I bought an F16! I now am the proud owner of a Taipan 4.9.

The previous owner spent a good two hours showing me how to rig the boat. Most of it made sense, it seemed to be a lot like an F18 but a little smaller. :-) However, I would still love to hear about any tips or tricks you can think of that might help me out.

One other thing, I'm on the lookout for a couple of used harnesses. I'm 150 lbs and my wife is 115 lbs. If you have a harness or two gathering dust and would like to help a newbie out, that would be great.

I'm excited to get to know the boat, and hope to be comfortable enough with the boat to compete in Hiram's Haul this year.

Yea!

Great news! You'll love the boat!

If you are used to an F18, sailing the boat will be very similar. Just more responsive.

If you have any specific questions, shoot!

Gill

Okay, sure... My sails are brand new, but the spinnaker is getting little holes in the foot. It seems that the retrieval line is making the holes whenever the sail is snuffed. The previous owner suggested I remove the casing from the line, but that doesn't feel right. Would coating the retrieval line with McLube help or something else other than mangling my line?

I can't say I'm used to *sailing* an F18, but I have rigged one a few times. I've only sailed an F18 once, and because of our weight, it was all my wife and I could do to keep the boat upright. I'm assuming that we will have an easier time of it with the F16, but I guess I wont know for sure until this weekend.

Yes, strip the cover from the retrieval line for just the section outside the front of the chute. The small holes you are getting are friction burns in the cloth.

some people say remove the core from the cover at the spin dousing end, rather than the cover. the cover is inherently softer. But of course it stretches more.

+1 on removing the core for the retrieval section on the line, It will pretty much eliminate the spin burns.

Also pm me for a harness. I have several laying around

I don't understand how removing the core, or the casing, would help stop the friction burns. If it is merely the fact that it makes the line thinner, couldn't I just use a thinner line?

Maybe this is just one of those mysteries and I need to bite the bullet and do it...

The core is of a more slick material, and more flexible alone, so if you use that, it won't rub through the spin as easily.

OR...if instead you remove the core and use the cover, now the cover is much more flexible, and can flatten out going over the hoop, so then it won't rub through as much either.

And yes, you want as thin a line as will work, remember, you have still to clete it.

Keep the core, remove the cover. Works fine on all the boats I have had.
Just keeping the core will allow you to also run core through the top block, which will make dousing and pulling easier.

Just make sure the part that goes into the spin block is core+cover ofcourse.

Did you sail other cats before?

Gill

Taper the transition from core to core & cover and also stitch through both at the transition before whipping it to ensure a good connection that will not catch or creep.

If you decice to remove the core and keep the cover you only need to stitch through to stop creep.

As I said above, I prefer the slightly more complex removal of the cover.

I had a Laser II with a comparable snuffer system (continuous line to both raise and snuff the spinnaker,) but I never had a problem like this with it. Its been years, but I think the fabric of the spinnaker was thicker on my Laser II. Maybe that's why I didn't have this problem, or maybe my halyard was thinner...

I've sailed Hobies (from Wave up to Tiger,) but I never used a spinnaker on a cat.