And how about a write-up on your experiences on the Taipan4.9 (or is it a fully equipped F16 by now)?
The Taipan is a great boat however I am missing the raw power of the T or F18.
Obvious differences Cat rigged are
- A little more flighty
- Cat rigged, harder to keep in the groove. Hit a wave bad and you can stop the boat.
- Can stop the boat really quick in a tack as you have less weight to keep the momentum up. Hit a wave the wrong way or not turn smooth enough, you can park it. The F18 and T you can really smash through a tack if needed.
- Heavy air gybing, don’t even try it if you don’t have the pace up (learnt this on Phil’s Blade
). Prepare well for the gybe and get your speed up or you are swimming. Once again the T and F18 don’t bite anywhere near as hard. If you have to crash gybe or slow gybe, then it is not much of issue.
I am also teaching the wife how to sail sloop rigged but have not taken her out over 7 knots so far. Days have either been light or heavy lately. If the wind blows, the wife and jib both stay on shore.
Looking forward to putting a spinnaker on it, however spare $$$$ are going elsewhere at the moment. When I do, hopefully some time next season, it will be sailed uni. A new main will come first though. The Taipan Cat rigged fleet in Victoria, Australia is very hot so I am looking and spending a fair bit of time sailing as such.
BTW, the wife won't let me call it Taipan ALIVE.......
We have beaten the alu mast extrusion discussion to death repeatedly earlier. Short summary, masts from even the same die will be different as the die is worn over time. Uniform bending characteristics comes, as you specify, from a tightly controlled OD mast design.
Agreed, however what the top Tornado sailors were doing went well beyond looking for a stick with better quality / bend characteristics……. They were building their own (not available to the public) masts that were superior. This is why the Carbon stick had to come in for the Games. Many sailors without Olympic aspirations were very against the move as the ‘special’ alloy sticks would not have made much of a difference to their results; however the carbon stick will make a difference to their pockets……. But the class had to move to the carbon stick for the sake of the class’s reputation in the Games and the rest is history.
