[quote
Tim, you miss my point. Matt was consulted by Jake and Kevin extensively before the first mast was even assembled. The mast on Matt's boat was measured carefully. They went off and did a pow-wow and came back with numbers that were then applied to the new masts. [/quote]

The purpose of what this event is supposed to be about was upheld to the extreme. Jake and Kevin did an awsome job of organizing, coordinating and making this thing come off. All the boats were the same and moving from platform to platform I could not tell any difference. With very limited exception everyone getting on these boats were new to them. My hats are off to the guys who immediately got on and figured out how to make them go very fast. Being it was an unfamilliar boat to almost all, it was probably a more true Alter cup judge than a platform that some of the people may have sailed for years.

The F16 is not for every condition or everybody. In talking to the other competitors, I do believe that it supprised quite a few for the better. It is not a light weight team platform, especialy in how it was rigged.

Jake and Keven did consult with me about settings. When we went to pick up the second load of boats, they measured the mast on the spare boat. This was NOT my mast and had been set to the extreme opposite of how I set up mine, based on the reccomendations of Jay and Pease Glaser. They then made their settings even more drastic from this mast. The end result gave a mast with no pre-bend and prevented the controls (downhaul and rotation) from having very much effect in tuning the sails.

Again, my comments are not about anything to relative to this event. Big winds and waves are not a problem, but it is about what you want your sailing experience to be. If your goal is to do big offshore distance stuff, you could do it, but it would be a much more comfortable ride on a 20. For ME (read not everyone else) this makes for one of the better buoy and fun sailing boats.