Designing a boat, much like sailing one is a series of carefully thought out compromises. They may me detailed engineering decisions, but all still contain a cost benefit factor.

The big 2 have a history and significant amount of money tied up in existing boats that are very close, in concept anyway, to the F16. Someone in their organization has more than likely done some noodling over this and obviously decided for the time being there is not an economic benefit for them to enter into this market. As Bret pointed out, for a “company” to produce a product it has to backed up with warranty, real engineering, and plain old product development and support. This is unbelievably expensive if your market is only a few boats.

Compounding this is that the F16 rule is written to be a performance race boat. Part of the problem with achieving mass acceptance of a light weight performance package is always going to revolve around educating the customer. Everyone, of course, would want to have the fasted lightest baddest, all carbon super racer on the beach. Unfortunately for the commercial builders who have to back their product there are a large number of people who end up treating their new boat the same way they treated the 500 dollar used Hobie they had previously. Going out in conditions they are not qualified for, dragging it over rocky beaches, lax maintenance etc. You cannot treat a modern flat bottom high volume hull like you would your old thick keel V-bottom, not matter the weight. An A class will last a long time, but it will not make it a season if treated like I have seen a lot of people treat their boats. This does not apply to all, but if you look to mass marketing, you begin to attract this group of owners, which is why I feel the bigger builders will continue to avoid the F16.

The F16 concept was set up as sailor’s class, with more in common to the A than the F18. Both of those have been successful, but for very different reasons. People get upset with macca in particular, but he is just a spokesman for those that feel that the class should be builder dominated, and that if the class revises its rules the big players will start to play. The world already has several similarly sized heavier boats that have not been a marketing success. Yet we see continued attempts to raise the min weight, which IMO is one of the sole reasons the F16 class has grown where others failed.

Getting us back to the design and compromise concept. Weight does not necessarily equate to stiffness or robustness, it is cost and marketing. Using F18 beams on a 16 is a cost decision. It reduces molds, design, inventory and shop space and labor. It is not a design decision for stiffness of the boat, as a round section could easily be specified and sourced that saves considerable weight and is a lot better in torsion than the rectangular section now. Recycling F18 castings, foils and fittings does the same. In the end, this additional weight has to be very near what the boat is over, meaning the hull laminate is very close on weight per surface area to many of the small and 1 off builders. I apologize for singling out the Viper as all builders and even home builders face the same sourcing cost, and ease issues, but these particular items were used repeatedly in the context of this post.

The F16 is not for everyone, nor should we try to make it so but there is a nitch and enough customer base to make it a good thing.