For what i know, you are a lot to sail in 1-up.
in 2-up loads are really differents, in 2-up it's more difficult to have a boat at weight.
Your first assumption is wrong as I've sailed almost exclusively 2-up for the first 2 years of owning my Taipan F16.
Your second assumption is also wrong in the sense that while the stresses are indeed different, a 107 kg glass/alu F16 can still handle them very well.
Thirdly, both setups were EXTENSIVELY researched when we formed the class rules and we found no technical reason to increase the min. weight beyond 107 kg. That means you can get down to that weight by using plain glass/vinylester/alu construction against justifiable cost
Without new class regulation i'm affraid in few years boats will be expensive.
We are almost 9 years down the road already and the F16's are STILL 15% or more cheaper then the F18's. I can buy a competitive F16 for 15.000 Euro's while an competitive F18 does 18.000 these days. Up till now alu masted F16's won 2 global challenges against 1 carbon masted F16. The wins are respectively 2007, 2008, 2009 : VWM Blade, a Stealth and a Viper. You can't get a more balanced outcome then that.
Fear is a undependable consultant, facts in life thus far simply do not provide a basis for such angst.
There have been dire warnings of impeding doom ever since our inception and still the F16 class survives and grows.
If there is one thing that I learned from sailing then it must be to not fiddle about with the trim of my sails when I'm ahead. I feel the F16 class is much more helped by this advice. We should strive to only find solutions to actual problems and not the other way around.
Like said A Viper full carbon will be at weight, faster ...but expensive.
Personally I disagree here; I feel that very little difference between a 107 kg F16 and a 120 kg F16. Weight is simply not such a big factor on modern spi equipped catamarans as was the case in the old days (Dart 18 , hobie 16 etc). We also see this when 125 kg crews race against 155 kg crews.
I also don't believe a FULL carbon Viper is needed to get down to weight. By general claim the Viper hulls are what ? 26 kg ? A 110 kg Blade or Falcon has hulls that weight 24-25 kg and all boats (Viper, Blade, Falcon) use the exact same mast sections. The weight difference between the "light F16's" and Vipers are to be found in the beams, rudder setup and daggerboards. The 2007 global challenge Viper weighted (including repairs) 134 kg and its daggerboards + rudders (combined 15 kg) were already 8 kg heavier then my own AHPC Taipan 4.9 set. Note that my set is 7 kg combined including the storage bag and that the
www.catamaranparts.nl set is less then 6 kg. A wopping 9 kg difference for identical retail prices and the lighter sets all survived the Global challenge and the Alter Cup 2007. In constrast Viper boards broke in Singapore.
Like I said in the beginning. The weight of the Viper is a commercially inspired CHOICE, not a necessacity. I agree with Greg Goodall however, that overall weight is not a such big factor in overall performance. Every customer should buy a boat he is happy with and just learn to sail it to the max.
The companies VectorWorks/FalconMarine, StealthMarine, AHPC (Taipan + spi) and Australian Formula catamarans all build F16 (compliant) boats that weight between 107-115 kg in the standard glass/vinylester/alu attire. Upgrades may lower their weights. Amateur homebuilds are in the range 105-120 kg
It is only AHPC who builds a 130 kg F16 as the standard 2-up Viper F16
I think this proofs beyond a doubt that it is the Viper that is the odd one in a pretty straightforward situation.
Wouter
