Interesting.....F16 uni numbers with my weight

F16 Uni 240 155 161 349 0.41 0.88

I20 and F17 comparison...Performance mid-winters we had a combined start. The I20 was hotter upwind and I remember getting clobered on the starts by Bob Curry but catching him 3/4 the way to A mark and passing fairly easy to leward...Bob wasn't breathing very hard at the time though. I'm sorry I don't have a downwind comparison but I don't recall Bob catching us once we got past him. During the light stuff, I remember about the same difference...but again don't recall any direct in downwind difference.

Bob,

You should add the F16 1-up specs :

F-16 (1-up) 240 165 161 350 0.40 0.86



Additionally, here some direct comparisons between A's and F16's at the nations cup 2 weeks ago.

http://www.mumblesyachtclub.co.uk./results/2006/200606_f16a.htm

Winds tended to be light at the event starting at 6 to 7 knots and peaking out at 12-13 knots later.

I wasn't there myself but the reports have it that fortunes were reversed when the winds picked up.

So A's winning in the lighter stuff, F16's winning in the medium stuff.

However, to me it also appears the courses were short. For example in the last race the first finisher got in after 43:10 and after completing 5 laps. Such short courses do impact significantly on spi boats and favour boats like the A's. Your spi skills must be excellent if you want to make large gains on such downwind legs (less then 4 minutes longs).

But this is interesting data nevertheless, there is more but I nede to dig that up and I don't feel like doing that now.


Personally I think some more performance can and will be pushed out of the F16's. The Blade crews are still tuning their boats (they were only delivered 5 weeks ago). Also in the past the skill level between the two classes was rather significant with the A sailors just being better, but like Matt says we are closing the gap there. The boats really do look to be a close match around the course and that is good enough for me. As stated earlier we never looked to become the fastest kid on the block, just becoming the most practical one is good enough for us.

Gary Maskiel in Australia is running with the A's. My personal experiences are along the lines "below 6 knots A's win, between 6 and 11 it dependents, 12 and up F16 have slight advantage". But I must say that the last time I raced an skilled A-cat sailor directly was back in spring 2005. Since then I've seen more but the skill level was just to big and I finished many minutes ahead.

Here a video file showing the conditions of the weekend. It also shows some close singlehanded spinnaker dual between two F16's all the way to the finish.

The file is about 100 mb in size (it is a rough cut with camera man commentary !); Sorry we've haven't had any time to edit the files to a more manageable size.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~whijink/Formula16_Nations_cup_UK_2006_Finish_race_12.avi

Wouter

Mark,

cat sailors will say alot of things and then don't live up to them anyway.

I focus on racing in every shape or form and that fully includes handicap racing. If never shared the One-design fetishm of the USA sailors.

In this respect I'm on the right boat as my racing scene is dominated by F18's that I can't compete on singlehanded. Even the A-cats are only a minor class overhere and more often then not get hammered by spinnaker boats as we also tend to run longer courses overhere then in the US. 45 minutes and only 2 laps is standard. This makes for sufficiently long spi legs.

So I don't buy into the zero sum game in any way or form. I'll race any nacra 17, A-cat, FX-one, F16 and F18 that cares to share a startline with the other boats. First in wins ! A long time ago I dropped the believe that anything but the nut behind the tiller makes a significant impact on the end result.

I believe the differences in speed between A's, nacra 17's, F16's and what not are relatively small and therefor easily overcome by very small differences in sailor skills. So I give alot more attention to other points of a design. Like practicality, feel of sailing etc.

Wouter