I think that I agree with WARBIRD?? The Taipan is, after all a "manufacturers" boat/design. That is how it started it's life, sure the members of the association that has grown up around it do, apparently have a large say in what ever direction it has and will travel, and that's fine, but it is still a manufacturers boat and if the manufacturer decided to take it upon themselves to "upgrade" all new 4.9 Taipans to full F16 status just what harm would that do to the class? The "standard 4.9's could still sail as an OD class as they do now with no threat to their status quo, and the "new" ones already have a ready made "class/formula" to compete within. If any buyer wanted to order a new Taipan in it's OD configuration I am quite sure that the manufacturer would be only too willing to oblige, so "where lies the problem"?
As regards the “harm/damage to the class/formula” of F18 (or any other formula/class of cat) having a “bite at both worlds” by organising both their own “class nationals (or worlds)” and competing also in their “open” formula nationals, it has become apparent to me over a lifetime of sailing that there seems to be no “rhyme or reason” as to why one class will “prosper and grow” over many many years, while another class, which, when looked at in detail, would appear to be the superior of the two, only grows, glitters and dies in a relatively short period of time. The same goes for how the class promotes itself. The methods that one class will use I.E in this instance OD “class” nationals as well as open formula nationals, that prove to be highly successful for one class, prove to be equally disastrous for another. In hindsight we can all offer definitive reasons why one failed and the other prospered but to try to “predict” how the end results will turn out is to set oneself up for a big fall. I can remember Hobie Alter saying about his early 14’ cat, “I don’t think that there would be more than 20 guys in the world that would want one of these, lets go surfing”