Luiz,
I know both Berny and Darryl. I have seen first hand how both Berny's 4.3 and Darryl's Alpha perform and they
are both far and away superior to any other 14 ft boat
out there. They really are both great boats.

I think you make a very good point.
"I only see kids who start in a smaller cat upgrading to the F14 as they grow heavier"
While I agree with your statement I do not wish to infer
that the F14 is not suitable for adults. The challenge is convincing the market they should embrace the F14.
A longer route to that destination may be to to develop
the market from the beginning by making cat sailing more accessable to children at a very young age so they
develop into cat sailors.

I have always thought that we needed to develop a complete range of quality boats.
Not just any old thing that satisfies some basic
measurements like we have now.
Each design has to be quality in every way in order to catch them young and train them to be life long cat
sailors.

This new rang of boats needs to take into account ease of handling onshore, and therefore the weight of the boat is critical, as well as the time to rig, cost, handling on
the water and asthetics.
This was my general line of thinking when I first started working on a 12 ft design.
It had to be a very simple boat to rig to take up little to none of the parents time in rigging etc. and keep costs right down which would make it more appealing to the family budget.
Light weight so it can easily be moved around etc.
Since intrducing Wouter to this initial concept including the free standing rig he has pushed the concept more towards an older childs boat.
I firmly believe we should be getting the 12 ft boats into the hands of 7-12 yr olds.
Possibly use what Wouter's thinking about as an interim step between this and the F14. No doubt many individuals that would walk this path would not go past the F14
once they get there.

I think this is more about developing the market through more approariate and marketable designs.
I see the boats developed by Darryl and Berny to be a part of the whole strategy.

If this could be made happen I believe it would be a great boast to the sport in general.
I just think if we can put really good quality designs into the hands of the very young they will be more inclined to stay with the sport and continue to grow and develop as
cat sailors.

This is just the way I see it.

Regards,
Phill