Jake,

I'm relax, do not worrie. I just feel that when you try to be "creative" (that may not be the most appropriate word) I see people that are "Pillar" of this forum making comments that can be taken as "Serious" from people that are coming in this forum to get your great experience and learn from it.

And this is one of my major reason to come and write in it.

Catamaran builder (at least the big majority except the two first one HC and Nacra) are building boats with passion... and sometimes makes errors. For information, MattiaSport in Italy it's 6 people. Bimare are less than 20, Boulogne, Ventilo are less and 6...

Jake, Thanks for bringing to the light the fact that Bimare is always building boats with that type of secret... because I did not know.

and finally, I'm relax and would love to have a beer (or even more) with all of you and then have fun on water.

Jr

I agree!

...to take out an ad in the magazine if you're going to use the forum to advertise?

Jr (H20) and others like Catfan,

Yes, you are indeed getting a hard time from me, but it doesn't mean much overall. Rest assured that like all others I too think that an extra builder to the F18 is a good development. Personally, I'm thrilled to see Bimare take on the F18 challenge and design a boat that can be properly compared to teh products of other designers. Up till now, Bim has often claimed superiority in various aspects while always staying away from direct engaging the competitition. This combined with the "super secret" "Hush-Hush" sauce that is often employed by Bim makes for comical situations.

We saw it with the Jav-1 (successor to the Bim2000); here Bim claimed to have improved on the basic Aigner Flyer A-cat design. Well, .....

Second was the Bim One-design A-cat class. That went down the drain pretty fast as well.

Then we had the Jav-2 story, heralded as the future of cat design. Most crews are now back on the I-20 and F18's.

And I was then personally told, in 2003, that some 50 Jav-16's were on order and hitting the market in a few months time. And that these "design of future" uni-rigged Jav-16's would blow us (the F16's) out of the water. A few months later a request came in for awarding handicap points to jav-16 sailors as they could never fairly race with sloop rigged F16's. That was the last we heard of that design. Because of overwhelming inactiveness the Jav design finally fell from the F16 class.


Mind you the Bim XJ (or AJ) seems to be doing what is expected of it. Being competitive in A-cat events. So since 2000, 5 tries and 1 decent succes. That is the background on which I comment on the eternal "super secret but revolutionary" Bim projects.

But this time there is indeed no escaping for anybody. If Bim designs a winner then I'll be the first to "eat my hat in public", you can be sure of that. If Bim designs something else then we'll know about it as well.

But I stand by my comment that it is a long road towards a succesful F18 and these pictures suggest that Bim is only at the very beginning of it. Hell, even Nacra has misjudged the time required to come out with a new F18 and they already did 2 of them previously. This is no bad ju-ju towards Bim, it is actually a causionary note. It is murder in the F18 class now. Tigers are a shitload better than 5 years ago. Stiffer, faster, better sails, better foils. And both the Capricorn and Cirrus F18 raised the bar significantly.

It is a hard world out there, as the US F18 vs 18HT story also underlines.

If wish Bim the best with their new F18 design, I truly do. And if you allow I would also like to ask Bim to just present the details of their new project without the fuss. They are not fooling anybody and the forum posters here do know alot about boat design already.

And Indeed We would have a very enjoyable evening together over a beer. I can talk boats until I drop and love the sportr in all and every aspect.

Best of luck,

Wouter

First
Bimare makes good boats that are lightweight, and cost effective.

What didn’t get documented in the HT discussion was that there is a huge difference in HT weight and reinforcement between USA 1 and USA 24. Gale Browning's HT (sail #1) is probably in the 125kg range all up and she hasn’t really modified it. Sail #24 and up were reinforced for the rigors of the Worrell. Bimare added something like 6kgs to the Worrell boats and made them stiffer and stronger. So when an ex HT owner tells a story about a failure you need to consider the sail number in that story. The first 6-10 HT's were built more like Acats, with thin sterns and thin dagger trunks. These boats were not meant to be sailed in endurance distance races with breaking surf and marine life to run over.

Bimare actually made dramatic improvements in the Sail numbers 22 and up, such that I dont know of any dramatic structural failures in those. I used mine (USA 22) pretty hard and I saw the Newport fleet out in some extreme conditions and we all came home under our own power.

Now an F18 is 180kg limit, so if you start in the 135kg range with a well-built boat and add almost 50kg's to it (thats 100 f***fing pounds) I bet you will get a stiff, well built platform. You can add a sh**load of reinforcement when you have 100lbs to play with. And the look of the hulls is that they didnt double the volume as compared to the HT, if I had to guess its 20-30% more volume.

Lets look at the new F18 shape, it looks like it has more freeboard than the HT and more volume in the stern (all good stuff so far) and it has the same sort of bows that the HT had, (also good)

Now if Bimare can design a kickup rudder, and make the boards and rudders solid instead of hollow I think it will be a winner.

Folks,

It is good to see that BIM plan on adding to the growing F18 selection of boats. This is of benefit to the F18 fleet and the sport a Cat sailing in general.

It is both expensive an time consuming to get an new design out. Anyone who makes the effort especially when they are contributing to a Formula Class should be applauded for their efforts.

If I remember correctly BIM released negatives of their latest A class also when it was being develped. It seems this is the way they like to do things.

In my eyes they have put the effort in so they have every right to present it the way they see fit.

Now we have a pic of the hull it would be good if the next pics we see are of the boat sailing. It may be better if those are positives but still it is their choice.
I look forward to seeing the BIM F18 on the water.

This is just the way I see things.

Regards,
Phill

One more thing..

I used my HT in the Ocean, not in a lake, and the rest of the Newport crowd sailed in the Ocean - not in a lake. We had 6 boats and up to 12 at regatta's - nothing major broke.

I sailed in the Sail for Hope the year a dozen or so boats had to be rescued by the Coast Guard, monohulls lost masts, the F40 lost the top of the mainsail, an international 14 was abandoned and smashed to little pieces on Beavertail. We saw 30knts and 10ft ocean swell. The sound of the wind in my rigging upwind was something I will never forget. Two 190lb guys double trapped upwind in 8- 10ft waves - slamming upwind, overpowered and gusty and the boat was fine. The carbon mast was bending off like an A cat mast, the boat felt light and lively and tacking was lighting fast.

My HT came home in one piece, and performed like a champ. My perspective was that it was a solid lightweight boat. Nothing broke

My perspective is that the F18 is easier to make go fast, and that the HT punishes you for being wrong and having the wrong sail trim, weight distribution, etc. I think that some guys didnt like it because they didnt take the time to figure out how to make the boat really sing.

Compared to a I20 the HT feels unstable, and jerky, but thats the combination of the tall mast, light weight and low volume hulls giving you input. I think this responsive feeling was the best thing about the boat, not the worst.

Flying a chute downwind in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Newport with Mark Murray, he was steering I was trimming the chute. The way he carved the Ocean swell that was generated from some hurricane 300 miles away, downwind flying, up and over the big round waves, accelerating down each wave, was something I will never forget.

I like the Bimare HT and have logged many hours on it. I think its a fine boat.

Bill

Bill,

Thanks for coming with your experience on HT.

Wouter, next time I'll come to the Netherlands... I'll call you for a beer.

Jr

And another thing...

I'm still sailing my 18HT portsmouth in the midwest. A couple of things surprised me about the boat. That really tall rig actually adds to the stability from a helmsmans point of view. As a taller boat everything happens slower. The hull comes out of the water and back into the water more gently. It's easier to hold the hull out of the water at a steady height than on a boat with a shorter rig, regardless of windspeed. The only analogy I can give is think about balancing a pencil on the end of your finger (pretty hard to do). Then try balancing a broomstick on one finger. Much easier. The longer lever arm is more stable.

The other thing I have noticed is that, at least with the stock main, the boat is not nearly as good in light air, and is much better in heavy air than I would have expected. My performance in a Portsmouth fleet tends to improve significantly as the wind builds. The same cannot be said of the water conditions. The boat is at it's best in relatively flat water.

The final comment I have is about the rudders. I'm not fond of the mechanism but the lack of kick up is a preference of mine. I modified all of my Nacra 6.0s so that the rudders wouldn't kick up. I prefer rudders that go down when I put them down, and don't come up until I bring them up. Period. I don't want a beach, a shoal, a reef, or a jellyfish deciding when my rudders need to come up.

Sounds like the beach, shoal, reef, or jellyfish will decide for you anyway!!!

Having said that, I can see your point Jamie. The Stealth has dagger rudders so where I sail (Thames Estuary) I've had to learn where all the likely shallow areas are and just be very careful. For example, I now know that I can't get round our club West mark until an hour either side of HW. This means that in the early part of a race (especially if it's the first mark) I don't pin the rudders down, and approaching that mark I just lift both of them (and the boards) just slightly to be on the safe side. The advantage of daggers though is that you can still steer at speed with no problems at all with them part raised

Unfortunately though, to date I've destroyed one rudder stock and on a second occasion ripped both gudgeons out of one transom - easily fixed!!! That's the downside of learning where the shallows are.........

John,

Sound like you should indicate that the marks should be surrounded by navigable water at all times!

You should do that. Several sailors from this forum already did. I'm a opinionated pain in neck when it comes done to boat design (or general science), but I'm also a pretty easy going person in all other aspects.

Wouter

Bill,

It is not really that I want to be argumentative, but what are you actually saying here.

I quote :







So you yourself are actually saying that the HT is more difficult to sail fast and that it has a jerky unstable feel to it on top of that. Call me stupid, but I would call that the markings of an inferiour design. More difficult to handle and slower; no wonder all the racing crews have switched back to I20's and F18's. There is no real advantage in sailing the HT unless you get hot on sensitive (responsive?) input.

Seems to me that we are all saying the same things only valueing them differently.

Also, we have had quite some weighting data on the HT in the past (like the HT Europeans) and boats measured in at 135 kg not 125 kg. This topic has been discussed over and over again in the past and the end result was always quite clear. HT's were over minimum weight, not under it. Sorry.

Wouter

Wouter,

For me it is logical to have a boat that is a little (maximum 5kg) superior from the limit. You can place the weight where you would like... Having to had some weight to be at the class regulation is not a the way it should be done (in my point of view).

Now a minimum weight should not be the only objective and I think you agree with that. Personnaly, I believe that 180kg is much too heavy for a Racing Boat. It was in the past more a problem of technology than it would be today. Now I do understand that we need to set rules to have a class and accept it, I just feel that 180kg in low wind situation is much to heavy.

I'm not saying that "Z Class is better than Y Class", or "Z is the Best"... not at all. On paper the class is very open, inovative and this is great for our sport.

Possibly the current Manufacturer has done mistakes (who did not), so let's give them constructive input to improve a class that is "interesting" on the paper...

This is what I'm trying to do with MattiaSport that accepted to build two prototype of 18HT (on my request), and future will tell us if our prototypes are good enough to be launched as a serie or not. Nevertheless we do not pretend to have invented the wheel, but we are working with existing products and try to make them work together.

Sure we will have plenty of opprotunities to talk about this later on.

Jr

Wouter,
Have you weighed the US HT fleet? (no) Have you lifted them at regatta's (no) -

I'm not going to weigh my boat #8 and I didnt weigh my first HT #22 and I dont really care what the fleet weighs now that we are not OD HT racing, so this is really a silly discussion.

My point was that Bimare should be able to build a strong boat at 180kg and that some of the US fleet was built lighter than later boats. I dont solid data to back this up, but I did lift them and look inside the hulls.

As far as the feel of the HT - its responsive, it’s sensitive. Call it jerky, twitchy, whatever - I like it.

Go sail an A cat and then lets discuss the subtle differences between the experience of sailing a light weight boat and a heavier one. Until then I don’t think you have a true point of reference.

I went from a Dart 16 to an HT and was blown away. Then I sailed an i20 and it felt sluggish. Now I have an Acat. So that’s my point of reference.

Now, the i20 does feel stable, on certain points of sail it really lights up, but I don’t get the same feel of acceleration on it as I did on the HT. And the OD HT racing made you concentrate or you got spanked. I believe this made me a better sailor.

and yes I agree with you - you are a pain in the butt.

Bill

Geezus Bill, you do remember who I am and what I sail, don't you ?

Do I really need to remind you that I have been linked to the Texel committee and that both the Texel measurers as the SCHRS (ISAF) measurers NEVER measured the 18HT to be below 130 kgs ! Texel actually never measured one below 132 kg. Then of course Andreas Lutz publiced the weighting results on the 18HT's at the European Championships at Rimini and surprise, suprise all the weights were a bit higher then claimed by the builders. Sadly the 18HT forum is gone so we can't look up that post anymore. No I don't see being overweight by a few kg as a problem, it is not going to hurt much at all. HOWEVER, claiming to be many kg underweight while being several kg's overweight is another matter. And yes I think it is save to say that a bunch of other people feel the same about that.

Also do I need to remember that I was there at the US springfever 2002 regatta ?

Of course I had to check out what the competition was doing. So :

*** Have you lifted them at regatta's [color:"red"] YES ! at springfever 2002 exactly [/color]




"... Should be able ..." = yes
"... will build ..." = to be determined - Sadly, some are skeptical due to past experiences.

Besides I never wrote down or said that Bim shouldn't be able to produce a strong 180kg F18. I do think that Bim regulary makes questionable decisions in the way of build and laminates but indeed I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt in this area when it comes down to the (weight is not a problem) F18.





Have you lost your mind totally ?

I'm actually sailing in the lightest spinnaker doublehander class in the world today (F16 = 107 kg min. when fully fitted ready to sail). My homebuild boat is probably a few kg overweight, 110-112 kg, but still any other production doublehander out there is (seriously) heavier from my perspective. No M20, No 18HT, no "Bull [censored] boat" XX is lighter. The only exception to this that I will consider is the South African Mosquito+spi (= grandfathered F16 = 103 - 105 kg)

So are you telling me to go out and do some more lightweight sailing before I can argue with you and your 20 kg (if not more) heavier HT ?

You must be joking.





Bloody hell mate, a Dart 16 ? No wonder you were blown away. That dart 16 does not register very high in the picking order of catamarans. It is like a moped among roadbikes. You could have jumped on about any other catamaran out there and have felt equally blown away.


All the other comments are personal feelings and you have every right to have those. I certainly won't deny you those.

And I remember our conversations in the past very well. There is not a day that goes by that I rejoyce in knowing that all the vocal 18HT sailors of then have sold off their HT's in favour of another boat type.

You can say about me what you will, pain in the neck or whatever, at least I stayed true to my word and stuck with my boat and class.

Wouter

Jr.

Indeed, I don't think that being underweight relative to the class boat minimum is attractive. I hate slugging a corrector weight around and I don't believe that being a few kg overweight hurts that much. I think that being on class weight or less then 3 kg above it is what you want. 5 kg over is still acceptable, but is stretching it a bit. More than 7 kg overweight is not acceptable in a new boat.



Ohh, definately. I would easily trade-off weight for some extra stiffness. Just not too much weight.




Well, racing is racing wether you do it in a F1 car or your kids tricycles. However I think 180 kg's is much more than an F18 needs to be a strong and dependable boat. I don't think you can drop by say 50 kg's but somewhere between 150 and 160 kg would have been a very good choice for the F18 class. Still easy enough to build down to that weight without more advanced techniques. And those 20 to 30 kg will still make a noticeable difference when handling that boat on land and the water.





I don't agree with that. It has always been a problem of economics over a problem in technology. Several classes that are older then the F18 saw much lighter boats that held up very well. F18 was started in 1993 or so ? By that time technology was already pretty wide spread to build good 18 foot boats at 150-160 kg. Several boats of the 80's like the Prindle 18 and Dart 18 were build at 162 kg and 140 kg back then. Both were pretty succesful classes internationally.





Well, despite my "pain in the neck" status I can garantee everybody that I'm in full agreement with that.




Ohh definately although my hollidag time is coming to an end, so I won;t be able to hang around this forum to the same extend as I have been doing lately.

Greetings

Wouter

Jr

Hi wouter

we weighed our boats lasttime in autom 2005 in Morges with a professionally scale and very reliable.

All the new boats are now very close at minimum wheight!
Between 128.5 kg - 135 kg. AND the Bims are on the light side.

You refer to the measurments in Rimini 2004
My old ventilo and the first generation Eagle was measured there with 145kg (but these measures where quite unreliable and done with two scales in the sand ....).
But all the Bim measured then 135 kg - 140kg.

The problem with the earlier Jav's was, that some of them were build for the worrel at this time ...

One thing I don't understand is, why do you have to convince everbody, that the Javelin is such a bad boat when there are people around, who actually like these boats?

POPCORN HERE! Get Your Popcorn here and enjoy the show!



If there's one thing sailing related I have to look forward to in the cold winter months - here it is.

How much for a medium popcorn?
I would like a hot and salt one please.