Kirt,

First of all I am a good friend and an old customer of Mr Petrucci, but I don't work for BIMARE.

Anyway I can tell you the reason why BIMARE chose to stay with the UNIRIG configuration and not to build a sloop F16. BIMARE started to build catamarans 25 years ago. Its first design was an A class. In the late 70's all A class cats had already adopted the UNIRIG configuration. Mr Petrucci liked so much this concept that since then he never produced a sloop catamaran. He started (together with other Europeans boatyards) 3 UNIRIG Formula classes: the F20 in 1989 (20' x 10', 37.7 ' mast, 235 sqft main and 258 sqft spinnaker), the F 16 in 1991 and lately the F18HT in 1995.

The pattern of BIMARE production are:

UNIRIG configuration, low weight and affordable prices.

This is the reason why you'll never see a BIMARE made F18.

Maurizio