As far as I know any youth sailors in this age range (16-19) that attended the US Sailing Youth Nat'ls or the Mega Youth nationals could handle pretty much any boat on the market today. Although some are still sailing 16s some of them are sailing higher performance boats such as Inters, Nacras, Tornados and etc.
My opinion is that any 16-19 year old that is seriously into racing catamarans on a national level is either going to be racing in their local races on the biggest fleet at the time (probably f-18s). Or looking towards future goals of campaigning a tornado.
Going with a boat besides a newer higher performance design would be boring and would probably lead to unfair advantages. Such as if we were racing on a skeg boat that is underpowered and is favored for lighter weight sailors. If a light little 16 year old team who hadn't had their growth spurt yet showed up who would have a huge advantage?
Hopefully hobie's concept boat is more powerful than the 16. Although some of the boats in the trials look to have enough power I think they are all still somewhat smaller boats. But okay... i'll give you the fact that this category still includes 16 year olds.
Some of these boats look nice and etc but I don't like the fact that they are boomless... any one competiting at a national level should be able to handle the factor of the boom. Not to mention its a performance factor. Also the rotomolding? Can we not handle fiberglass? It goes back to the factor of bow bumpers... no other youth classes use them. Other youth classes are rarely modified from normal boat specs for youth.
I have strong feelings against the 16 with spinnaker and I think it would be a terrible idea to make it a youth boat. If they want to use a 16 they may as well keep it without the spinnaker.
It would be nice to see an F-18 in there... if anyone else agrees with me maybe we should write ISAF and or the manufacturers.
-Todd