Wouter: can you honestly say that Bundy on a built to the rule F16 would not thrash the [censored] out of his identical twin on a standard Viper?
Are you asking me if Darren or Carolijn on say a 19.200 Euro glass/alu/carbon mast (thus min. weight) Falcon F16 (19.800 USD) would beat a 17.750 Euro glass/alu/F18 parts (thus 129 kg) Viper F16 ? That is when both are sailed by their identical twin ?
Yes, I do think that that Falcon would give its crew an egde over the Viper crew, although not at all an extremely large edge. Also note that I could have used the Aussie Blade or Stealth in this example.
What I do contest however is that such a full-to-rule-F16 is anything other then sub 20K in purchase price (as proven by the quotes) and is therefor on a par with a competitive F18. Thus putting the lie that a full-to-the-rule-F16 is anywhere near 35K or whatever the latest scare quote is.
I also claim that this situation is solely the cause of a business decision on the side of AHPC and not any fundamental flaw in the F16 class rules. Hell, what do you expect when using F18 components on a F16 design ? If 3 builders can do it compared to 1 who can't then the norm is definately with the first 3 and the F16 class rules.
Still I think the difference is surprisingly small. Weight is not such an important issue on these boats as is also proven by the large spread in competive crew weights.
If you think it makes no difference then why allow it to even be an option to build such a boat if all it serves is to increase the expenses??
Obviously you have it all backwards. Obviously, these full-to-the-rule-F16's were already available for sub 20K expenses when the Viper F16 was launched. Therefore the F16 class doesn't allow a lighter boat to be build and raced relative to the norm but rather it allows a heavier boat then the norm to be build and raced i.e. the Viper. The effect on purchase price is negligiable as the quotes show. The customer knows this before he signs the purchase contract and he is always allowed to disadvantage himself if he wants to. Why on earth would any class outlaw sub optimal designs from racing ? The only crew suffering here is the guy who knowingly chose to buy the suboptimal boat. He can just as easily buy another design without this disadvantage. Hell, I have suboptimal boat myself (according to you that is) and am very content accepting the disadvantage which I perceive to be minimal at best.
Having said all this I truly believe that we are nitpicking here. Boatweight and platform stiffness are not big factors in the overall performance of a modern spinaker catamaran. Some of you are making far too much of these factors. The secret of the F16's is in the carefully balanced design ratio's and these are largely unaffected by material choices. An expensive lesson that some overhyped-and-overpriced-all-carbon N20 crews learned recently at the North Sea Regatta (as several M20 crews did before them). I'll bet they were very pleased when the race committed allowed Brouwer/Bundock to start with the F18 fleet after the first few races in the open class. Could have been a promotional disaster for these new 20 footers.
By the way, have you found that F17 measurement form yet ?
Wouter
