Always nice to do a comparison.

I don't seem to have a nice shot from the side of either the VWM marine Blade or the Viper so if anybody does then please mail these to me and I'll add them to the picture. Perferably a shot from the boat sitting on its trailer and take a good number of meters away with a high resolution camera. That way the dimensions are not significantly distorted and we can take measurements of the pics.

Some of those measurements as taken from these pics


Bow height

Aussie Blade and Falcon have as good as the same bow height and it looks like it is 0.42 mtr (1.38 ft)
I know the Aussie Blade has about 20 to 25 mm more freeboard then the VWM Blade. I think the Viper is higher still but but not by much, however still need official confirmation of that.

Main beam clearance

fore beam on the Falcon is 4% lower with respect to the keel line then the Aussie Blade, this amounts to about 20 mm difference (4/5 inch). The VWM Blade never had any problems with main beam clearance and it appears the Falcon F16 has maintained the freeboard there. I think the Aussie Blade has a total of 0.50 mtr main beam clearance may own Taipan F16 (with raised mainbeam) has 0.475 mtr and I know Phill raised it another inch when he designed the Blade. I too have no problems what so ever hitting waves with my mainbeam and I have significantly less volume in my hulls then any of the new F16's. Phill and I (175 kg combined) tested it back in 2004 in the nice Zandvoort mix of waves and chop and its was precisely enough. So no the new boats should be absolutely fine here.


Rear beam clearance

The Falcon F16 has the same freeboard under its rearbeam as it has as bow height; therefore it should be something like 0.42 mtr. The Aussie Blade appears to have 0.39 mtr or 30 mm less (5/4 inch). This means the Falcon has ALOT of rearbeam clearance. My own Taipan F16 has only about 0.340 mtr there and does very occasionally slap a wave when loaded up with lots of crew weight, think 160+ kg. I think this means that the Falcon and Aussie Blades are Tybee 500 qualified in this respect. Or ready for the absolute worst you can at it. As an additional 50 to 80 mm (2 to 3 inches) is ALOT.

Sterns

Both have about 0.34 mtr tall sterns.


Additionally,

Beams are as good as in the same place and sidestays are a little further back on the Falcon. It appears the Aussie Blade has them at about 0.66 mtr and the the Falcon at about 0.71 mtr. a difference of 50 mm.


The Viper

I got very unclear pictures but it APPEARS that the Viper has more bow height (close to 0.50 mtr) then the Aussie Blade but the same mainbeam clearance (0.50 mtr) and a little less rearbeam clearance (0.37 mtr). The side stays on the Viper are at about 0.63 mtr back from the mainbeam at max. But again, this still needs to be confirmed with a higher degree of accuracy !



Wouter