Story and pictures of the event. Just go to www.catsailor.com and it is the first story with link to the whole story.
Rick

what was the story on the Marstrom m20 dis-masting ? what happened ?

I posted some pictures of the hottest boat at the event.

http://www.catsailor.com/forums/sho...ew=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

Will the results be posted here, or under the "results" section?

Guess the wind and chop "Dun 'im in," as Ms. Peabody would say. Carla and John said the switched back to wire stays and Mike is still using line.
Rick

Rick:
Was a great race. Love the Blow by blow. Appreciate the lovely picture of Team Seacats F-18 #351 doing the Pitchpole on the story page. Anyway I can get the large version of that for my office, was my first ever pitchpole. Nothing like getting it right the first time. Glad I don't have to practice that maneuver.
We'd also like permission to use that on our Seacats website, with the appropriate credit given of course.
I know Roy Loughlin was there doing pictures, who was the other guy taking photos, boatpix.com or something like that?

Cary Palmer
Fleet 141
www.seacats.org

Thanks for the photos. The F-16 was indeed hot. Looks like an extremely well made product, Simple Clean design, excellent quality in the craftsmanship. The Blade16 also performed Very well. Had dinner with Matt and Gina, can't wait until he can build enough of those to see them around. Matt said there's a larger version in the works, (a 20 footer so I remember) but he has to build/sell enough of the B-16's first before he goes forward with the production of another boat.

Cary Palmer

I think in his story maybe Rick forgot to give credit to the photographer and give the web site for the photos. The photographer is Gary Cherubini and the website is boatphoto.biz. All his Tradewinds photos are posted on that site, and can be purchased from him.

Roy Laughlin was on Gary's boat. Sorry, but I don't know Roy's web site. Can somebody please post it on this thread?

Results will be posted on the Results forum, Tuesday, I hope. Rick has to get them out of his laptop. He didn't have time today.

while you guys were having fun down in the keys, we were braving the elements, learning the ropes on the I20

(taking two swims in the process)

First let me congratulate Matt and Gina with the launch of their new boat. And allow me to congratulate the designers of Blade with this important step to full production. It is quite special that a design from 2 relatively unknown designers without support from a major boat builder makes it. We have got to remember that. Last time was the Flyer A-cat in 1999 before that we had the F18 class in the early 90's. It is quite rare and at all times it translates in a win for the sailors at larger as well. It is always the small companies or few lone guys that make to real breakthroughs and improve on the old stuff.

I know a guy who will be making a long and deep sleep tonight. He toughed it out when the Blade F18 raced its first race at the Australian F18 nationals and this time was no different. With 2 good first shows of both designs I think he got all that he could wish for. So to Phill Brander I say :"Good night, sleep tight"

To Matt I would like to say, you had a typical launch of a new boat. Last minute panic, stuff forgotten to bring along and some infancy illness playing up. I don't think any boat was launched differently. I know mine wasn't but it lead directly to AHPC offering a true F16. I'm sure the net effect of this launch with outweight any bad luck that is typical to a first launch. I know you enjoyed yourself on the water, that is clear enough.

With regards to F16 selling. I've been all over Matt for a while now to get this boat into Europe. This design has some serious potential over here and I without as good as no promo we get inquiries about it and have a few serious buyers already. Phill Brander and Ian Markovich really have made a good looking boat that has performance as well. It shows. I'm not to worried about selling it. I know a few Hobie 16, Dart 18 and Prindle 16 guys that would love to sail on this. And I know a few modern boat sailors that want to switch when a good deal comes along. Blade F16 is just that deal with the current exchange rate. One big boat builder could have had this design in its inventory but they decided otherwise. It is going to be their bad luck.

Now one final tweak and "getting it just right" round and the design will be fully ready to go and make a splash. Best part it for European is will cost about the same as a Hobie 16. Who said that technology, carbon and formula class rules makes a boat expensive ?

From a long distance I pretty exited, I've read to many private communication to believe that the boat is anything other than very good.

So now it the time to push through and make it happen.

That leaves me to Thank Robi for taking excellent pictures, I know where these will end up in a few days. Yep on the harddrives of several interested European parties. You know, I wouldn't be surprise if the local M20 dealor would take the Blade F16 as an extension of his product line. A lot of potential and those pictures will do great in getting this going.

So congratulations to all.

Wouter

Do you mean in competition with Dynautic? I understood they were building the Blade in Europe.

Mark.

Simply put, we can move boats in Europe now. I don't care wether AHPC, Vectorworks Marine, Dynautic or Stealth Marine supplies them. Who ever is first to supply tuned and tweaked boats for the right price and of the kind the customers lust over will get the deal. That is all I'm saying.

The builders can now decide for themselfs if they want these assured sales badly enough to make the effort to be the first.

What is actually funny is that these sailors have expressed that they want a F16 and will go to lengths to get them. Two seperate parties are talking about flying over and see the boat themselfs. One other had expressed he would buy a boat of a certain make unseen. The forth has already decided on which he wants but wants a reasonable price. I will say it out loud any builder not getting these 4 sales has only himself to blame. You don't get more willing customers then these. With these 4 sales a few more are within reach and I know their name already as well.

You know what the best part is. It only took a test sail on a F16 with the wingmast rig to make them so devoted. I'm REALLY not kidding here.

One actually came in like, "huh ? well yes, why not ? lets give it a shot" and came off the boat and wouldn't shut up for 3 weeks. Two us had to tell him to shut up as even I could hear no more about it and that says something.

Wouter

Rick, Are you serious ?

It does not look that windy or rough, and even so, rigging should not 'just fail'

Worrying

Looked over Boatbiz site, thanks for the link, Mary. E-mailed Roy Laughlin too. Nothing to compare to that picture of our F-18 #351 Pitchpole shot at the bottom of the front page of the Tradewinds story. Any chance Rick could e-mail that to us in a larger format? I may never get a more dynamic shot of my sailing no matter how long I sail.
Thanks,
cary.palmer@palmettohealth.org
Team Seacats

Wouter
I loved the Blade. I spent hours on your F-16 sites trying to learn what I could about the class. Can you give me some info on reccommended crew weights for F-16? All I could come up with was that there was no minimum crew weight.
I currently sail an I-20, solo most of the time, deprived of some of the more challenging times and winds when I sail without crew. Plans have been to be going F-18, but maybe the F-16 is a more reasonable route for me.
Cary

the photos are already up.

http://boatphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/310700/1

Okay, I finally got the scoop on the photos. (You guys must wonder whether Rick and I ever communicate.) The photos that Rick used with his story were taken by Chip Short with Rick's camera. After posting that story and photos, Rick then inadvertently deleted all the originals. So those with the story on our website are the only copies that exist of the Chip Short batch. You can copy them from the story, but that's the best that can be done.

Rick is sorry, and I have fined him for the foul-up.

Roy's site is www.floridamultihullsailor.com

He usually posts his pics within the week, and they are available at very reasonable prices.

I'm kinda hoping no one managed to catch our 20 kt pitchpole with spin up on Sunday.

For those that weren't there, the conditions were a bit more challenging than the images would indicate. Winds were around 15 on Saturday and upwards of 20 on Sunday. Gusts weren't furious, but they could easily jump the unsuspecting crews. Chop built up to about 2 feet, and I think a good number of pitchpoles were the result of driving over the top of the chop.

With busy starts and turns, things could go ugly fast. But that's the beauty of racing!

I've been working my butt off behind the scene with F16 and NMBR stuff so yes I'm really slacking on the F16 webpage. Luckily I got some help from an asia F16 sailor so hopefully the F16 website will be more informative during the 2005 season.



I will give you cold hard facts.

Taipan 4.9 + spi = very good for light crews and solo sailors, boat likes weights out of range 115 kg-140 kg best (when doublehanding) but will take 105 kg - 155 kg without much fuss. It may take waves on the main beam at 145-155 kg when sailing in chop. 135 kg seems like the centre weight and the perfect weight for all conditions, but performance stays largely the same when being 10 kg off this number. Solo sailing there is no optimum just the right combo of mainsail cut and weight of skipper. Advice for when your solo weight and double handed weigths are very far apart is that you get a special cut sail for either use.

Taipan F16 = very much the same as the Taipan 4.9 + spi but raising the mainbeam by an inch really made a difference in severe chop. I sailed this boat at 155 -160 kg several times in heavy chop and short stubby waves and I didn't take more than 1 or two waves on the beam in about a hours worth of sailing which I think is quite good. With 155-160 kg on board the Taipan F16 can be sailed nose down again without fear of hitting the waves and that helps getting the sterns out and speed up. Several sailors won't like it but I truly believe the F16 upgrades on the basic Taipan 4.9 gave it a new lease on life AND the basic 4.9 was already a good design so you can extrapolate where the F16 version ends up. having said all this I think 150 kg is the top weight range for optimal sailing, meaning being competitive with this hull design. Any more and you'll depress the hulls to much and slow down as a result. You are probably best sailing this F16 version at 150 kg or less. Perfect would be around 140 kg.

Stealth F16 ; Due to the much flatter keel line (almost U shaped with flat bottom) and more bouyancy low in the hulls the Stealth F16 will take crews going up in doublehanded weight well. Think up to 160 kg when sailing at near optimal speed. It will hold crews up to 180 kg in certified way and seems to sit well in the water at those weights. Of course at weights near 180 kg's you are at a disadvantage speedwise but less so than you might suspect. Some Stealth F16 sailors commented on how the boat feels like it planes on the downwind legs under spi. The keel line does seem to allow that. It really seems flat and wide enough for that. Quite a few singlehanders do sail this design but the advice with this boat is that you really should get a solo cut mainsail for it when racing it solo. The Stealth Mast section seems to really prefer that, more so than the Taipan mast section. Thing is that the Stealth F16 has a quite powerful LandenBerger rig and that seems to fit doublehanded sailing with that hull design very well (it is certainly no slower than the Taipan in that mode, from what we've seen at DCC) but the cut seems to be to powerful for comfortable solo sailing and requires a lot of downhaul to make it work. Getting an (second) optimized solo mainsail seems to do the trick.


Blade F16 ; This boat has a rounder keel line than the Stealth F16 and probably contains an amount of bouyancy low in the hull that is between the Taipan and Stealth designs. It was really optimized for the doublehanded crew weight range between 110 kg and 160 kg; which is arguably a very wide optimal crew weight range. Also as Phill Brander is a near exclusive solo sailor himself he really worked hard at making the design go well when singlehanded. For some reason he has succeeded very well at both modes. Pretty much the reason for it is the Superwing mast section and the Taipan sail design that is at the foundation of the Blade rig, this setup allows the rig to be depowered to a very large range and so a doublehander sail can quite easily be trimmed for good solo sailing. The second reason is the hull design. It sits high in the water and the wetted surface area seems to be minimal. I should rather say that the difference in wetted surface area between very different crew weights seems to be really small and so sailors comment on how it feels very much the same with 160 kg on as it does with 80 kg on it. One time it was test sailed wby Phill and Tony at about 180 kg combined in conditions very similar to Tradewinds and even Phill himself was very surprised to find that the design took this extreme crew weight in its stride. I remind you of how Phill typically sails solo at about 90 kg's. He came back noting how amazed he was himself that no waves were ever taken on the mainbeam and how the boat maintained its smooth and slippery feel through the water. It felt nimble just the same and very agile; very much like when it was sailed solo. Now we really do not know how it maintains speed when going from 75 kg solo to 180 kg doublehanded. It certainly is reported that it feel as sailing at about the same speeds but we have no really dependent and scientifically acquired data. However, when a boat feels fast it probably is fast as well. As the optimal doublehanded weight range I would say 115 kg (due to the rig) to 160 kg (a conservative estimate). I dare not name its perfect crewweight number (for either mode).

In general I think the best crew weights for the F16 class are in the range of 125 kg - 155 kg when doublehanding with the centre at 140 kg. For solo sailing it is all about the mast-sail combo and weight doesn't seem to be a significant part of the equation. The newer designs will take weights outside the optimal crewweight range well enough to stay in the game in a serious way with a little extra skill and an adjusted cut of the sails. Solo sailing it is all about skill and a sail cut for your weight and style of sailing. Several people will roll their eyes at such a large optimal crew weight range (125 kg - 155 kg) However this is all the result of having the spinnaker. This seems to take away a big portion of the advantage that lighter crews always had on the downwind legs. Upwind the differences between different crew weigths was always less than on the downwinds. Adding the spinnaker acted as a great equalizer. Add to this the modern hull shape with lots of volume at the keel line where light crews are sailing with a wetted area only slighly less than heavier crews and you'll end up with a optimal crew weight range that is rather large. F18 class shows the same trend. And from the A-cat class it is clear how much the right combo or crew and sail cut can equalize things. Glenn Ashby is sailing at 85 kg and is rather short, but he wins in light winds just the same as heavy winds. One last comment I truly believe that small optimal weight ranges are a feature of strickt OD classes where one particular sail cut must be used by all crews and where hull design is still largely featuring V-ed keellines. This will always favour a narrow weight range over all others.

Of course you have to have a good sailmaker cut you a sail to your weight. But all F16 builders offer that at no extra cost. AHPC has Goodall yacht sails, Stealth features Landenberger and Blade uses Redhead (well known in Taipan class) or Ashby sails. These are all big names in the business.




Really I can only give you one reply to that question. Test sail an F16 and see for yourself. I have yet to meet a person that test sailed the Taipan and that didn't come off impressed. By far the most of them buy an F16 sooner or later. The rig is just so much ahead of the old tear drop shaped mast rigs. Talk to Matt McDonald about it; his first experience is still fresh. Ask him how much he felt in control all the way to the worst Tradewinds had to offer and beyond. If you ask me I will tell you exactly the same thing. I raced my F16 in two distance race in 2005 in heavy seas and heavy winds (160 kg combined, 20-25 knots winds). I swear to God and on the health of my Mother that I have never sailed a boat that was so well mannered and controllable than the Taipan F16 with the wingmast rig + Redhead sail. I have sailed nearly all cat designs that have sold more than 10 boats except A-cats, Marstrom products and Stealth/Blade F16. If I have a choice I would rather be on the shorted hulled F16 in nuclear winds than on any modern F18 or 20 footer. During the distance racing we never came close to wiping out. We had one reach that lasted 20 minutes and that was as fast as a dash out of hell. The boat didn't have any time to rise on to the waves as it approached on them so quickly. It just crashed through halve of them and we felt in full control all the way. Critics wondering if the alu mast pushed the bows down ? NO WAY, just didn't happen. And when we started feeling out of control we just decreased mast rotation and the boat immediately relaxed down. It was far more a question of how far WE were willing to push the edge than a question of how far the boat allowed us to do so. If we wanted to, and we did one time amidst a fleet of converging boats, we could completely depower the rig to puppy level by derotating the mast. We had to come in from the trapeze to keep the luff hull kissing the water (in 20-25 knots of winds while going up upwind with the sails sheeted in and travellers centred). If we had let out the main traveller only 4-6 inches I'm sure we would have been with both hulls well in the water. You can complete tone down the boat by these controls without throwing the head into wind. Best part however is when you power up again. Like somebody throws over a switch. You let the mast rotation out just a little and you immediately accellerate away; at least in those 20-25 winds we did.

I would like to know more about your intented way of sailing any new boat but if I assume right that you are looking to solo often and looking to take somebody along relatively frequently as well (all with spi) than I truly think that you have only one serious option. Other designs/classes will allow a similar use but not to the same extend, to the same performance and feel that the F16's can provide. Don't let yourself be fooled to think that a carbon teardrop shape mast is better than an aluminium wing mast; you'll be proven wrong. The gains are the result of the wingmast shape much more than of the any use of carbon fibre.

After sailing my own F16 I'm more convinced than I ever was before.

My appologies for the lengthy reply, I hope I did answer all your questions.


Wouter