Geert,
Nice to see you comment on the forum again.
With regard to the Texel rules and The Taipan; you are correct with the exclusion of one thing. The Taipan design is designated as a Foundation boat. This means that as long as the Taipan 4.9 measures in with respect to the Taipan 4.9 one design rules and flies a 17,5 sq. mtr. spi in addition (F16 compliant) it is allowed to race in all F16 races; just like if it were a full compliant F16. So with respect to the Taipan 4.9 the situation has not changed under the new rules. Under the current rules it wasn't compliant for the very same reasons.
The allowence to taipan sailor to fly a slightly bigger jib was given to compensate for the lesser width of the platform as well as the fact that part allowed extra mainsail area can be considered to have been moved to the jib. In addtion to this the Taipan has slightly less water line length and a very modest squaretop.
With your 3,91 sq. mtr. for the jib the Taipan + spi has a texel rating of 102,37 while the F16 under the new rules has a rating of 102,43. The difference being 0,06 % 0r 2 sec difference / hour. In fact the gap between the boats was bigger under the old rules; I think this is much more fairer. Especially because the Taipan sailor can't use stuff like selftackers under their T4.9 rules.
With respect to the points you raise :
1) The class does want to garantee that The Taipans stayes competitive as a F16's and allowing other F16's considerably more jib sail area will only make it more unfair. Also it would interfere with the upgrade option to Taipan sailors as the T4.9 jib triangle will not allow more area in there than at absolute max. 3,70 sq. mtr. when wanting selftackers or sheeting of the mainbeam. (source AHPC and Redhead sailmakers) Ofcourse this jib area will result in 3,5 sq. mtr. rated area as proposed in the adjusted rules.
2) The weight issue has been discussed over and over with several builders / class officials and the compromise was reached on 107 kg's incl spi gear. One reason for this compromise is that it is not at all difficult to make a spi package that weights just less than 5 kg's (see F16 website). And the class didn't want to force Taipan sailors 102 kg' + 5 kg's = 107 kg's to carry corrector weights in addition to have to carry less jib area than other F16's in combination with slightly less mainsail area. This would be triple unfair. Also this 107 kg's was found to give the best (most fair) situation see later in my post)
I would like to underline that Texel gives the Taipan 4,9 with your jib area quote a rating of 102,37 with the new F16's at 102,43 which is only 0,06 points apart. The mods you propose would allow the F16 to get 101,67 or be 0,70 points (11 times) more apart than the current proposed difference. Still mighty small differences but why give up a better situation for a worse one ?
And by the proposed changes as they are the class also satisfied a few other requirements better.
One example of that is when a Taipan sailor decides to go to full F16 compliance and buys a new F16 mainsail and F16 jib which is sheeted of the main beam or a selftacker than his "Texel rating to F16 difference" will go from 0,06 to 0,51 (2 sec to 18 sec/hour) under the current proposed mods. Under your proposed mods it would go from 0,70 to 1,28 (25 sec to 46 sec /hour). It is the class opinion that the current proposed situation is also better when just looking at things like upgrade possibility.
For other readers on the forum. This post is a good example of how during the evaluations countless aspects have been looked at.
With kind regards,
Wouter
