What is your pole length ?

What is the overall area of your spi/hooter ?

What is your spi hound height (gate height) on your mast ?

What is your mid-girth measurement ?


That are the only 4 limits that are set on the use of any headsail. Be it either a spi, a gennaker, a hooter, or an (as you wrote) hour glass shaped headsail.


With regard to the Hobie Wave I need to know the specs that are ruled upon in the F16 class rules. Things like mastheight, width, length, weight, combined sailarea, luff lengths, etc.

If the Wave fails on any of these accounts than it is not Full F16 Compliant HOWEVER you can appeal to sections 5 and 6 of the class rules that allow the grandfathering of your Wave:

This is defined as :



7.26 Grandfathering

The allowing of non Formula 16 compliant designs to race against fully compliant Formula 16 designs


In summary it comes down to showing that your boat has a rating equal or slower than F16's (and implicitly F18's as well) under BOTH the ISAF and TEXEL handicap systems and requesting a dispensation for your non complaince with the local F16 class head. That is when officially accepting to race "First-in-wins" with any and all other F16 and dispensated F16 designs.

Up till now we haven't refuse anyone. And I suspect that the Wave may just be on the right side of the ISAF/TEXEL rating threshold even with a non-compliant F16 headsail.


Wouter

Wouter, I still don't know what you mean by "level racing with the F18's, the biggest class around." Since they are the biggest class around, aren't they racing as a class? They don't allow the F16's to race with them in the class, do they, since you don't fit their class weightwise?

And if you are racing against them on handicap, what difference does it make what sails anybody wants to use and what kind of rating they want to use. I just don't understand this interest in the handicap rating. Must be something different about how you do handicap racing in Europe. Please explain that (briefly).

Mary,

I do very much understand your confusement.

The answer is twofold :

-1- F16 class is a class with the largest portion of its weight localized outside of the USA

-2- Racing outside of the USA is 80 % single fleet - open class racing, In Europe this is over 90 % or all cat racing.


The F16-racing-level-with-F18's aspect may not be that important for US sailors but it is for non-US sailors. In Europe all our club races, Cup races and regatta's are single fleet - open classes. If you have the same handicap as the F18's then you effectively race them first-in-wins for all trophies whether they like it or not. Same applies to racing the A-cats and they dislike it with a passion; that spinnaker does make a huge difference !

Even at (rare) events that contain designated class events, like point regatta's, the open-class single start fleet contains a multiple of unmeasured and unaffiliated F18's and F20's. These are crews without membership or without valid measurement forms. Even at these RARE events the open fleets range in size from 20 to 35 boats of which 70 % is still F18 and F20's. In Europe at least, realtively small classes like the A-cats as good as always share a start with another fleet and their score is then later filtered out of the larger score. In Europe we hardly ever give classes their own start and it is only seriously considered when the class requesting it takes care of all its own [censored] and when you can garantee that 15 boats of more are racing. But still 90 % of the races/events is "single fleet - open class" even if you come with more than 15 boats. Sometimes if a event attracts more than 80 boats in total a split is made between slow and fast boats and each is given their own start/course (completely seperated) but only is each class has at least 30 boats or more. It is regarded that this is more fair to the smaller boats out there as these are more often then not owned by recreational sailors. Makes racing for them more interesting.

In the Netherlands even the H16 doesn't get more than 2 events per year with their own start. Often it is only one event, their own nationals.

It is very different outside the US and as the F16 class is building herself up in all regions we target all local strongpoints together. For some regions this may seem strange, but it is all very easily explained. And it is actually very logical as well. If you want to be a true international class then you just have to do these things.

Australia isn;t much different, nor Asia. South Africa is somewhat different but even they do mingle fleets quite often. Pretty much sailors in all regions are positive about it. The more boats and crews you have beaten (even on handicap) the more glory you have gained. And people come out to events as they always race in a sizeable fleet. I truly think this is a contributing factor that cat sailing in Europe is on a sizeable level.

And it is difficult to explain to US sailors that a 4 or 5 boat fleet is not regarded as a class earning their own start outside the US. You REALLY have to put some high number of boats on the water in order to be regarded as a class that possible could entertain such thought and then still, most events won't give you your own start anyway.


Wouter

Having finally got round to reading the yearly review ans especially all the "Hoo - Ha" regarding carbon mast tip weights etc i've decided to ad my bit. I've owned a Stealth for 4 years and in all that time and with considerable amount of "mis-treatment" i've had NO problems. In fact the thing i like most about my Stealth mast is its light weight when rigging it. When i bought my boat the F16 class either didnt exist or was dormant but i've been prepared to go along with it on the understanding that my boat was fully legal to compete in F16 class racing but if this latest example of petulance and a need to show off one's engineering expertise is going to take place often then you can shove the class association where the sun doesnt shine ! I bet the other class associations must be laughing at us and our antics.
And as for the wit who said we wont run out of alloy try telling that to the Hurricane owner who hasnt had a mast for 6 months because there are no sections available and a minimum order that would be enough for 50 masts - he's trying to get a carbon mast as we speak !
STOP the petty point scoring and get on with something more constructive - PLEASE

Wouter, am I right in assuming that you are planning to ask for ISAF Conditional or International status for the F-16? Everything you are doing seems to point in that direction.

If so, are the manufacturers in favor of that? ISAF International Class status can be a burden on them and also raise the prices of the boats.

What are the benefits of having International Status, beyond being "allowed" to hold a World Championship?

With danger of hijacking the thread, do you need ISAF aproval to hold a World Championship in a non ISAF international approved class?

According to ISAF, you do. We already held a Worlds with our Wave Class. We were threatened that everybody who participated in or helped with the event would be punished by losing their eligibility to sail in major ISAF-sanctioned events like Olympics, Pan American Games and ISAF World Championships.

We were also told that the host country would never be allowed to become a National Governing Body for sailing and would never be able to put a boat in the Olympics.

ISAF claims to control sailing in all its forms throughout the world, racing and non-racing, and claims possession of the words "World" and "International."

I guess the answer to your question is that, No, you do not need ISAF approval to hold a world championship if you are not an ISAF Class and if nobody in that class cares whether they get punished by ISAF or not. But ISAF can make things very difficult for you by threatening the host country and threatening race officials and by scaring away people who might want to participate but are afraid of the sanctions because they DO want to be eligible for major ISAF events.

That is the only way ISAF can "control."

Wow, Mary!

For the international classes, governed by ISAF, I can understand that they want to control the worlds. But for the other classes, why do they care?

What you described sounds very harsh, and overly protective to me.

"Protective"? Is that the right word?

Well, maybe so, because they say they are trying to protect the "integrity" of the sport.

Post deleted by RickWhite

Oooh, please

This "ownership" of names by the ISAF was discussed "to death" previously on other threads, and I think that the concensus was if a class wanted to hold a "worlds" without the ISAF's involvement, was to just call the event by another name (before the ISAF greedily claimed that new name) for example one "title" that I personally thought sounded right was "the best of the five continents titles" or "the five oceans titles" as well as many others. It seems that anyone can conduct "worlds" just as long as they don't call them "worlds" (or internationals) - pretty petty by the ISAF pareticularly since there were "worlds" long before the was an ISAF.

Darryl,
It's not quite that simple. You cannot call it anything that even implies or gives the impression to anybody that it is a world championship. I like your ideas, but I don't know whether they would be acceptable.

Even the Caribbean Championships are not technically "legal" under ISAF because that would constitute a regional championship, which would have to be approved by ISAF. I was told that ISAF is letting that happen because that region is in the process of applying for status with ISAF.

Based upon what I was told, technically any class that is not an ISAF International or Recognized Class cannot hold North American Championships, because they involve more than one country. So far this has not been enforced here.

The International C-Class Catamaran Championship (Little America's Cup) was just as illegal as the Wave Worlds was, because the C-Class is no longer an ISAF international class and is not allowed to use the word "International" for its event or in the name of its class. ISAF will be looking into this, I was told.

I think that from the ISAF there is an awful lot of bluff. They can threaten all they like, as many people and organizations as they like BUT under law there is a limit! And while no one “stands up to them” they can get away with all they like.
The ISAF surely cannot legally claim sole proprietary rights to "sailing/racing”? For one thing precedence has to come into it some where, there was a lot of sailing/racing going on long before either the IYRU or, later the ISAF came onto the scene, and for them to claim "rights" over not only names of titles but also the concept of different titles, well that is going a little bit too far. What have they assumed they have the rights too? Are they saying that they “own” all the descriptive words in all languages and also proprietary rights over all thesauruses ever written?
I feel that if they become too “pushy” some one is just going to “stand up” to them and have it all sorted out in the courts. If that happens then I feel sure that the actual rights of the ISAF in these matters will be very greatly diminished.
Besides there is a little company called “Hobie” which conducted world titles long before there was an ISAF. Hobies rights to that title (worlds) should, in any ones books take precedent over the ISAF’s. If I were the “Hobie” organization, I would be telling the ISAF that they couldn’t use the title “worlds” without Hobies permission and a suitable royalty payment for the use there of.
Just my feelings on a touchy subject Mary.

ISAF (formerly IYRU) was around long before the Hobie Class Association. Most of the Hobie classes are ISAF International Classes, and, I could be wrong, but I think only those ISAF classes have held world championships.

Our International Wave Class Association is not affiliated with the Hobie Class Association.

I realize that the following would not move the ISAF one bit, but...

IMO, by excluding sailors on grounds other than ability (e.g. those who have sailed in a non-ISAF "world championship"), just on principle the ISAF forfeits the legitimacy of any claim that an event they sanction is in fact a real world championship. It no longer provides a defensible determination of the best willing and able competitor in that class.

So much for protecting the integrity of the sport.

Mark.

Mary my point being, that Hobie was holding "worlds" before there was any ISAF. There was the IYRU BUT the IYRU never complained about Hobie (or NACRA for that matter) using the title "worlds", in fact I don't think that the IYRU ever called any of its sanctioned events "worlds" (although different classes affiliated with the IYRU sailed events that were unofficially caled worlds, but that was never their official title) So why should the ISAF have the right, when they became the successor to the IYRU, to proclaim themselves "GOD' to all thing sailing in name and in fact???

The hobie association sailed in Australia for many many years, competing with their state, national, and international titles without any affiliation or connection with the IYRU. In fact they were never allowed to affiliate with the Australian yachting federation because they sailed with full sponsorship emblasoned on their sails and until relatively recent years sponsorship was the "work of the devil" as far as yachting authorities were concerned and any class that embraced it was "outlawed" so although the Hobies are now part of "the establishment" for many years they sailed their "worlds" outside the circles of the IYRU. I think you will find that there is more than one of the "top" (professional) cat sailors competing today started with those Hobie sponsored cats and they haven't as yet been excluded from any international competition by the ISAF.

I'm not planning things to go in either way at this time.




That is not the reason I'm doing them. Currently we are just making sure that we're surrounded by friends by not kicking into an shins.

The actions that you see have all to do with internal class structures and the fact that we are preparing ourself for what is to come.





Builders have not given me their final take on this.




Good question.

We need to pay some 3000 Euro's entry fee as well and we simply don't have that as a class.

So for now the issue is in the refrigerator by necessity.


Wouter

Darryl,
When sailors violate ISAF regulations, I think it would be rare for their eligibility to be suspended more than a year or two, depending upon the offense. The threat against the host country sounded like it was forever, though. And if any ISAF race officers, judges, measurers, etc. happened to help with the event, they were threatened with losing their certifications.