Although I was very impressed by the Taipan myself I'm very anxious for spring 2003 to come and see the announced Bim Javelin-16. In tradition with the new Bimare designs it is sure to be a wavepiercer design. (a little counter weight to the Taipan guys)



And this is as far as I can go as the chairman of this class; Impartiality.



But to more general stuff.



With regard to singlehanding, I can assure you that the rig was described as powerfull but very controllable by sailors sailing different kinds of F16's. Micheal Coffman (135 lbs) decribed it as better controllable than his earlier boat which was a nacra 5,2 with custom squaretop main. He indicated that the rig was very depowerable, which implicetly means that you can power up again when the wind drops.



Anyways what I'm getting at is this; Micheal both sails solo and with crew and has a sloop mainsail optimized for doublehanded sailing. A trick communicated to me by the Aussies doing both the solo and doublehanded sailing thing is to have a extra set of stiffer top three battens and use those to optimize the mainsail to both roles. The F16 rules allow this without remeasuring the mainsail. It is a extra present to singlehanded sailors and the cheapest way to get good dual role performance from one mainsail.



I'm sure that this trick can be used on any of the mainsails of the F16 boats.



Wouter