Stephen,

Nobody is forcing you to buy and sail a F16.

If you feel that lifting up your F18 by the bow (90 kg) to put the beach wheels under the hulls is less work then doing the same with an F16 (55 kg); then hey ! don't let me stop your life path towards the physiotherapist.

If you don't believe in the F16 concept then don't get into it. There are enough others who do !

If the big builders are not able to build true F16's then that is okay as well. We don't have them now and can service the demand using our own producers just fine. I think the +125 kg builders are overlooking that fact. We got by pretty well without them over the last 6 years, why do we suddenly need them now ? This is a two way street and right now the big boys are not offering us anything of value.

If AHPC feels like you that 20 kg additional weight doesn't make much difference in performance, then GREAT as the F16 rules allows any boat to be overweight anyway. If they feel that we should all just slap on anything from 5 to 18 kg of lead to our mainbeams to equalize ourselves to the Viper then they are living in a fantasy world.

And of course Stephen you can buy a nice 112 kg Aussie Blade F16 round around the corner. If you think 20 kg is no biggy performance wise then why worry about 5 kg ? (= 112-107 kg)

So what is the REAL issue here !

Wouter