It had to be at least 10 years ago when we tried to start an F20 class to include such boats as Mystere 20, Narca 6.0, Prindle 19 (this was before the I-20 was born).
It did not fly.
However, because of this attempt, Randy developed the P19 so it competed with the bigger boats.
So, it can be done.

Trouble is you have to all get together and start an all inclusive formula class -- one that does encompass already available boats.

Allowing outside parts, tramps and sails really makes for more one-design sailing. Without fear of being pooh-poohed, look at the Wave Class. The Hobie Class back then would have rather had us buy expensive, cookie-cut sails that were not very good. A light woman does not want the same sail as a larger man, yet that has been how the Hobie Class has operated. But we allow outside sails and it has worked awesomely. There are over a half dozen sailmakers that have been doing R&D and coming up with some pretty darned good designs for the weight and ability of the helmsperson.
By breaking free of that class and forming our own, the class has grown tremendously and is still growing more and more each day.

I can forsee some of you that are strong willed, getting together (We do have a forum for F20 right here on this site) and being the catalyst to get the F20 off the ground and flying. Still lots of Inter 20s around.., and still lots of Nacra 6.0s (they could be souped up with a square-head main, etc.)

Good time to really get it together would be for the Tradewinds. And if not enough folks show up to make an F20 class, the you still have Portsmouth.
But, on the other hand, if you got 7 or 8 I20s, 3 Nacra 6.0s, and a Mystere 6.0 to all agree to the box rules, you could have a lot more fun.
And while at the event you could hone in on the rules a bit better as well. Plenty of time in the evening to do such things.

Back to the original thread.., yes, it would be a lot, lot cheaper to upgrade your boats with better designed sails and better equipment.

Good luck,
Rick

'All opinion'
When its blowing dogs off of chains, which would you rather take out, a 20 or an 18?
You will say the 20, so will I.
Its a fact!

'20s and 16s both regularly beat F-18s'
Never seen it in europe at any of the big races where they all go off one line [Texel, carnac etc.] they finish nowhere. We are talking corrected time [even elapsed if you like].

Andy - I agree with everything you said... but, holy-be-jeezus... don't you have an F17 too??? Are you trying to corner the cat market in the Southeast US... holy cow.

You are now atop of my "I wish I was like that guy" list....

Bring "one" of those cats to BSC this coming weekend.

Rolf,
I'm 190 and my crews vary from 165 to 225.The average being about the same as me. So 380 is probably close to what I usually sail at.

Thanks for the input Rick!

If it's upwind, I'll take the F18. It goes uphill really well with the developed sail shapes.

Lol, Andy sold the F17, so he's trying to keep the numbers down!!

The M20 mast is less (last I checked) than the I20 mast and sooooo much nicer. Problem is it's also a bit less durable. While looking for an alternative to the M20 mast for the CFR, we talked to Hall. Just an FYI, if you ever handle an A-Cat mast or an M20 mast... be careful, Ben said you can damage/destroy one of those masts just by squeezing with your bare hand.

I still think that Riba made a hell of a mast for the 18HT for a dang good price.... I just don't know if it would stand up to the loads produced by the I20.

You'll arrange Mischa Heemskerk for me and I'll put him on a F16 and have him win Texel or Carnac.

It is that simple.

Wouter

I would like to see this come back to the topic here.

As an N20 owner I also see the dramatic price increases as of late. We use to get a spinnaker for $900 for the N20 now the same one design spinnaker is $1460. That is out of control.

The mast issue is a monster problem. I don't know why Performance seems to be trying to punish us for owning this boat. We love this boat and it truely is the best all around production boat out there. I've sailed them all. The N20 is the Catillac of Cats. I'm feeling pushed out of the boat by the factory right now. They do have real issues with having so few boats produced in the class. I can see that.

Unfortunately with 12 boats at Nationals we are have not been a strong enough class to warrent our own class association such as the F18's have. I don't think that an F20 class can really work at this point. Not enough 6.0's still being raced anymore. Almost none at this point. Everyone has moved to the N20 as the big boy boat that is a serious racer.

I'll be the first to agree you can't race an F18 competitively in North America if you are much over 350lbs. So we need to keep an F20 option out there. If you are 6.4 and 220 you need a big boat.

Bottom line I think we could do our own class association if we are willing to work with the factory and the factory is willing to work with us. I think we can help them and they can help us if we put our energy behind it. But I don't see it as an organization that can just be at odds with the factory.

Prices have spun out of control. For the new guy getting into cats seeing a price tag of 20K for a new boat is going to be hard to swallow. That's going to really hurt our sport. Lot's of fun things to do with 20K that don't involve sailing at all.

Take a little history of boats I've bought.
Used P18-2 $3500
Used P19 $4000
New H20 $8500
New H20 $10,000
New H20 $12,000
New Tiger $12,500
Used N20 $8000
2006 New N20 $15,000

Now in 2008 they want 20K for the same boat. It forced me into buying a new set of sails this year instead of trading in my boat for a new one. Of course a new set of sails isn't exactly cheap. 1754+705+1435=3894. That's basically 4K in sails on the boat. Makes you so PO'd that you want to throw up your hands and quit.

Maybe if we had a class association run by the members that would be a class that would interest people more from the outside. I know I'd like to join a class where I'm not controlled by a group of H16 sailors or a factory.

I'd just like to see an owner driven class association for the N20. I'm not interested in the F20 class as that would be an arms race. Just look at the Acat for guidance there. I don't want to join be in an Acat class. I like a close to one design class with possibly opening up certain things like sails to competition. Something along the lines of the Melges 24 class. They have been very successfull.

Mike Hill
N20 #1005

I agree Mike. But a limited arms race is probably inevitable.

SMOD sounds like it's too restrictive, but box rule sounds too open. So, Rick's suggestion of limited one-design sounds to me the most practical means of developing a class within certain cost-effective boundaries.

It would appear that the target "all-up" price for beachcats is about $1,000 USD per foot length. Yes, $20k is pretty high for the N20, but that means the used ones would be reasonable ($8k - $12k) and stable...

Mike you are right, it doesn't have to be an all out F20 arms race, you could open it up to just sails, lines and blocks, keeping the platform and mast -standard- or you could open it up to a new mast too, if you can find a better deal somewhere else.

OR, you could include all the Hobie 20's with spin, the N 6.0's, Mystere's, etc., with spins, just agree on the box rules, that is basically how the F16 class got going, and tightened up the rules as it grew.

I'm sure you could run a good alum. wing mast on the I20 and not be too disadvantaged if you got some good sails built for it.

I realize that becuase their is a forum, many feel free to post anything. You might want to approach the company direct, in a less antagonistic fashion though.

Prices for everything have gone up. If you have a slow moving product, to stay in business they have to cover those costs across less boats. A move like offering an 11K mast obviously states they are not terribly interested in supporting this boat. Open bashing and they could just as easily pack up the 20 molds and then where would the "class" be?

Cat sailors are famous for being cheap. For the most part, we do not belong to yacht clubs and are nomads. We do not spend any money on our boats or our racing and this is a huge reason why the beach cats get ostracized from the rest of the sailing community. The only racing boats selling (except with some die hard H16 guys) are for the most part complicated performance boats. The I20, F18, F16 etc. These all have a lot of hardware, and are not particularly simple to produce. The expectations of what comes on a boat and its finsh has also risen considerably since I first started sailing. The numbers being sold have also dropped considerably.

Add all this up and you have a cosly product, and an attitude that reads as if we all want to go out and be competitive on our 2-4 K boat. There are a lot of great old H16's still in barns around the country, but this seams to just perpetuate the impression that a newer, more complicated, Hi-tech boat will be inexpensive as well.

Mike brings up the Melges class, go and price out a new one of those. A new set of sails for them is considerably more than even the new Performance pricing. Go look at a new 20 sport boat like the SB3, and you will be dropping close to 40K to make it to the start line.

That is a good point. Price out the 49er I think you'll be stunned what they are getting for a skiff.

http://www.ovingtonboats.com/files/49er-2008-price-list.pdf

And isn't he Melges 20 starting at 40k?

Mike, the boat has been out there for 10 + years... Why the sudden interest in organizing a class? ... What do you guys suddenly want to do? (besides get cheaper stuff?)

The factory is running the only class event that I am aware of, called the nationals, because the sailors have not stepped up. The factory rules are... must have all nacra brand stuff if we are to spend money and time and run this event for you.

Do you, or have or ever had the basics.... email list of owners, email list of racers, forum to develop a consensus on class initiatives, liaison with the builder, minutes published from any meeting at the nationals, Regional racing schedule published someplace. promotion of the class to new racers, etc etc.

It's a stretch to say that there is really a US Nacra 20 class... It's more accurate to say that people occasionally race nacra 20's of various flavors together.

It's the same ol same ol story... Somebody else will run my class and MAYBE I will support them and their activities.

I just got back from the Annapolis boat show.... years and years ago at the boat show ... I asked the same question of the Isotope, Nacra, Prindle, Hobie and Dart dealers when I bought my first boat.
Why should I buy your boat? ... How can I tell your boat is better? I understood all the performance answers like better built, point's better, boomless = girlfriend friendly, faster, lighter, stiffer, etc etc. The Hobie answer was "it's the class organization and the Hobie lifestyle"

The lifestyle BS made me gag and I did not want to race my first boat so Hobie's answer ... the class association made no sense to me. I completely dismissed this answer as having any merit what's so ever.

Well, I was naive. ... when it comes to wanting to go racing... the class association and effective leadership and rank and file support for the racing program are the most important factor.

Yes it is a shame that the Nacra 20 looks doomed because it is a nice boat and targets the larger sailing teams... but forming a class around a common purpose of "getting cheaper stuff" seems a bit of reach at this late date..... Sigh!

Mark, several years ago Brian Karr tried to get a N20 class going, with real rules, member driven, etc. and as I recall (and I could be very wrong, maybe BK will enlighten us) he had a lot of problems getting the guys (Jack Young) at Nacra to allow a class to form at all, because they wanted complete control over the future of the boat vs. allowing the class membership to control what would be -legal- vs. not legal. This was about the time they went to the self takcing jib, the mid pole snuffer and the new tramps.

If a N20 "class" had voted to not allow these modifications, what then? That was the logic from the factory as far as I heard.

The class rules give the factory complete control. There is no vote on boat changes.

Equipment rules are just one part of a what a class does... I don't hear any complaints about the evolution of the N20 with respect to competitive issues. ... I hear complaints about the price of sails and masts. If the noise included a quote for a Tornado, main jib and spin from Ulman and the prices were out of line... I would listen. (but 4 K sounds about par from my memory)

The real problem is that there is no class of people moving foward on a common plan... You can't kill the factory for building a boat to make a buck and running one week long event a year.

I bet Brian's efforts at building the N20 class failed because when he looked to the sailors for support.... Nobody stepped up. I would say... the majority of the N20 sailors are happy to let the factory do what it needs.

Yeah, that was my point. The Factory decides what they want to do, and the class has no say in it, any wonder it never got off the ground?

However, I see no reason why a new I20 Class couldn't be formed and implement their own rules, re. open up sails, masts, other items, and just keep the hulls the same.

Spot on Mark apathy killed it.

The factory didn't run the "nationals" (they were really the North Americans). CRAM did. With all volunteer labor.

The factory has always done a great job of directing this class up to now. The tramp change, rotator change, midpole snuffer, and self tacker were all good. It would have moved much slower with a member run organization. They also have picked good places to host Nationals over the years.

The reason to organize would definitely not be to get stuff cheaper. That was not my point at all. I honestly don't think we would get cheaper sails/equipment outside the class. It would be about the same prices in the end.

The reason to organize a class would be to have input to the factory and to have input from members on class issues. Also to promote and develop the class. I don't want to see it end up like the 6.0 and P19. Lightnings and Scots have kept there classes active for eons by having a good class organization.

The N20 has a problem. It's a great platform, one of the best, and it's not growing. Why? F18 is one reason. But still it should be growing.

By the way Mark I don't try to tell other classes how they should be run. I don't come out and tell H16's that they shouldn't change their downhaul or whatever. You coming in here and telling me this idea is a waste of time is something else. Fact is I personally know most of the active N20 class and have names and numbers for them. They are a great bunch of folks who I've been racing against for years.

Mike Hill
N20 #1005