Wayne,

I think adding weight as factor to the handicap system would make things very complicated.
The most easiest would be to add a minimum weight for every make and type of boat which is still impossible to do to my opinion.

(But I understand your reasoning, Carolijn weighed the same as we did (boat+crew) but had a more favourable rating).

Anyway, on the first day, where the lighter crews had the advantage on us we did best, on the second day with more wind we did worse...

If I'm correct, the A-cat don't have minimum weight and they race at a very high level of competition on boats where the crewweight has a lot more impact on the total weight then on the F16, so I see no reason to complicate things.

Actually I think the boat weight has little to do with the winning, the nut on the tiller does that better than saving 10 or 20 kilos any where on the boat itself. IMO if the boat is well designed ( as it would appear the new generation Viper and Falcon etc are )and has enough volume then it can handle a wide range of weights and if the mast and depowering ability is well designed, also a wide range of wind. I just sort of feel that AHPC should be a little more honest and not cherry pick the better handicap when it suits.

My biggest " beef" has always been the handicap given to the single handers, its obvious that the single hander will be slower around the course than the crewed boat as very often you need 3 - 4 hands, no single hander will beat a well crewed boat even in light winds on the handicap dissadvantage they are given. Now that is something that the handicap formulaes need to address.

At my club, the single handers often race with the jib on as well, it does equalise things up a bit, perhaps we could make the jib optional for the single handers ?

In open class racing the choice to do so is left to the owner. In class racing we already have a sufficient solution, i.e. we race first in wins (no faster handicap for the singlehander) which in my opinion is fair.

Wouter

It's not AHPC that makes the decision, it's the sailors....Yes, I know they are dealers, but a lot of people would take the slower rating because it's racing and they take every advantage they can get in a race like that. People on this forum have said that.


However, if it were me(and I own a Viper and I sail mostly singlehanded) I would do the F16 rating....Cause, that's the class I'm trying to promote. But, I'm slow anyway, so it wouldn't matter what I was rated at.


So, it again comes down to the sailor!

Mike

Who's racing with a jib Wayne? I know nobody that does except for Tom who did it a couple of times on his Dart 16 so he can try to avoid being lapped. And he recently bought a Shadow, so that's it

Not so much in recent years, but Dave an Nigel did run the jib fairly regulalry when the wind was lightish.

Tom did a horizon job on us on Wednesday night, two of the legs were virtual beam reaches and we couldn't quite hold the spinny on either of the legs where as he could. He will be difficult to beat on handicap this year as most of the evening racing are triangles.

Bitsa seems on the pace with all the F16 / FX1 swapping places along the way.

I can play that game as I have a secret weapon: the monster overlapping Stealth "R" Jib. This thing is huge, and not really F16 class legal...

I've used it Saturday with my 8 year old on the tiller to lap every other boat on the Saturday racing series. Granted, we were the only multihull and the only spinnaker boat, that helped too. My son was proud, first time he's helming a cat.

I'm still looking for any evidence F16 exists in Europe. As there was no F16 division at Eurocat only the C1. So the boats entered as Vipers. There was a F18 division so I entered my boat as a F18 not a C2.

We are trying to get a F16 fleet at the North Sea Regatta and only need what I thought was a very small number of 10 entries but so far we have only 2 boats interested. Special thank you to Gill and Kathleen De Bruyne and their Falcon for trying to get F16 active.

The only evidence that the F16 fleet is active is on a forum but not on the water.

We want F16, as we like the concept but the F16 Class needs to help itself and become active.

If you can get a F16 division at a regatta we will race as F16. No question.

Sorry for the self promotion but you may be interested in the footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YttAMQU9P_0

Cheers
Bundy

Nice video. Congratulations to all.

Minimum weight for an A-Cat is 75kg. The rules started without any weight limitation, but later a min. weight was added.
Anyway (boat) weight is overrated and often used as excuse.
The result is an excellent advertise for the sailors and I hope ISAF wakes up and realises that a cat (or at least some classes) allows mixed teams without disadvantage.

Cheers,

Klaus

Over to you F16 (and this is really directed at the Euro guys). You have been talking on this forum for 7 or 8 years. Really time to start turning up at the big regattas if you want to be noticed and not known as an Internet class.

As stated above, the Vipers raced as Vipers, not F16s.

If a group of Mozzies with kites turn up, should they be rated with the F16 handicap?

Well done to the 2B team.

taipanfc and Bundy,

You're both right. The F16 class DOES need to now turn up at the 'big regattas' and race. As someone who, along with a few others, has done precisely that it's extremely frustrating that so few of us have done so.
It's yet another frustration to being currently unemployed - because, with an income, I'd be out there at Carnac, Texel, the Euros etc.

If you've done a few regattas (as I have in previous classes) it becomes addictive. You can't beat those big starts and courses, the sight of 100+ cats out there, the atmosphere and entertainment ashore, the whole social side of such an event is just fantastic and, of course, the opportunity to meet people from other classes and discuss the relative merits of the boats you sail.

God! I'm feeling even more pissed off now just thinking about it. Get out there guys and sail! - you'll love it!

As a sidenote, about 10 or so Cats from the Singapore fleet have shipped their boats to Korea for a regatta. So further promotion of F16 in Asia. Believe the shipping was subsidised by the regatta organisers, but still need to take the time off and get yourselves there.

I too have serious disagreements with the way the class is run in the EU, but I think we must see a few things in perspective here.

Gill and Kathleen are to only ones who attended as good as all F16 events over the years including three F16 World Championships (NL, UK, US) and several Eurocat events. None of the Viper sailors present in this Eurocat event showed up themselves for other F16 events with the exception of mr Sproat and ms Burke who did the GC 2008 I believe. Neither do I remember seeing them listed in the Eurocat 2008 event where several F16's had arranged to meet and showcase the boats. Remember those VOILE sailingmag articles that resulted from that ? The first two Global Challenges were held in EU and were well attended by crews not present at the Eurocat 2010 event. So if anybody is guilty of slacking on the (EU) job then we all are.

Personally I feel that our problem in the EU is lack of coordination and leadership; not lack of interest or owned boats.

Of course, some of the EU problems I have detailed myself on this forum a few months ago and I agree with everybody that it is time to really do something about it. Time for a new leader I say, so I renew my proposal for the GC (excluding Marcus) to complete their tenure in a few months and make way for fresh new blood.

Wouter

It appears that some of you have forgotten that sailing and racing is a hobby to practically all European F16 owners and to save you the hassle according to my dictionary a hobby is "an activity pursued in one's spare time for pleasure or relaxation.
Therefore, there should be no guilt attached to not entering a Regatta or even Club race. It is now being implied that we letting the Class down, now that is an extremely harsh and almost an insulting view to take.
This topic is probably worth a lot more discussion but I'm not going to keep on at this moment as I don't want to provoke more verbal nonsense from Wouter in regard to his current vendetta.

Sorry Bundy but the above is such an arrogant statement, take Datchet for example, I think we have something like 10 F16's on site and some 3 -4 FX1's, not all are sailed together at the same time, but most regularly are sailed at some stage.

Only some are raced and most are sailed for pleasure and there lies the nub, not everyone races.

Most cannot afford to travel to Europe to participate and in fact very few want to travel just at the moment with the UK economy as it is. One only has to look at the GB participating crews at that race and they are all closely associated either by family associations to dealers / manufacturers ( sponsorship ) or are very active sailors wanting to improve against top sailors.

AHPC and B2 are the first F16 compliant manufacturer to start to throw money at marketing and getting the boats out there in the wider public view, and that is what has been so sorely missed in the F16 scheme of things. You will do well in my opinion as your boat will become the boat to own as most people will see the Viper in numbers regardless whether it is the best boat or not, that unfortunately is just the way of the marketing led world we live in.

But, and here is the big but, boats sold to owners wishing to race is only a tiny proportion of overall boats sold and yet you seem to equate F16 activity to those boats which race at large European based races held only a few times a year. You are on a hiding to nothing if that is the case. Yes you will sell a few boats in the first few years to racers but those will quickly dry up as those racers move on or already own a Viper.

The big sales numbers are the hidden owners such as at Datchet, who by choice do not travel, nor race, but enjoy sailing a F16 because it is light weight, fast and can handle both 1 or two up crews.

I'm racing. I will race twice a week all season. Solo on Wednesday evenings and with my youngest son on Saturdays. I may do some Sundays as well. Heck, I was racing every Sunday in February, breaking the ice to be able to remove the cover from the boat. So I resent the implication that to be "active in the class" you have to travel. I'm active in the class and I choose not to travel this year.

Traveling to regatta cost both money and time. Two things I would like to have more of So it all boil down to choices. Back in November I made my choices for the year.

I could go to Carnac and its competitive fantastic racing. But as a club racer with a really old boat I would end up in the bottom 100. Money: the expense of crossing the channel, the regatta fee and the unreasonable price of 25cl of lager on the harbour. Time: That's a day travel each ways, and would require me to take some time off from work.

Or I could go to Bala cat open on the same week-end. Nice scenery as well, laid back racing, good social scene and a low £20 fee. Shorter trip as well, requiring less time driving. Guess where Paul went this year...

Or better yet, my choice this year, is to stay at my club and get my sons into sailing. Money: None. Time: 20 minutes drive. And I feel I support cat sailing more by being present at the club, getting my two sons on cats, giving rides to people and supporting other cat sailors by being there and helping them when needed.

The only traveling I'll do this year is to the ECPR and the Italian F16 Euro. The first one is a one day event that will allow me to finally do a long distance event on the sea, the second because it's a F16 only event and I like the idea of racing real time with a bunch of other boats.

And anyway there is no chance in hell I'll travel to a regatta I don't know about at least 6 months in advance. Especially if it involves ferry crossings. And I'm not the only one. You can't expect a lot of people to turn out for an event with a 4 or 5 weeks notice.

So why do you feel the need to criticize AHPC or 2B for not sailing under the F16 handicap???

As Bundy says, if the regatta has a fleet of F16 he will sail under the F16 handicap. If the regatta has a 104 fleet, they will probably sail under the 104 handicap. If neither exists (or god forbid, a VIPER fleet) they will sail under the VIPER handicap....

Isn’t that a positive attribute that a F16 compliant boat can be so versatile... It can be sailed 1 up, 2 up or under 3 different handicaps???

Wow, there is a result everybody could be happy with and still some manage to make a pissing contest out of it. I wonder if those still have fun when going sailing.