Okay, okay, I've been slacking a little bit on promo-ing the F16 class and all its associated brands. I still have a ton of pictures to upload to the website and some rearranging to do. Because if I'm not doing it then ....

The following info has been in my inbox for a week and I appologize to everybody from keeping it from you for so long ! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I know you guys have all be graving for it ever since the F16 Global Challenge in last August.

The info was supplied by Gordon Barrett of AHPC (with special thanks to our soon newest F16 sailor Bob Klein for getting it)

So here we go :



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Hi All,

Sorry for the delay in getting this info out, just as it was ready to send my laptop died. Sometimes the gods simply conspire to frustrate us mere mortals.

The Viper has now been officially launched

First race results were extremely good with the Viper being the first sloop F16 home in the Marathon race at Zandvoort, Holland. The Fleet consisted of 65 boats, mainly F18’s, F20’s and a few other older boats, but the importance to us was that all the F16’s from the Global Challenge were also competing.

The race started in 12 to 15 knts of wind. Frank van Marle one of the Dutch F16 sailors crewed for me. As we had never sailed together we knew it would take us a while to settle in and to work out the trim and team work on the totally new boat.

We got on the water with just enough time to do a short beat and downwind to make sure everything was working properly. Then it was time to race.

We were over early and had to go back and restart. (Skippers fault, I had my head in the boat). This cost us about 100m on the leaders and then took us about 1km to get settled. Once we got our team work and the trim on the boat worked out, we were extremely fast. We overtook all the other F16’s and a couple of F18’s and F20’s. After about 10km we were in 5th place and keeping pace with the lead boats – a couple of F18’s, a F20 and a M20. Towards the end of the long upwind work, the wind dropped to about 6 – 8 knts and the cat rigged F16 showed their advantage in the lighter conditions. Hans Klok overtook us and held a good lead from that point on.

The downwind leg was interesting. The large seas from the previous day’s heavy weather kept everyone on their toes. The extra volume of the Viper was great as I could trapeze downwind in these conditions. All was going very well until we lost track of the gate mark and had to tack back to it. This cost us about 500m allowing Marcus Towell on a cat rigged F16 to get through. The cat rigged F16’s again showed their light weather superiority by being the first two F16’s to finish. Marcus was first, Hans second and Frank and I third. This was a good result as we mixed it with the F18 fleet being competitive upwind and down, with three F16’s finishing in the top 10. If you look on the official results it shows us as 11, but they had us on the wrong rating. When correctly rated at 102 for the Sloop F16, we were in fact 7th outright.

First impression of the boat is fantastic. Beautifully balanced, fast and easy to sail upwind and down. All systems on the boat worked well. The boat is extremely stiff and buoyant making it very comfortable to sail. This first boat was a little heavy as we simply used a lot F18 foils and some other parts that added about 10kg of additional weight. Naturally, all future F16’s will be lighter.

The next day, I sailed cat rigged in another long distance race. This race went north up the coast from Zandvoort, whereas the previous day’s race had taken us south. The wind and waves were a little less and the fleet was down to 35 boats.

The race started in about 12 knots with a short 500m beat to a rounding mark. The wind was a bit shifty and I was 12th at the first mark. We then had a 15km downwind leg to a very large navigation maker, giving us an equally long beat back to the finish line at the club. Sailing cat rigged with a spinnaker was a new experience and I quickly realized that having 4 hands would be an advantage.

Downwind with the spinnaker was great fun – once I sorted out the best way to do it. Cleat the main, out on trapeze, foot in the stern foot strap and away you go, playing the spinnaker – fast and surprisingly easy once you get going. By the time I got to the navigation marker, I had managed to pass all but 3 of the larger 18 and 20ft cats.

On the 15km beat back to the club, I managed to keep my position of 4th place over the line and on yardstick took out 3rd place.

All in all, this was an excellent start for the new boat and it will only get faster from here.

Attached are some pictures of the boat just prior to the launch. From the photos you can see that the finish on the boat is first class – apart from the repairs, (courtesy of the freight company that shipped them to Holland) that are a bit rough.

Sorry that I couldn’t get any sailing photos. These will have to wait a couple of weeks until we do the next boat in Singapore.

Regards,

Greg Goodall
Managing Director
Australian High Performance Catamarans

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And the pictures !

For the full (high) resolution pictures go to :

http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6940

And be sure to click on the "full size" link in the upper right hand corner when an individual photo has been selected and is shown. The pics allow for inspection of all the details. The Viper is indeed a clean looking boat. Very well done by AHPC.

Smaller versions of these pics are given below.












[img]http://www.catsailor.com/bb_files/121776-Viper_F16_AHPC_Cat_Rig_Close_Up_1.JPG[/img]

[img]http://www.catsailor.com/bb_files/121776-Viper_F16_AHPC_Transom_1.JPG[/img]