Congrats to the F18HT; those are in place.

Next I will elaborate on the merits of the decision which are entirely my own opinion and I welcome everybody to disagree.

I'm presonally disappointed that these didn't decide to go for the B-class rules. I feel that those are much closer to the original C-class setup and it would allow the Tornado to defend its reputation as the fastest beach cat around. In effect both the Tornado and F18 have been removed from competition by definition. In effect the choice itself has determined in which way development will be made. With the limit on minimal weight there can be no development there. With the rule that only a mainsail and 75 % spi may be used no developments like for example a hooter sail as championed by Rick White and the Orma tri's will be seen

. Both soft mainsails and 75 % spis have had most of their development done in the tornado, a-cat and F18 classes. I mean what will the reputation of the LAC become when an int. Tornado beats it in open races ? If anything the LAC should be be the epithomy of small catamaran design; what if other designs are build lighter, faster and more efficient then the F18HT; I'm thinking about Marstroms M20 for example.

What is left is the introduction of hard wingsails to the F18HT class, improvements in boards and rudders and planing hulls / hydro foils and aerodynamic improvements like wingshaped beams and aerodynamic suits for the crew and moving the spi gate to the mast top.

I fear that the first will upset the F18HT class a little bit. What if you have a javelin one-design boat and the next guy enters the competition with a LAC wingsail ? My point is that the class will be under pressure to go one way or the other. Either be an affordable high performance Formula class of equal racing (as it was intended to be) or go into a full gear arms race with big guys with serious money who will in only a few years modify the platform into a smaller version of Cognito which will be much less affordable and alot less practical to trailor. I hope the F18HT class will be able to beat the odds in this respect.

I don't think that there is much improvement to be made on the boards and rudders apart from hydrofoiling or bruce foiling.

Planing and hydrofoiling; well that would be a development. But of course when the last improvements proof effective they could make all older F18HT's obsolete with a very short timeframe.


So apart from the point above we are left with smaller aerodynamic improvements such as aerodynamic beams which the current round sections are clearly not. I wouldn't be surprise if the crews will start wearing special aerodynamic shoulder patches and helmets like the bobsleigh sporters are allready doing now.

So from a designers perspective there is not that much meat on the choice to go for a formula setup instead of say an old B-class setup. After hydrofoiling or planing has been fully developped in other than F18HT classes by virtue of the Mattia dynacat F18 and 16 and Ventilo Zipo than there is not much else to develop. Copy a wingsail rig from the latest C-class cats is not development.

The LAC was of course to a very large extend a competition between designers, maybe even more than between crews. Just as the current AC is. The choice will have revived the LAC but a large chunk of the original idea is gone. And the choice may even proof to be a kiss of death for the FORMULA part of the F18HT class.

I wonder why they didn't leave the thropy with the last guy who won it as he made the fastest cat under rules that nobody else beat ? Why let him defend it against platforms with wholy different rules, isn't that like stacking the deck and doing away with the hard earned honour of his win ?

Couldn't we name the new LAc different to set the two class (od and new apart ?

Also why limit a boat to 2.5 mtr width for practical trailoring when hard wingsails are not disallowed ? Wouldn't a 2,35 by 10 mtr hard wing sail be far more impractical to transport than 0,5 mtr extra width ? And if the wingsails are disallowed than what is left to develop other than hydrofoiling / planing ?

Enough of the negatism, so what can be changed in my opinion to spike the new LAC class a bit.

-1- One suggestion is to deregulate the 75 % rule of the spinnaker. This would allow the full development of Hooters which will otherwise will stay undevelopped as they are prohibited in all other classes.

-2- Deregulate the sailplan design. Remove the limit to only a main and spi. Set a higher limit on the sailarea or even allow all sail sizes, preferably taking one limit over all sails. Lets see what the optimal ratios are between main, spi and possibly jibs. As I recall the LAC course features a significant reaching leg. Such an open sail plan could allow the crews to optimize the platform to perform superbly under all conditions and not merely in a few special conditions (just windward / leeward). I think a minimum requirement of a LAC design must be that it can beat a H16 in all conditions (Texel 2002 !); otherwise it will be pretty embarrashing. it will be like beating Alingy's AC boat on a sunfish. Great for the Sunfish but very bad for the LAC rep.


-3- Adjust the width rule which when literally applied would measure the overall width over canted boards and T-foils rudders.

-4- Wildcard high performance classes like the F18's, Tornado's and iF20's to challenge the new LAC platform. If the new LAC can not beat these classes consistantly than it will be time review the rules / choice. If it can than it will have proved that it deserves the LAC status. It will at least put a pepper up the behinds of F18HT designers and hopefully result in some lasting improvements that will progress cat sailing in general.

Like I said in the beginning of my post, this is just my personal opinion and I congratulate the F18HT class with the selection of their class as the LAC.

Wouter