Just to give everyone a quick response to what really happened, here it is from the race course.
1st of all, I wanted to let everyone know the Blade is awsome. Matt and Gina sailed that Blade beautifully and it looked great on the water. The Blade actually would make up a lot of time upwind and we jockeyed positions numerous times on the race course.

Due to some very poor race decisions, we were put on the short course. The first day we didn't even have time to throw the spinnaker because as soon as it went up we were at the c mark. It was very upsetting and I did voice some displacer to race management about the decision.
The second day, I got with Matt and Hollis and we decided to race the long course and didn't care about scoring.
it was a great decision and we had a great time.
I really got to see the Blade sail upwind and with Spinnaker. Matt and Gina made one of the best saves on the reaching mark when they threw the spinnaker and tried to hold it. it was a truley great site. Matt and Gina nor Hollis finished the second race on the second day, due to either the elements or boat issues. Team Mack Attack finished the last race on the long course even though we were scored on the short course and the c mark had floated several 100 feet due to the severe weather. I can proudly say we never took a swim, thanks to Gordon and his excellent crewing and years of experience.
I think we did pretty good coming in second with two races on the long course, being scored on a short course and the 1st day missing the start by 9 minutes due to the race committe starting the race without anyone that was lauching from Rowell's Marina the 1st day.
Right after the skippers meeting, we all left to the launch site and got stuck waiting for the bridge to close and then we had to proceed out of the lauching facility one by one.
Again, making everyone late and very annoyed.
All in all it was sailing in the keys and the weather was great for f16's. I wanted to say thanks to Matt and Hollis for making the race very competitive. I think the Blade is going to be an outstanding boat.
Hopefully next year the race committe will better accomadate the f16's or I may not return.

Seth

Ah well.... one more victim of the Uber one design mentality!

Since F18's and F16's rate about the same and have spins... you might have thought they would start and race together...!!

Likewise, 2 M20's, a CFR 20 and 7 or so Nacra 20's should have raced on portsmouth and then split out the one design I20 results... (I don’t think the Arc 21 had a chute…. better for him to race the Nacra 6.0’s.) (If you choose to luff your competition in the I20 fleet to hell and back... so be it. You choose the game within the game)

Given the extensive list of pre registered boats… I believe the groupings should have been announced before you spent the time and money and drove south. Rick White hinted that he planned 6 or 7 classes …. He just didn’t tell the sailors before hand.

Mark Schneider

Mark,

The ARC had a chute, I saw it in a picture on I think boatpics.biz (or something) Actually I wonder what course the nacra 6.0's sailed ?

I fear that again the tradewinds race data will be thrown out in the USPN analysis as it is undependable. I mean the boats didn't race the expected course on sunday and on saterday the course was apparently to short to have the F16 boats perform at their opimal level. Handling will have played an very big role. Like this the USPN F16 rating never comes down to a realistic level.

Best part is that at the next event the RC looks at our high handicap again and will go "Tssss, I don't know. Looking at your ratings, I don't want the 18 footers waiting around for you guys, I think I'll put you on the short course again"

This is a viscious circle !

Like this it will be hard getting F16 sailors out to larger events.

I'm glad that I walked up to RC during the Westland cup at the DCC and personally made sure we started in the big league (22 boats) before the racing started. Daniel and Anna-liese won that fleet sailing at an F18 handicap with large margin. If that doesn't show that a lower handicap is appropriete then I don't know what is. Under UPSN the F16 rating is at least 5 % off or 3 minutes per hour !

So who ever gets beaten by F16's in the USA please note that part is due to us having a peachy handicap and we know it. Maybe I should give another try at lowering it because this is simply not fair to fellow cat sailors on other designs. This is like I-20's racing F18's on equal handicaps (F18/I-20 = 62.5 / 59.2 = 1.055 %)

Wouter

Wow
These nice people run a regatta for you and you complain about it? How many regattas does the F16HT class run in your area every year? My guess is not many. You'd better start being a better guest if you want to have somewhere to race. You’ve got balls buddy.

Seth,

Your story makes me think about Spring Fever 2001. 8 of us were put into the high USPN class as well together with boats like H14's, P16's and Mystere 4.3's. With 7 I mean 5 Taipan F16's, 2 Isotopes and 1 Tornado. I'm sure Mark Schneider remembers that one. Otherwise John Williams does. It was certainly not fair to either side. Our single lap races on miniture course took us 10 minutes to complete and thwn we had to wait eons for the I-20's to complete their 3 laps of the big course. We rebelled just like you on sunday and sailed the long course as all other fast boats and said "damn the score". Best part was that we STILL had to wait long times for the rear "Big boats" to come in. A hobie 20 or 18 without a spi is not such a fast boat when compared to a 100 kg spi equipped pocket rocket.

The only solutions I can come up with is that we organise ourselfs more on the US side and put force to our very reasonable requests. That and maybe really requesting (again) that our F16 UPSN ratings are dropped to a more realistic level (close to Nacra 6.0's) so that we get put on the larger course on our rating alone. We always seem to be on the wrong side of the High and Low PN split.

With the 5 new Blade F16 owners for 2005 and the already present Taipan owners we must be able to group in Florida and start breaking open the viscious circle. Of course a Florida sailor must take the lead in this, I already have my hands full at F16 in general and The Netherlands in specific although I get alot of help from several Dutch sailors.

So Floridian F16 sailors, worth a try ?

Wouter

I'm all for it, just need a boat

Robi,

I'm not sure but you are signed down as an to-be owner of one of the initial 5 boats of the first production run, right ?

I know the names of the other four but never learned the name of the last one, the 5th. Is it you ?

Wouter

HobieZealot

Classes usually don't run regattas... Clubs usually do! If the club doesn't meet expectations for a good weekend... the sailor won't be back. Don't you think it would be better that Rick White and CABB knows why people don't return.

Your personal shot at Seth would only be appropriate if he was not a member of a club and did not help run events sponsored by his club.

I think he has every right to complain... Would you drive even an HOUR for 6 short races... most under 30 minutes on an ABC course for a 6 boat race of mismatched boats? Doesn't sound like fun to me.

People will vote with their feet.... (Fool me once.. shame on you... fool me twice... shame on me... )

If the racing isn't fun.... not much reason to return ... is there?

Just remember recent history, the bulk of the A Boat fleet voted with their feet.... They start racing in the Keys this weekend.

Mark Schneider

OH and by the way, .. with respect to balls.... He and I sign our posts with our names! YOU!

Yes you can say that. I dunno if I will be able to hold out till the fifth hull though, HOPEFULLY a hull before the 5th?!?!?!?

Im am going loco here with withdrawal symptoms.

I am in total agreement.
I am just letting my opinion out.
I am not worried about my name being out there. I do a lot of sailing and I am a very active member of a club.
I am all for being the cat community and supporting all organizations.
Rick provides a great place to sail and that is a major attraction. I drive 6 hours to get there, sail 6 short races, wait for a bridge to make it late to the race course and distressed my displeasure before the race started. I understand it is hard to make everyone happy, but that is part of having a regatta. If you take feedback in a positive fashion, you can only make things better. Look at the A's, there doing there own thing now. There is nothing wrong with that if that is what they choose to do. I prefer a larger regatta with lots of spin boats to measure up to with lots of great sailors. I just expect to be able to run the course on a measurable level.
Sorry you think I am being rude, but without a voice no one is heard. F" politics, lets sail and have fun....
The F16 class is going to grow with the Blade and I hope to be a contributing member to that class...
And please leave my balls out of it.....

On this Forum there was a complaint.., "Due to some very poor race decisions, we were put on the short course. The first day we didn't even have time to throw the spinnaker because as soon as it went up we were at the c mark. It was very upsetting and I did voice some displacer to race management about the decision." and that complaint reached me at the skippers meeting. An F16 sailor complained that they should be on the same course as the Low Portsmouth boats, i.e., Marstrom 20s and CFR.
He failed to understand that we take all the Portsmouth boats and divide them from apples and oranges to apples and then oranges, by taking the total boats and dividing in half by the half.
While he may have thought his boat was fast, it was definitely in the higher numbers and because there are some other boats that are slower in that class, we had to run them around marks that were shorter, but the course was still just as long overall.., we gave them two extra legs.

And by the way, the length from the windward mark to the leeward mark was just under a mile. Man! If you can't launch your spinnaker in a mile, you need to stick to the JAM (jib and main).
All of these criticisms are not only unjust, but are voiced through ignorance of the situation. The situation:
We had nine open class boats. By dividing the group in the middle with the handicap numbers, we had 5 boats with DPNs below .615 and 5 with numbers over .669. The F16s fell into the upper group. Had I grouped them with the lower DPNs there would have only been two H17s in the upper class.

As for the course.., again it was SABCACACF and was plenty long.
Mark, if you are so damned smart, how about coming down and running the thing so I can sail.., instead of sitting here listening to a bunch of crapola from someone that can't tell it from Shinola. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Rick

Clearly a conflict has been revealed that needs to be addressed. Getting into an argument about things that have passed and can not be changed now is pointless. So I say lets get our eye back on the future and actively work to prevent such a conflict from happening again.

I see two complementary approached

-1- Get our USPN rating to reflect the REAL performance of the F16's

-2- Demand committment from RC's to have us on the big course before signing in to any event.


Point is simple. The Australian VYC rating system (same statistical working core as USPN) shows us something very interesting. Source : http://www.vic.yachting.org.au/?MenuID=Division+News/10631/0,Off+the+Beach/10638/0&Page=12596 Note that both the Taipans (no spi) and the F18's are very actively raced there and have nationals with more than 30 boats each year, in both classes very capable crews are sailing (All top 10 sailors in 2005 F18 worlds). These VYC are arguably based on alot more data and more dependable data at that.

So what does VYC say ? F18 = 70.0 Taipan 4.9 sloop (standard, No spi or F16 upgrades) = 74. If we convert this to USPN than we arrive at F18 = 62.5 (given) => Taipan standard = 62.5/70.0 * 74 = 66,0 !

So the USPN thinks that the Spi equipped, F16 upgraded (larger squaretop mainsail etc) Taipan F16 is SLOWER in relation to the F18 than VYC thinks a standard sloop Taipan 4.9 is. Of course ISAF and Texel rate the F16's around the F18 performance. The standard T4.9 sloop is rated by Texel/ISAF, when convered to USPN numbers, to about 65.6, that is the STANDARD taipan 4.9 sloop (no spi etc). If this doesn't signal something is very wrong with the USPN F16 rating than I don't know what will.

I'm proposing to really actively campaign with the USPN committee to adjust the F16 rating as that is much more fair to use (in relation to RC's) but also in relation to our sailors open class sailors. We don't want to become the dispised handicap killer.

I'm think about campaigning for a number proportional to the VYC Taipan 4.9 sloop rating that is modified for spi sailing using the VYC modification rule. This would come out at USPN F16 = 64 as the absolute highest. So at least 3 handicap points faster than we are rated now. This is confirmed with the Texel/ISAF ratio's between the F18's and Taipan 4.9 with spis. I think we are faster still in the F16 setup but I need a firm foundation on which to base the request.






Point 2 :

With a more realitic rating we can approach RC's in advance and request commitment that they put us on the low PN course and score us at least with the low PN open class fleet. If they are not willing to commit to that then I think me may just as well not go at all or have our own little event at one of the F16's clubs like Gulfport. It is not like we will be any worse off.

I understand that point 2 may come across militant but teh F16 class stayed quiet over the last years and accepted their fate hoping that RC's would learn the true performance of the F16's and adjust their position voluntarily. Taipans have been in the US since 1999 and in 2005 we are still put in the High PN fleets because "otherwise the big boats (like Hobie 18?) would have to wait for us to finish"

It is time to break this misconception and get our rightful place.

It may be difficult to accept to some US sailors but the other area's in the world have already succesfully broken this misconception and the USA is trailing behind in this respect. Not a soul in Australia would put F16's in with the slow fleet and in Europe we haved raced directly against the biggest of cats on handicap in the 2004 events already (Carnac, Texel, Westland cup, Rem race, Autumn trophy race series). Asia (Koh Samiu regatta) and South Africa are no different.

So lets strike down this final obstacle.

Wouter

Wouter

The USPN number of 64 is a good upper boundery as this forces RC's to take us up in the low PN fleets. If they don't then they have to take out of the low PN fleet the following boats as well :

A-cat (65)
nacra 18 sq. (67)
Hobie 20's (64.9)
nacra 5.8 (66)
Nacra 6.0 orginals (64,4)
I17R (66.7)
Prindle 19 (66.4)
Prindle 19 MX (64.4)
and All supercats 19 and 20's (66.5 - 64.4) including Bill supercharged SC20


No RC is going to do THAT !

Right now RC's can lay the threshold rig at 66,9 (=our rating) and throw us in with the H14's without an serious problems to othe 18, 19 and 20 foot designs. It is a smart policy to change that and make it very problematic for them to throw us out on some arbitrary criterium.

Wouter

Have to say I'm surprised that the question of where the split should fall in a group of 9 boats has to be asked! I'd run 'em as a single fleet and use average lap courses to limit the spread of finishing times.

Wouter,
Stay away from our rating system. It is just fine the way it is and it is based on fact.., not some ficticious figure that you happen to think is correct.

When I race my 4.9 in CABB races the number works out just about right -- usually between 3rd and 1st against some of the best sailors in the USA. So why would you want to butt in and have it so I finish 10th or 12th?
Rick

George,
Had we just ran the one class for Open there would have been a howl to high heaven -- the very idea, putting little boats and big boats all in the same class. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Also, folks like to collect awards. In the case of splitting into two classes we were able to give awards to 6 of the nine competitors. Otherwise, we have just had to throw away the awards -- doesn't make much sense.

Some of you have mentioned voting with your feet, but I can honestly say the F16 Class at this point doesn't have much in the way of feet to walk. The class has been a really big disappointment in the USA.., absolutely nothing happening. I cannot recall any regatta in the USA where there ever was the usual minimum of 5 boats that has ever shown.
I was really excited at first about the F16 theory. I went to St. Pete for the Taipan 4.9 Nationals (Not sure how many were there.., about 6 or 7) and thought certainly they would reciprocate and attent the first F16 Nationals held in conjunction with the first F18HT Nationals at Rick's Place in Key Largo.
Well, they didn't show. They don't show up anywhere. Jennifer is the only one you ever see at regattas (My hero) And that "no show" attitude still prevails. Consequently, there is literally no class at all. So, we race in the Open Class.

Geez! And now Wouter wants to be sure we never even get on the trophy stand by lowering our numbers.

Also, on this voting with your feet thing and the A Class, the Tradewinds treated that class extremely well -- assuring that they started first and not with any other class, sailed the long courses, etc. We even experienced a ghost start -- the winds were up close to 20 on the second day and none of the A Cats even started.

Rick

Thank you.

I would like to ask everyone to consider not feeding the flames any longer. I understand that alot can still be said about what happened in the past but it will be pointless. There is nothing we can do to change the past. Getting angry at eachother will not help either side. I forcefully ask of everyone, and I'm very much included in that, to place our focus on the future and on what we can do to help eachother. To prevent similar conflicts from happening in the future. I'm sure there is alot of middle ground here. RC's want participation and crews want to participate, surely this is a good basis to meet eachother halve way.

Now, I propose everybody refrains from posting any more negative posts. I propose everybody that still feels the need to post something do so by posting a (positive mannered) suggestion of how the F16 class must progress out of this situation. I'm open to all idea's.

In addition, I do ask of both sides to accept the views of the other side. If it turns out that "individual class driven" regatta's and F16 sailors do not mix well then both sides must simply accept that. There are surely valid points to be made in either direction, there is no right of wrong side just different appreciations of the same situation. We must take care not to force our preference on the other side. (Yes, something I have trouble with myself as well, so I understand what I'm asking). We can agree to disagree and thus express that not participating next time or not changing the regatta setup next time is IN NO WAY a sign of personal disrespect of the other. It just signals that both arrange their wishes and priorities in a different order and choose the spend their free time differently. That is all.


With respect to the position of the F16 class, The class must represent the interest of the majority of her sailors. The vote is here to determine what that majority interest exactly is. It is NOT a vote on how individual sailors feel about the Tradewinds 2005 or the Tradewinds 2005 RC, far from it. I will not let the vote deteriorate in to that. If a sailor has something to say about the Tradewinds 2005 or its RC than the way to do it is in a private e-mail to Rick White and NOT via a public post on this F16 class forum. I expect everybody to keep a sharp eye on this split.

With respect to the core question of the vote. The F16 class was not created to fill the ranks of high PN fleets. It was (in part) created to allow relative small and lightweight crews to mix it up with the big boys. We are not doing that by sailing in the high PN fleet and as such we need to find a new way to achieve that goal. This is not in any way a judgement on the way any particular regatta is run. It is merely an effort in getting clarity about the format of a particular event before registering. Please note that any RC is entitled to make any choice concerning the format they desire, just as much as individual F16 sailors are entitled to choose to be part of that format or not.

Again, we can agree on the format or agree to disagree. All without disrespecting the other.

Thank you


Wouter Hijink

Formula 16 class chairman

Wouter

In little old Ireland we race everyone together. Numbers are too small to be splitting fleets. We use average lap times. If a class is large enough we give extra prizes, as well as overall on SCHRS. For instance, our Inlands had 37 cats - 11 Hurricane 5.9s, 8 F18s, 6 Dart 18s, 5 Spitfires, 3 Dart 16s, 2 Hobie 18s and 2 Hobie 16s. Sometimes we have an A Class as well. He does not win very often, with his severe handicap, but, at least he feels that he is part of the cat fleet and has a chance of winning.
We want to attract cat sailors to our events and everyone has a chance of winning. In the lighter winds the Hurricanes, Spitfires, or F18s may win, in the strong winds the Darts do very well. At our Nationals, once a year, we give seperate starts to fleets with 5 or more. Otherwise we all race together. It works for us.

George mentioned average lap courses, and Dermot mentions average lap times. What do you guys mean by those terms?