Hello Rob,
Well I can be so predictable some times.
I checked up on the photo picks and indeed I could only tell by the different mainbeam of teh Taipan. Turns out that Jennifer won her class on the Taipan.
But seriously why don't Hobie and Nacra do that ?
Well it is very comparable to lightboat builder trying to build heavier boats like the F18. They can but it is not in their gens to do so. Sort of like an in house culture that stiffles progress.
This may sound like a nonsense argument at first but it is really true. I mean look at it from this way Why does a Inter 17 use the daggerboards of its bigger brother the inter 18 ? From a designers point of view it doesn't make sense but they do it still. Mostly to reduce costs, yes, but more importantly why do they feel the need to reduce costs when A-cat don't and are bought in bigger numbers than the 17's ?
Some of these companies don't see that the start of a good class is the building of a good class organisation. The big boat builders don't see it that way, they see the singlehander as a side show to the bigger F18's and sorts.
A-catters and also some builders in the 16 ft. class are looking at this differently.
BTW; lets not forget that the F18 was created by small boat relatively unknown builders like Alado; the big boy stept on the bandwagon later.
A guy from the F16 class mailed me that we should make contact with the big boys and make the F16 known to them. I say wait till we have the other light boat builders on board and have ample proof that they are likely to miss the boat.
One other thing about the big designers is that they are production companies and not really design companies. Yes you heard that right. Hobie boat the platform from Alado and teh FX-one and Fox are mediocre copies of the flyer design. Hardly any new stuff comes from the big names; however they are there when the market expands.
With respect to : why not a Taipan 4.9 or other F16 ?
People tend to think that 16 foot is to small. Ofcourse we are longer than 16 foot but we needed a name for the class. But more importantly; the F16 class has to fight the "kids boat" label. There is a magic ring to the names 18 and 20 ft and not to the 16 ft. Most of the time we explain our case and let it be, the platform will proof itself.
One good thing about the 16 foot 5 " length is that nobody believes it needs a low rating. The current PN is an absolute Peach ! 1st at tradewinds in their class, 2nd at RTI in their class, 1st in their class at apparently the wildcat race. All that without ex-olympic sailors sailing the boat. Yep, you can say that I'm a happy guy.
With a little luck we can welcome Glenn Ashby on of of thsoe 16 foot boats with a spi and really blow some doors of other boats.
>>If an I-17 weighed 200 lbs, I might own one of those instead of my A Class.
Well we're banking on something like that.
Wouter
