[quote=_flatlander
There was interest when this boat was heading in the direction of a platform capable of suporting a "light" adult. I have PM's from more than one American interested in building a prototype boat (at that time). I won a set of plans for a DS12 and have done nothing with them primarily because of the reduced weight carrying capacity. My target sailor was/is a 12yo girl who currently weighs 140 lbs. (63.3kg).
How much interest was shown when this was posted? I beleive the (or an) underlying concern is, what if my kid doesn't like sailing? Then what? I now have a "niche" boat that may be hard to get rid of.
[/quote]
John it'd be great to build a higher volume F12 if you want to, it would just be another version that can compete under the same rules. The F12 can be altered to suit any use in any region of the world within the very loose rules.
The F12 will easily carry your daughter and a crew or you and your daughter for fun, don't look too much at the figures trotted out but try a small cat yourself if you can. I sail on my lads 11ft Arafura with him and posted a video on this forum of us sailing you can clearly see me jump on it with both of us weighing 140kg on the same side and it not looking unstable or risky. The Arafura doesn't have the bouyancy of any of the F12's. My daughter that sails the F12 is 59kg and she will have a crew taking it to 100+ kg. The technical figures for optimising the F12's is all fine but does it really matter that your 1 inch lower in the water and by using that weight correctly very safe in nearly any weather.
Any adult can jump on this cat and have fun let alone your daughter and a friend.
Wouter you did well to adapt the Taipan 4.9 design into a class thats world wide and if your success with the formula continues you will probably have as many F16's sailing in 5 years as there were Taipan 4.9's sailing 5 years ago. Your input is valuable but its not the same as building a completely new class of cat for kids, now that we have the kids covered It'd be great if you can adapt one of the designs or come up with a new one to suit your regions needs or heavier adults that want to sail it.
regards