Rolf,

Thanks for your response and support. Like I said, it will be interesting. And I will pass along photos of my rudders when they are finished.

As for your concerns about compliance. Let me just say that my furling head sail will be fulling compliant with the F16 rules. I insisted on it.

My inspiration came out of an email in which Dave Calvert, the sailmaker for Rick White, wrote,

"I also worked on furling spinnaker designs that work well for this they have a positive leech and a fairly straight luff. With a small diameter spectra luff line, these sails can still be furled..."

He went on to add, "You can't use them up wind but they will close reach very well, better than most spinnakers. They work better downwind than the laminate hooters but, still need to be sailed hot to work well."

After reading that, it accorded to me that if one combined t-foil ruddders that would keep the boat from pitchpoling with an off wind sail you could fly on everything but a beat one might have a different approach to high performance. Once that idea came to me, the rest was history.

I do want to thank Rick White for being very proactive in getting this done. Like several other people, he indicated it's an idea worth trying.

As to the obvious other concerns? How well will it furl? Or sail?

First, even if it all works perfectly, I'm not sure I'm a good enough sailor to take advantage of it. But that part of the equation would be true even if I sprang for a new Blade.

As for the furling and performance? In the recruiting industry that I work in we would say that's TBD (to be determined). But as JR Watson from Gougeon Brothers suggested, "You're experimenting. You may be on to something."

In any case, win or lose, good or bad, I do hope to push the design envelope into a bit of a different direction. I would hope that among all the F16 sailors out there we could come up with ways to be competitive without merely buying the latest design de jour.

We shall see,
John