Actually, AHPC had a list of reasons to not supporting carbon beams and all made sense to various degrees.

The "shipping by container" was actually one that linked in very well with the spirit of the F16 class rules.

It identified a serious issue. The health of the F16 class is maintained by having multiple builders participate and compete with eachother inside a single class structure where their individual efforts will also strength their common interest. Viable international shipping is a serious precondition. Also with respect the internation events where private parties need to ship their own boats to the event. It needs no further arguing that disassembled shipping is very much cheaper then hiring space on specialized oversize containers that may or may not be handled in the port of choice. Of course, aftermarket customer services like replacing parts under warranty is better handled when all component can be disassembled by the owner. Lots of owners also prefer to disassemble their boats for winter storage. This means that fully bonded boat would also go against the practical concept for the F16 class.

Therefor a compromise was struck where the true culprit (the bonding of the beams instead of the material choice) was banned. Of course, an advantageous side-effect was that is also limited the potential gains of any carbon beams. Much like the mast tip rule does.

The beauty of this rule was of course that homebuilders in far of places or even builders with interesting local limitations could still use glass or carbon to replace aluminium components. For example, it is cheaper for the Finish guys to build glass or carbon beams then to have the right high grade alu tubes shipped to them. For Stealth marine it is actually cheaper to make carbon masts in-house then to buy aluminium masts.

Therefor both the mast tip weigth rule and non-bonding of beams rule allow maximal freedom of available resources (materials etc) while forcing a more equal playing field and reducing costs. Note that even alu beams may be bonded to the hulls by use of special glues; so this rule was NOT solely against the carbon beams.

I personally feel that AHPC did us a great favour in spotting this potential problem point (Problematic international shipping, reduced participation) and I have never seen any protest from any of the other builders on this aspect. Everybody basically thought it a good idea.

Wouter