It is almost a fulltime job to keep up with the news these days.

Brouwer and Bundock on the Viper have just won the Open Belgium Multihull Championship, while competing directly with the F18's.

They are the first mixed team to have have won this championship. The F16 concept is proving its worth by allowing mixed and all-female teams (Carnac) to get back in the game, as such the F16 concept is succeeding were the small-sails-plus-corrector-weights-concept of the F18 class is failing.

For the full story go to :

http://www.sail-world.com/Europe/Be...---Sailing-Olympian-extends-record/69628

full results at :

http://www.vvwheist.be/component/co...mei-open-belgisch-kapioenschap-multihull



But that is not all !

We also need to congratulate Phillipe Thareau and Claire Berranger for winning the French C1 Catamaran Championship over the same weekend !

They were sailing the AHPC Viper and scored a listing of 1st, 4th, 1st, 1st and 2nd.


And to top things off, 2Bsailing is reporting great interest at their "come and try" day.

Seems things are picking up in Europe as The Boatshop (Falcon F16) is reporting similar interest at their promotion days.

Great show everybody !

Wouter

"Brouwer and Bundock on the Viper have just won the Open Belgium Multihull Championship, while competing directly with the F18's."

Do you mean scratch - no handicap? I take it the boat was more likely to be sailing on handicap as a Viper as opposed to an F16. There's a penalty you know for being able to push the lightweight F16's around solo and I suspect that it was not being taken. However, I take nothing away from the acheivements of such high calibre sailors.
The results achieved give some credibility to the weight arguement looking at the predominent handicap sailing environment. If the boat was not sailing as an F16 on handicap be wary of quoting the result as being that of an F16 due to the different time correction factors.

Cheshirecatman

Well, when you have 14 F18's and 2 F16's...

I understand what you are saying but then again the Viper F16 was designed to fit inside the F16 rules and be competitive in that class. In fact, it was specifically designed as a F16 from the very onset. Additionally, both the 2Bsailing and AHPC websites identify the boat as being an F16 and in photo's and drawings the sails show the insignia VF16. Without the F16 class the Viper would never have been designed. Other then that, the rating difference of 2.5 points (taken over about a 100) is small change at best. With that you are not going to correct out to 1st when you come across the line as 5th for example. On the second day, they corrected out to 1st places while never finishing out of the top 3 on elapsed time. So the handicap contributed to at best a 1 or 2 places improvement ; the rest can be fully attributed to sailor skills (and the boat design).

To make a long story short the Viper is an F16, irrespectively of what some rating system like SCHRS says, what its real >107kg ready to sail weight is or to what rating it is sailed in a specific race.

In the past some Hobie Tigers were also awarded different handicap numbers then the F18 class as well and no-one ever made much fuss about that; so why should we do so now with respect to the F16's ?



Other then that the crew Brouwer/Bundock sailed very well even on elapsed time

In their twitter account they themselves state :

"Racing the Viper @ Knokke Heist (VVW) in Belgium tomorrow for the Open Belgium Multihull Championships and ready to take on the larger F18's"

"Good fun racing the Viper against the F18's @the Belgium championships. 8-10knts. Carolijn took line honours in 2nd race. Score of 2,1,1,2."

"Viper wins the Belgium Multihull Championship winning all three final races 2day on handicap and finishing top 3 in all races on line honours"


And of course Ding is absolutely right. When 2 F16's share a start with 14 F18's then "hell yes" you are competing directly with them for position, clean air and the lead.



Either way the cake is sliced, the Viper design proved again to be a very fast catamaran when in capable hands; able to take on much larger boats in open class racing (either on handicap or on elasped time). By extension the F16 setup is working, it is producing very competitive boats such as in this case the Viper.


Can we please stop nitpicking ?

Wouter

Where you been Ding?

Go Viper!!!! WOOOOO

Another newsflash, again dealing with a Viper F16

This was taken from the twitter tape as found on the AHPC website


"AHPC impressed at the Australian Uni Fleet Regatta. Sailing for MONASH, Goodall and Pursch won the skiff/catamaran division on the VIPER"


The stuff just keeps coming !

Wouter

Great boat and a talented crew however not an F16 result. If entered and scored as an F16 fair enough, but it wasn't the case. Only one F16 on the results sheet in mid-fleet. It's not nitpicking it's playing by the same rules.
In the early days of F18 the rating differences were exploited in the same way by some "manufacturer class designs" in open events. I cannot honestly recall the last time that happened with F18 boats. Whilst F16 sailors are exploiting the softer handicap of the Viper to claim this as an F16 victory is is just not so. An admirable result? yes, but not an F16 victory. If the same result had been achieved as an F16 entry and scored as such - fair play, but not this one.

Cheshirecatman

"Does a rose by any other name smell less sweet ?"

Wouter

Anyway to get the times so we can put this topic to bed?

I looked but coulsn't find them.

It was hard enough to find the corrected results already, took me well over an hour of googling.

Maybe Gill or somebody is more successful here ?

Wouter

Wooter, Many times I have tucked in behind a group of 4 or 5 F18s or Hurricane 5.9s (all covering each other), when racing the Spitfire, and beaten them all on handicap. It's quite easy to do when you do not have to get past them on the water.

Congratulations formula 104!!!! maybe we need a 104 forum?

You did maybe in some shared start local race while sailing the Spitfire (with an even slower rating then the Viper) that everybody otherwise ignores, but Brouwer/Bundock in the Belgian championships didn't. Remember, their worst result on elasped time was 3rd and they were also first over the line at least once. I'm also quite sure that the other crews tried to stuff them as they were directly competing with them for the title.

Therefore I say that it is a very good result by a design created for F16 racing; no matter what smoke and mirrors certain Capricorn F18, Infusion F18 and Spitfire sailors are throwing up.

And before we forget, the SCHRS F16 rating is slower then the F18's as well and therefore the same situation can arise there to, although you need to be really on their heels then.

Wouter

Go for it then, set one up and get on with it, we wouldn't then have to deal with mind set Aussies who can't take a good hint to take there repeated views else where.

Perhaps we could then talk about boat setup, sail design, racing calenders, you know all the the things that promote a good strong class, without the intervention of the doomsdayers from Aussie saying we are all doing it so wrong.

Ignoring Dazz silly post.
Wouter, I am talking about Irish National events where my ability is about the same as the competition (certainly not up to International standards). It is easier to beat someone on handicap, if you don't have to pass them on the water. What was the standard of the Belgian sailors who were sailing against two of the top sailors in the world ?
I held off a Wildcat in the Shadow in a 1 hour club race last night. He passed me 50m before the finish line. It's all about who is sailing the boat

Numbers two and three from the Belgian event where 21 and 23 at the last F18 worlds, I think its fair to say these are skilled sailors.

I agree !
I think that I have been on this forum long enough for people to know that I believe in the F16 concept and am not knocking the Viper.
My only point is that it is a lot easier to sit close behind a cat with a lower handicap number and win a race than it is to get past them to win the race. I have done it many times.

But then a 16ft cat with a smaller sail area should never be able to keep up with an 18ft cat with a larger sail area, particularly from behind where the effect of the larger sail area will make that job even harder.