Mary,
I do very much understand your confusement.
The answer is twofold :
-1- F16 class is a class with the largest portion of its weight localized outside of the USA
-2- Racing outside of the USA is 80 % single fleet - open class racing, In Europe this is over 90 % or all cat racing.
The F16-racing-level-with-F18's aspect may not be that important for US sailors but it is for non-US sailors. In Europe all our club races, Cup races and regatta's are single fleet - open classes. If you have the same handicap as the F18's then you effectively race them first-in-wins for all trophies whether they like it or not. Same applies to racing the A-cats and they dislike it with a passion; that spinnaker does make a huge difference !
Even at (rare) events that contain designated class events, like point regatta's, the open-class single start fleet contains a multiple of unmeasured and unaffiliated F18's and F20's. These are crews without membership or without valid measurement forms. Even at these RARE events the open fleets range in size from 20 to 35 boats of which 70 % is still F18 and F20's. In Europe at least, realtively small classes like the A-cats as good as always share a start with another fleet and their score is then later filtered out of the larger score. In Europe we hardly ever give classes their own start and it is only seriously considered when the class requesting it takes care of all its own [censored] and when you can garantee that 15 boats of more are racing. But still 90 % of the races/events is "single fleet - open class" even if you come with more than 15 boats. Sometimes if a event attracts more than 80 boats in total a split is made between slow and fast boats and each is given their own start/course (completely seperated) but only is each class has at least 30 boats or more. It is regarded that this is more fair to the smaller boats out there as these are more often then not owned by recreational sailors. Makes racing for them more interesting.
In the Netherlands even the H16 doesn't get more than 2 events per year with their own start. Often it is only one event, their own nationals.
It is very different outside the US and as the F16 class is building herself up in all regions we target all local strongpoints together. For some regions this may seem strange, but it is all very easily explained. And it is actually very logical as well. If you want to be a true international class then you just have to do these things.
Australia isn;t much different, nor Asia. South Africa is somewhat different but even they do mingle fleets quite often. Pretty much sailors in all regions are positive about it. The more boats and crews you have beaten (even on handicap) the more glory you have gained. And people come out to events as they always race in a sizeable fleet. I truly think this is a contributing factor that cat sailing in Europe is on a sizeable level.
And it is difficult to explain to US sailors that a 4 or 5 boat fleet is not regarded as a class earning their own start outside the US. You REALLY have to put some high number of boats on the water in order to be regarded as a class that possible could entertain such thought and then still, most events won't give you your own start anyway.
Wouter
