Scarecrow,

Here my initial suggestions regarding the class rules.


- sail area

Suffice by ruling that a sleeved sail area is determined solely by its total surface area and that the halve the surface area of the mast is to be added when the sail is not fully covering the mast itself (excluding the area below the boom).


- Hull length

I strongly prefer 3.75 mtr overall length or more.


- Panel weight

Remove this rule entirely. For equalizing the performance only the ready to sail weight is needed. Also, ruling on a panel weight assumes you can predict that in the future we will never be able to create cheap and strong panels that weight less than giving in the rule. We simply don't know that. It is also another thing to check when measuring and certifying and it is also as good as impossible to check. Basically, this rule has large drawbacks and hardly any benefits. Give the designers all the freedom they want in this area, no-one wants to design a fragile boat and customers will vote with their feet anyway when one tries.


- Mast

Completely unregulating the construction of the mast may well turn out to be a big factor in losing control over the costs associated with F12's. It also makes international shipping alot harder = more expensive. I have experience in shipping masts internationally now and a significant portion gets damaged in transport. Also shippers really hate long, thin and easily damaged goods. You are alright if you can strap ten or more of those together, but shipping single masts or a pair of them is asking for trouble. Also a 6 mtr. mast is hard to transport legally without using a boat trailer, which will add another 1000-1500 bucks to owning a F12.

I really would like the see a rule that enforces the mast to be collapsable in parts that are no longer then the hulls themselves. Based on my experience so far I'm convinced we'll be thankful for that choice later.

I'm also concerned that leaving the mast unregulated beyond being collapsable is still inviting trouble. Some will want to have tapered carbon masts or specialized shapes. Rotating a mast will immediately add various hardware that will again add costs. I think like that it will proof very hard to control costs. Additionally, potential buyers will became hesitant as they will feel (justified or unjustified) that more expensive parts will always be more performant.

Based on my experience with the landyacht classes I feel we should seriously consider a setup as they have. They rule that the mast must be made up of normal standardized prismatic aluminium round sections. And that if we wanted more performance that we should allow camber inducers rather then fully rotating masts.

I can write a full post on this, but I won't now. Suffice to say that there is both need and room for ample deliberations on this aspect.



As a matter of personal opinion, while I strongly favour a pure formula class rule setup for larger catamarans I'm convinced that that is not the right approach for an simple and inexpensive class like the F12's. Any reductions in complexity and cost we achieve initially will only make adding costs and complexity more interesting to both builders and sailors. At the level of cost and complexity we are looking at to make the class maximally accessible and affordable there will not be much of a selfregulating effect as is found in the F16 and F18 classes. In the case of the F16's customers refuse to pay more the 15.000, no matter how well the craft is fitted out and that keeps the F16's sharp. But at 3000 euro's for the F12 it will be much easier for alot of people to justify spending an additional 1000 Euro's just to get a small advantage over the other sailors.

I really do believe we must look at making the F12 a OD class (but NOT a SMOD class) where the most important aspects of the basic layout is regulated but where smaller factors sail design, rudder design and the way of implementing the basic design are left open. I'm thinking of :

- regulating closely the shape of the hulls (enforce fairness of racing and easy of building)
- regulating the type of rig (stayed / unstayed, sloop, uni-rig etc)
- regulating the major over all dimensions
- regulating the more troublesome components like mast to a medium level (collapsable or not, material)
- regulating to have or not parts like daggerbaords/centreboards, camber inducers, T-foils, etc.

The rest can be left open as their influence on overall performance is too small to really matter and you must use the group of designers and enthousiasts to find the best solutions over time.

Wouter




Wouter