Ohh God ! The SL16.

It was a step up from the H16 as the youth boat but apart from that it is pretty uninteresting.

It is actually rated slower then the H16 when that boat is without a spi kit ! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

They should just have chosen the Nacra 500 as the new youth boat after fitting a spi to it and force nacra to allow licensed production of it by other builders.

It would have resulted in a better boat for the youth that is far more attractive to non-youth sailors as well; additionally it has a quite substantial second hand market available world wide (the older nacra 5.0 that can easily be converted)

Nacra actually has got an unrecognized winner in the Nacra 500 but they don't do much with it. It still amazes me why they entered the Nacra blast in the ISAF evaluation and not the Nacra 500 !

That little Nacra 500 is in my opinion one of the best small catamarans ever designed. And it is a @#%^# load cheaper then that overrated SL16 as well.

Now Nacra is supporting both One-Design classes that are really mutually exclusive. And now they are hung up as they can't drop either one at this time. The Nacra 500 is selling while the SL16 isn't, but the SL16 is the official youth class where the Nacra 500 isn't. Without Nacra in USA, only Sirena will remain as the SL16 producer which is not acceptable to ISAF under the terms stated for the youth boat.

I don't know who was responsible for this bit of business policy of Nacra over the last few years but he needs to go back to business school.

In my cold hard judgement, the best thing Nacra can do here it drop the SL16 like a hot potato, write off the associated costs and start campaigning hard with the Nacra 500. SL16 will die everywhere over night and only survive in France. Then in time it will just become the new youth boat anyway as their will not be an alternative other then the H16 with spi kit. Actually that Nacra 500 with spi is a much more capable competitor to the F16's then the Nacra 17 is or probably ever will be. That is at least how the potential customers I speak with are evaluating the situation.(Don't worry, we're working to close that gap)

Or at least that is my personal opinion.

Wouter