Oh... you have no imagination...
Maybe they said that the F16 class is fatally flawed by design... (1 up and 2 up.... boat weight and a limited development philosophy). It is... what it is... growth as a racing class will be limited. Nacra has covered their assets because they have a boat for those sailors in any case that they just released .... If the F16 class gets their stuff together... terrific... they are on board.
Moreover, ... The F16 class world wide is quite small and not even close to the F18 class in terms of market share of the racers... It is hard to market the F16 as a practical formula class for racing when the critical mass in most of the world is just not there.... It is hard to have two formula classes where the major difference is ... 2 feet and weight. One class will win the hearts of the hard core OD racer class and that is likely to be the F18's. No matter if this POV is wrong... they have a boat in the market where it does fly.
That still leaves a real market opportunity for a boat that is state of the art (curved foils... looks like AM cup classes of boats or the A cats/N20c and has the SMOD controls that many people (in fact) like. A racing class can form from F18 teams that drop down for the new technology and F16 teams that jump up for new technology. They could look at the Melges marketing and say... why not us in multihulls and build a high end racing circuit like the melges factory has. Moreover... if you think of the boat as having a 5 year racing life time and the class as lasting about 7 to 10 years... the timing is perfect The problem with a boat that must have a FLEET is.. fleets are slow to form (Look how long it's taken the F18 to catch on in the USA)... they will market the N17 as more future proof then an F16 (its going on 10 years old) ... Hey.. you will be racing state of the art open boats in most of the world. .... why not pay the premium for the curved boards...(the EU actually does race cats in open.. so.. Why not buy the baddest boat in this size range. (if you customize it further... you can get it measured for a rating cert) Cat sailors ALWAYS have this itch for new technology... the Hobie 16 is the ONLY cat class that compares to boats like Thistles, Albacores, or any of the classic dinghys that have 40 year old histories of being built and raced. Cat sailors LOVE new and hot.... we have a huge dead boat society as proof.
Finally, the Olympic Mixed Multihull selection is a unique opportunity. Olympic selection is wide open... who knows what the committee will want... low tech... (pick a Nacra F16... or high Tech... pick Nacras new 17) They can use the instant professional class that will form in this N17 boat to jump start this elite racing class. And it lets the Mixed Multihull selection committee off the hook on a charge that they undermined an existing class by picking a flavor of either the F16 or F18 fleets.... Olympics are unique... why not an Olympic "professional" boat.... hey... that was the reason for the birth of the Tornado (a very different time and place in the multihull world).
Finally, look at how little risk there is in tooling up this boat. all of the metal hardware is probably identical to the F16... So... you have good scalability... if it has a carbon rig... (probably does..) it not only works for the Olympic measurement issues... but it is definitely the upscale small cat to buy. Much of the design work was already done for the 20... How difficult is it to scale it down and build a mold.
Note.... this story is pulled completely from my a$$ and certain to get a few pots boiling in the cold of winter.
