... and the whole boat could be built to min. weight, or even 20kg lower, quite easily, if enough money were thrown at it. ... Would this cost more than a standard F16 design ?
We know the answer to that question already.
No F16 can be lighter then 107 kg and a standard alu/glass 110 kg Falcon costs 16.000 bucks in the USA. With a 3800 buck carbon mast the boat will be at min. weight.
Now, Macca can build himself a 20 kg lighter F16 using whatever he wants and pay 100.000 bucks but then he can't race it in the F16 class. Not even when putting 20 kg of lead under his mainbeam, thus preventing him from using smaller beams or hulls as refered to in your example. Why ? Because he is only allowed a max of 7 kg of corrector weights and he still needs to design the boat to carry 107 kg + 145 kg of crew weight.
So what he can do is pay 100.000 bucks to basically make a boat that will be identical in specs to say a 19.800 US$ Falcon. Last time I checked, boats with identical specs were also of the same performance.
There is simply no way around that limit.
Wouter
