I'm structuring the project as we speak as I too felt like the project was potentially going off in too many direction.

The vision I have for this F12 is as such :

First your points :

What ?

A good looking sailboat for lightweight crews 45 - 75 kg (optimized for 65 kg) that has its main focus on being really easy and quick to rig and de-rig (incl. transport) for a budget of at max 3000 US$ but preferably less. (Vanguard optimist is 2550 USD)

Within these limits, I'm trying to get maximal performance out of the design and it looks like that is developping rather well.

NOTE : IT IS NOT A PURE KIDDIES BOAT ! More on this later.


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Why ?

So responsible older children, teenagers and the smaller adults can sail a high performance sail boat that is really fun to sail in these "instant thrill seeking / no hassle" times but that can also be a ladder to truly performant boats like the A-cat's, F16's, F18's, and Tornado's although the last is not a major consideration in itself. With this I want to have a good tool to build up a more young participation in sailing and get kids aways from TV's, computers and obesity by showing that actually doing something in real life is more fun then simulating such a life by a computer game or TV.

The second reason is to give active adult sailors like myself an enjoyable sailboat for the little hours of free time that are too small to rig our normal boats. Like evenings or the two hours before wife wants to go to your in-laws.

The real youngsters are best served by something like an optimist.

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How ?

But combining all the smart idea's found on other sailcraft (like landyachts and skiffs) to cut down on complexity and cost while keeping impressive performance.

Sadly this is something no builder like Hobie or nacra is doing. They pretty much only scale down a large racing beach cat to 14 or 12 feet and make it out of rubber. That is neither inexpensive, not simple or performant.

But also by having a design of which by far most items can be home-build. This will cut down on operating cost but also will be another life experience for those who decide to go down this route. For several of us like myself it means we can have such a small boat on the side very cheaply by using components of our larger cats. This requires a formula setup.

Also the formula setup allows these adults to make a hull that will carry their weight reasonably well without having the lightweight crews forced to sail hulls that bounce over the water with each wave. Therefor different hulls for different crews => formula setup. will equalize racing between these crew better as well.


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and When

That is a good question.

I've just come to the realisation that while I personally have the capacity to do jobs with respect to developping this F12 I don't have the time to do it nor the resources to make this a proper launch. Afterall I still have responsibilities in other area's. And because this design needs all the smart stuff of other design/boats it is pretty much a fundamental conflict if one or two persons need to investigate and cover all things.

I want this design to be prototyped this summer at the latest and have 90 % of the development completed by summer 2008 when the final FORMULA class rules will have to be fixed. And at that time I want a serious launch of the class, but those are details I'l cover later. There is absolutely no way 1 or 2 persons can do this. So we need all interested persons to contribute what they can. Often not so much in hard core design work but in making 3D technical drawings, testting setups, gethering info on materials and availability in local area's. And I'm begging for a person to build us a website and a wiki. Alot of it is fun stuff, the truly boring math and such can be done by myself and another person.

Large parts of the design are already in such a state that imaging, testing and develloping can start.

So "when ?" Is now

"When finished ?" dependent on the help we get.



I'm working out a document detailing this all tonigh and will post it so you can all read it and comment on it.

Wouter