I shall make no secret of my opposition to accepting ballot number 1, although I did wait to the very last day to make it public knowlegde.

Ballot number 1 is the proposal were the maximal allowed area of the mainsail + mast is redefined.




I feel that a better proposal would have been to redefine the rule :

"Mast area = mainsail luff length multiplied by the circumference of the mast"

to

"Mast area = the max allowed mainsail luff length of 8.100 mtr multiplied by the circumference of the mast."


This would have garanteed that all current mainsails would still be compliant with the new rules. No exceptions are possible, neither in theory nor praxis.

Also it would have kept our mainsails at the maximal effective surface area. The part of the mast below the boom and therefor without a sail behind it is not in any way effective surface area. It does not produce any drive except negative drive (=drag) and therefor should not be considered part of the engine.

This line of reasoning was a main criterium when founding the class and composing the first rule sets. Only items that are unmistakenly performance enhancing must be ruled upon. No gut feelings or pseudo scientific believes should be implementing in the F16 rule set.

Interestingly enough. The F18 class and F20 also do not include the WHOLE mast area in their limits only the part that has a sail behind it. I think the F16 class should stay with that principle and not go with the A-cat setup where extremely low booms are the norm rather then the exception. Low booms simple don't work well on 2-up boats. This was one reason why in the past the rules were explicetly written to not enclude any items below the boom as to avoid any stimulating of unfavourable setups. It was intended to stimulate keeping the boom sufficiently high of the trampoline.

Another argument was that we didn't want to cause a split between the surface area determined by the rating systems of Texel and ISAF (schrs) and the F16 class rules. A thing that will happen with the proposed modification. This is because neither Texel nor SCHRS regard the portion of the mast that is not followed by the sail itself to be effective sailarea. This while the proposed modification actually do consider is effective sailarea.

Therefor I believe the proposed modifications actually do not reduce confusion by actually maintain it, albeit of a different kind. That, in my opinion, is enough to vote against the proposed rule change. Not because I disagree with modifying this particular rule but because the proposed change is insufficiently better. Especially since a much better modification is available.

If this proposal is accepted I will put in a counterproposal along the lines of what is given earlier in this posting.

Wouter