Thanks Pete.
My aim in this discussion is stricktly from a Marketing viewpoint.
How are you (Mr. Viper "Junior" Dealer) going to "Sell" the boat, to the Clubs and parents?
Give me your best "Pitch" Mark, or anyone else. Because If I can't sail the boat, at $16,000, nobody in my family's getting one!
And that would hold true even if there were 1,000 yacht clubs that already had fleets of them up and running, of which there are....zero.
Dad's got to write that check, you had better have a product Dad can sail too!
That's the sell; Dad and the Kids, together, having good times!
Put a "No Dad's allowed" sticker on it and good luck selling ANY of them!
Timbo, all this blathering! You must not have looked at the website!
VIPER Club Why should I waste a pitch on you when you are definitely not in the market! If I had a product called Horsefly Be-Gone! you'd listen right? Haha. I do like your points though.
How can you not sail the boat? Put the Club sails or the regular sails on and the boat still performs.
I was out in about 7 knots with a junior and I was impressed. We were able to beat the other F16s at the club here at West River with the Club sails and we weighed 300 lbs. The SA is taken out of the square top and the sail is a bit flatter. The kite is flatter and 9% smaller, and we used it on a reach very effectively.
You could always just put the regular set of sails on and there's your boat, Tim, singlehanded or double. And if you singlehand in a breeze with the Club mainsail.......fast for sure! It could actually close the gap between the single/double in the breeze. This is exactly what is so attractive about the F16; it is so versatile. singlehand/double/junior/mixed/female/males....every combo possible.
So to answer your question if you can sail it or not..
Remember, it only weighs 50 lbs more than a club 420, and the 420 is still an eight thousand dollars. $$/mph the VIPER Club blows it away.
Though we are competing against the 420, I don't look at it as direct competition, but more of a cross training, as mentioned earlier. Recruiting colleges look for sailors who have sailed a variety of boats with success. Contrary to popular outlook, cats are very technical boats to sail and demand fast thinking and a lot of tactics, as we all know. I don't really have to go there. The main focus is keeping kids interested in sailing. For me, if there were no cats I would have quit a long time ago, and I still like to sail leaners too. Of course, many yacht clubbers see cats as taking away a piece of their pie, but I think there could be many more slices available in the whole pie.
Daggerboards are not an issue. You can't have a true performance cat without them IMO.
To say there are absolutely 'zero' VIPER Clubs around, what is that? At one point there were zero Optis, Zero Lasers and zero Hobie 16s. Why try to kill something before it starts. I just visited my 1st club. Thanks for that one buddy.
Check the FAQ page out on the site to help. Any suggestions are helpful. Well, maybe not 'any'
