Mary, I do not want to start bashing the Hobie 16, but I am sure that very few of the zillion H 16s are in good racing condition. In Europe these Youth Sailors are very competitive and would not consider sailing anything but a perfect cat. The article below from Yachts and Yachting last month gives some background on the decision.


SL16 versus Hobie Max
Long after trials were held at Quiberon to choose a new ISAF youth multihull in the autumn of 2003, the issue looks to be making some progress. The ISAF multi hull committee led by Olivier Bovyn (co-founder of F18) has slimmed the choice to two
contenders which will be presented to the ISAF council at their next mid-year meeting with the final decision possibly deferred until November 2005. It looks like a straight fight between the Hobie Max and SL16. The Max, which is like a scaled down Tiger, has been making the running since Hobie Europe have such a brilliant record for supplying fleets of cats to major events - not least the Hobie 16 which has been raced at all ISAF Youth World Championships to date, and continues as the current choice with asymmetric spinnaker. But there is a surprisingly pronounced anti Hobie feeling in some quarters, and a determination to field a strong rival which is the SL16.
Other contenders fell by the wayside, most notably the White Loday Stream which was clearly fastest and the sailors' favourite at Quiberon. However, it was a prototype based on the Spitfire, with no boats in production and likely to be relatively expensive due to its sophistication. Yves Loday also feared that selection of the Stream might knock a hole in the Spitfire market, ruining a class that's become established as a great twin wire performer for light or mid-weight crews with all the tactical advantages of daggerboards.
Most cat sailors in Britain have probably never even heard of the SL16, but it's a popular choice in France with a curious background. It started as the KL15.5, one of a series that Yves Loday designed for the large French boatbuilder Keltic. Everything
was fine until there were changes of parent company and issues with quality, with the result that Loday gave the manufacturing rights to a new French company called Sirena, which produced an identical SL15.5. In the meantime the KL 15.5 (now the SL15.5) had become established as the official youth cat in France for 14-17-year-old sailors, with
some 600 boats sold. The SL16 is the same cat with a bigger rig designed to suit 17-19 year old sailors. That means you can simply swop rig to change classes. All the existing 15.5s have that option and in addition Loday tells us there are now more than 20 'pure' SL16s being raced in France. White Formula built the first new SL cats in Brightlingsea, but part of the plan for ISAF adoption is that the SL16 can be produced by any licensed builder around the world - Nacra in California and New Marine in France have also agreed to build the boat - which sets it apart from the single manufacturer approach of the Hobie Max.