Humm, I remember a few of us argueing about a superior performance for many years now.

Hell, quite a few of us have even been racing at a much faster handicap for many years now.

67 for the 1-up F16 is just waaaaaaay to kind a rating. Outside of the USA these boats are raced against the F18 rating or very close to it, and have been for many years now. In effect they are raced of 62.4 (=F18) and as such 7.3 % faster. That is quite alot, no less then 4 and halve minutes per hour of racing. And even at that rating a few races are won by F16's.

Our experience overhere is that the F16 performance is indeed on a par with the F18's, assuming equal level of skills between the crews. The F16 1-up has its sweet spots, just like the A's and can under some conditions even be expected to do better then the F18's. Although not by much.

Two weeks ago I raced doublehanded with a skipper I only sail with once or twice a year. We were on an Alter Cup Blade F16 with a Glaser suit of sails. I couldn't believe the upwind speed we had. Together we tip the scales at 160 kg (= 355 lbs) and we were double trapping upwind, going like stink. I was highly impressed by the upwind speed of these Alter Cup Blade. Glaser has made an excellent suit of sails and I now understand why this combination (Blade/Glaser) made such an impression upwind on the Alter Cup crews. Anyway, that fleet had 20 boats in it and we came in 7th overall, ahead of a good number of F18's. Despite the fact that we had lost some serious ground on the downwind leg. I still have a big black bruse on my tigh as evidence.

In addition, seeing Matt Mac. racing doublehanded and Hans c.q. Marcus racing singlehanded I'm now totally convinced that the F18 rating is the right rating for the F16's. I always knew the F16 would be very close to the F18 in performance but now that the rigs (Glaser/Landenberger) and sailors are matching the boat it is beyond any doubt.

I'm sorry to say that the US PN ratings are just wrong and it will take far too long to see them converge. Afterall the F16 class is now 6 years old. What are we going to do ? What another 6 years before the ratings get anywhere near the true performance. Isn't a decade a bit too long for a rating to converge on the right number ?

Hell ! If we are unlucky then developments to F16 design will improve the F16 performance by larger amounts then the rating numbers converges each year, thus preventing the ratings from ever being right.

I say we make a real effort as a class to get some relalistic US PN ratings.

The committee needs to decide whether they want 1 rating or 2 ratings for the class. Then we as a class must request with force to "split the difference" between the current F16 numbers and the F18 number and have the convergence proces restart from that point.

Those new ratings will still be to slow but at least we won't be wasting another 5 years in covering the first 2 rating points with the (very small) adjustment steps.

Surely the rating committee will be open to such an suggestion ?

US F16 class committee, is this something you guys can run with ?

Wouter