Steve-

You seem to be biased against the Taipan (or is it AHPC in particular - re your reference to the Australian Flyer, which swept the "A" Worlds by the way).

As US Class head I welcome any and all new F 16HP boats and look forward to this new offerring from BIM, built specifically to the class rules (except for the provision for a jib- Which in the F 18HT class is not an issue but the original intent of this class was to have boats that could go "either way" easily and be competitive more or less with each other, which differs greatly from the F 18HT's). BIM seems to be (I can only go on the information in Maurizio's post since I have not seen or heard any more about this boat but have seen/sailed with the current BIM 16) offerring a boat maximized under our rules for one-up sailing and not amenable to sailing as a sloop, which is their perogative. But to compare that boat specifically to a T 4.9 / Stealth / Spitfire / etc. designed and sold to go sloop or solo is not really comparing apples to apples IMO. A Taipan uni (which can be ordered) is conspicuously less expensive than a sloop and faster in "uni mode" than a sloop w/ the jib merely left off (less weight slightly and different cut mainsails).

So please, let's keep things positive here and not get into the pissing contest some of the other forums seem to revel in. All the builders in our class build good strong boats and ALL the other CURRENT boats (Stealth, Taipan, Spitfire, etc.) have 8.5 m masts whether CF or Al so the "mast rule" you allude to only affects the BIM (a boat that is not yet in production and could be changed easily leaving no CURRENT class members disadvantaged.) Maurizio points to CF as being "safer"- I presume he's referring to the ease in righting, well, it's easier to right a boat with a 8.5m CF mast than one with a 9m CF mast all other things being equal so limiting mast height could be "defended" as a safety issue. I'm just trying to point out there are generally more than one ways to "view" an issue. I'm personally okay with leaving the length at 9m but we are a class run organization so majority rules but I appreciate your opinion and I agree the more manufacturers we have competing with each other the better the boats/rigs/sails/cost will become FOR US (the sailors)!!

And we will all win!



Regards,

Kirt