Hi all,

you guy's just start these posts to keep me up at night I am sure.

I will try to keep it brief, Mossie info is fairly accurate in OZ they have exactly the same VYC rating. The best Cat rigs are sailed in Vic. which has more cat than sloops, the best Sloops are sailed in S.A. where there are more sloops. When the top Cat and Sloops come head to head there is very little in it. Cat a bit quicker than Sloop in light winds and reversed in strong winds but both of them generaly beat all the rest of the fleet of cats and sloops combined.
So Cats and Sloops have been proven to race boat for boat in a class. Although these guys don't swap cat to sloop seriously as their set ups are quite different.

F16's. Altered raced at PKSC Drag race regatta against 3 Taipan sloops, in windy races 15kts plus Sloops beat Altered in one race, and where ahead before they retired in second race which Altered did finish but doesn't take as a win. In 2 races under 15kts Altered won both with one sloop finishing within a boat length in one of these races. Overall in these races against at least equal competition One up and Two up F16's where generaly within racing distance of each other for a large part of all races bar capsizes and retirements.

Qualifying factors.
Taipan Sloops where not optimised F16's (not full width) but where still faster in strong winds. Altered is designed to only sail one up. I think that like the top Mossies this will be the case for F16 to be able to race top boat one up, to top two up, the boats will have to be optimised for it. But for the average sailor who's F16 is set up to sail Two up and occasionaly sails it One up, Two up will always be a bit faster because that is what they are use to and their boats are set up for it. Which is not a problem as it is still flexible and no further of the pace than the difference between sailors.

Thanks Wouter for putting I14 etc. VYC rating on, it saved me from looking them up. At recent Sauna Sail, Spinnaker cats and Skiffs sailed same start same course, the fastest skiff a 49er was first home one race, but even though all where drifters no trapezing. Spin cats where first home in all the others, there is no doubt Spin Cats are faster but the Skiffs won all on VYC, only the Mossies with Spin could mix it on rating with them. You have to beat them by a lot more than a few minutes on a F16 to win on yardstick.

Hope I made my points clear, always ends up longer than I intended.

Regards Gary.