For a while I thought it to be smart to stay out of the discussion. God knows, I've provide for enough fireworks already lately !

The issue as I see it (also when I formulate the class rules together with input from very knowlegdeable people like Scott Anderson, Greg Goodall, Phill Brander and others) is like this.

Eventually there will always be some moron who will spend a fortune on a F16. That is in itself not important. Important is whether he will be noticeably and significantly faster then all other makes thus forcing the other competitors to spend similar amounts of money to remain competitive.

Currently, many of us can buy a minimum weight (2nd or 3rd) generation F16 with a carbon mast for no more then a modern alu masted F18. This will IN THEORY be the fastest boat available under current state of technology. One can spend another 10.000 bucks on diamond inlays or whatever but that will not make any meaningful difference in racing.

The class assumed that potential customers will themselves make a meaningful balancing between costs and returns and this balance does not favour an all-carbon/whatever boat as that is simply too expensive for the performance you get in return. That is also why the M20's never really caught on. To many times the much cheaper F18's were snapping at their tales. Therefor I see the market as self regulating in this respect.

If I were to buy a new boat and indeed the choice would be between a 25.000 F16 that is 1 minute per hour faster or a 15.000 F16 with alu stuff then I will surely choose for the cheaper alu version. 10.000 for a minute difference is of no consequence to me personally when I'm already say 5 to 10 min slower then Macca anyway. In the way of sailing enjoyment the 1 min difference per hour is lost on me anyway. So I never envision an arms race to develop under the current rules and that is why the overweight Viper is selling well. Other people don't see a small difference like that as meaningful or they would have bought F16's that were 25 kg lighter.

Remember by far most of us are weekend warriors and that is the way the F16 is intended.

From an engineering perspective I feel that the performance dependence is very flat under the F16 rules. There is no magical trick to make one build really faster then another. The limits are also more aerodynamic then static and that is why the 130 kg Viper (with an excellent rig) is so competitive. Large breakthroughs in performance require significant improvements in the aerodynamic efficiecies of the rig which are not easy to achieve. Look at the wingmast experience in the A-cat class. In theory it must have been a killer wapon but it wasn't.


I feel we are all scared of nothing. AHPC made a business decision to produce a significantly heavier boat and Greg himself told me that the main reason was that he felt that weight wasn't nearly such an important factor as it was many years ago. The introduction of the spinnaker and powerful/efficient rigs caused that. Other then that they wished to use several components of the F18 design which are arguably overdimensioned and overweight for an F16. My own homebuild is just over 120 kg and therefor AHPC could have easily build the Viper at 120 kg as they are many many times more skilled in building boats. They simply choose not to do so.

But this is all okay as the real point is to be found in exciting sailing and the basic F16 package (whether at 107 ot 130 kg) is a guarantee for that.

Wouter