I feel a desire to seperate the Taipan 4.9 from the new purpose build F16's. I own a modified Taipan myself (homebuild) but raced the US Blade F16 owned by a friend several times. While the Taipan is an excellent design from the year 1987, the new purpose designed F16's do behave differently and have alot more space on the trampoline and carry high crew weights significantly better. Together my friend and I are just below 160 kg (355 lbs) and the Blade F16 carries this very well during racing.

I feel one can not regard the Taipan as a good showcase for the F16's anymore (as it was back in 2001/2002 and 2003) The newer designs have progressed significantly beyond that initial benchmark.

In fact it is very telling to put a new F16 next to a Hobie Tiger F18, you'll find that the bow length and tramp space as well as the beam locations are almost identical ! It is actually the stern section where the bulk of the size difference is concentrated.

This post is not intented to take away any of the advice given in this thread, just to correct a common stated misconception about the (non-Taipan based) F16's

The best advice I can give to mr. Broken to get on all the more promising boats a test ride; and find out for yourself. That can be very entlightening and most owners are very willing to take you out on there boats.

Regards,

Wouter