Over the weekend, us guys at the club decided to have a slug out between the 2 F16 designs, the Blade versus the Viper, both boats sailed in one-up configuration.

For a little background knowledge, the Viper was sailed in standard configuration, while the Blade was highly modified, sporting the bigger Viper beams and a set of Goodall sails. The 2 sailors, myself and Scott M, were comparable in weight, both at 78kgs but he is taller than me. The conditions we sailed in ranged from 3knots to 12knots with flat water to chop of around half a foot.

The first trial run was an 30 minute upwind leg in about 12 knots of breeze. What we found was that the Viper started flying a hull much earlier, why, I'm not sure, but I'm guessing due to the increased hull volume compared to the Blade. This meant that in the lighter winds, the Viper sailed higher than the Blade. The Blade however, sailed lower but faster and crossing tacks, it was actually pretty amazing how close we were despite the differences in angles. One of the reasons why I thought the Blade did well was because with the smaller hull volume, it got through the chop better, whereas the Viper took much more effort trying to get the boat through the chop well in one up configurations with my weight. This verifies my feeling before i bought the Viper that it was more suited for 2 up sailing, or solo sailing with a really big guy, ie, 90kgs plus. The Viper, flying a hull much earlier also meant that i was over powered much earlier than the blade, and had to pull in much more rotation and downhaul to keep the boat sailing well.

On the downwind run, due to the fact that the Viper could fly a hull earlier, we found the viper to have the edge in the lighter stuff, but once the wind came up to the point that the Blade was also flying a hull, all differences were negated and the boats were pretty much equal.

In conclusion, if I were to buy another boat, specifically for one up sailing in F16, I'd definitely be looking at the Blade due to my weight and size.

We'll be out doing more testing over the weekends for the fun of it. Just thought i would share our findings. Please take it in good fun.