wouter