I take this personally so I will reply to this once more.

I don't know how much you weight valtteri so I never took that into account. And it is my honest opinion that there are several righting aids available to allow ANY F16 sailor over 60 kg to right the F16 singlehandedly in a quick and safe manner; irrespectibally whether it is a alu or carbon masted F16.

I know from personal experience that the F16's with alu are the second easiest boat to right singlehandedly. Only the A-cats are easier to right and I have said on numerous times. You try to right a Hobie 14, Hobie 17, Hobie FX-one, Nacra 5.0, Nacra 500, Inter-17 or any similar craft singlehandedly and you'll confirm this experience.

It all stops somewhere; in no wind and flat water a modestly weighted skipper will even have to work to right an A-cat.

Many of us have commented on how good alu is in the way of sailing performance and yes indeed righting. Again, the F16's are the second most easy to right beach cat EVEN WHEN FITTED WITH ALU. There are about 100 design more difficult to right and only 1 easier. That in my book makes it an excellent design. Now some people may dream about being able to right a carbon rig with only 40 kg on the righting line but that is really not going to happen with a 5 kg mainsail and some 2 kg of water sticking to the cloth at the tip.

Sailors like PTP note how they (73 kg) can right the boat when winds are above 10 knots and they are certainly not lying. Implying anything different is just disingenious.

Another argument revolved around min boat weight and how the alu mast is stuffing that up. The numbers I've been told puts you guys about 120 kg. Pardon me but that superwing mast is not guilty in adding 13 kg to the whole boat. Typically it is 4 kg and maybe you guys have gotten exceptionally unlucky and it is 6 kg in your cases. That still leaves more then halve to other causes.

I still do advice the aluminium mast to people interesting in the F16 class for the following reasons :

-1- it is the most inexpensive F16 mast at this time
-2- it holds up very well under general accidental abuse
-3- allows modification of systems on it by the owner (moving blocks and cleats about, without extensive work like laminating reinforcements)
-4- most development of sails so far has been done for the alu mast; several sailmakers now have "off the shelve" F16 mainsails that are well behaved and fast.
-5- The alu mast has good rightability that is second to one only (A-cat).


I think all these reasons still hold and carbon masts made by fibrefoam or Saarberg are still quoted at 3000 Euro's (1500 pounds). Stealth Marine has always been cheaper then these well known carbon mast builders but I would still like to see an actual and official quote of 500 pounds before I believe it. In the USA carbon mast made by companies like Hall are even more expensive then Fibrefoam or Saarberg. Australian Composites mast are comparable to Fibrefoam and Saarberg last time I checked.


What I'm saying here is that I or other like Phill would never ever intentionally mislead any new class member like yourself. Everything we said and wrote to you was believed by ourselves to be both true and well-balanced. Now indeed we are only human and so we can make unintentional mistakes, but I really don't think any of those were made in your case.

I do believe that you an Gato expected alot more from the F16 then we realized and are now hurting because of it. I say that it may be wise to finish the crafts anyway and actually sail it, then find yourself a Hobie 16, F18 and an A-cat and test sail those; don't forget to raise the mast on the F18 and lift all boats onto the trailer. Also make sure you ones drive the A-cat downwind with your partner sailing the F16 down alongside it under spinnaker. Then look up all retail prices. You'll recognise the differences soon enough even when your boat is 13 kg overweight to the F16 minimum.


We are all making far to much out of pretty minor things here.

Wouter