Originally Posted by macca
Franck,

Painted f18's have been allowed in the class for years, we all know it and you keep denying it.

If you want to compare prices I suggest you compare the same spec boats. We offer our boats with full Autoclaved foils that are stiffer and unbreakable (unlike some..) and we also offer our boats with complete tapered sheets and very high quality ropes made to our very high specifications. We also supply our boats with marstrom style adjustable trapeze systems as standard and our boats come with all foil covers and rear hull stands. Our boats are delivered with exactly the same setup as Olivier used to win the European championships so they are totally race ready.

I suggest you go and price any other boat to that specification and then come back here and tell me what is more expensive. FYI the "race pack" on a Nacra adds 1000 Euro and that doesn't include covers for foils or rear hull stands.

Our boats are excellent value for money and you can hardly call them expensive compared with other products on the market. If we had to build in gelcoat then they would be more expensive because of the labour cost increase. So, what is good for the class??? good value painted boats or more expensive gelcoat ones?



Andrew,

You're right F18 painted boat exists for year but that doesn't mean they were all allowed. Just refer to the 2002 class rules.
Some refurbish it's been always class legal, very few home made one shot and more recently Mattia, Windrush and Phantom.
Now the rule is clarified and confirmed by ISAF.

Thanks to that clarification existing and already certified boats can have now derogations (as some Shockwave have for corecell).
Then no protest song in Carnac, but fight on the water that is more interesting.

For info in the swiss link (http://tinyurl.com/7v3wxst) the race pack is included.
Your boat (as any F18) are excellent value for money. No doubt Andrew.

When you're buying a F18 18.600 euros ex tax, it's ok to have 1 or 2 Keuros for gel-coat peace.
Less beer, better health, thank you the F18 class.

More seriously I do agree with Alex Udin when he writes : "You can buy a Hobie Tiger for 3000 Euros these days and it still be very competitive with some recent sails. It has never been so cheap to start F18 !! Mischa Heemskerk won the North American national on a old Tiger, 2 or 3 years ago."

That is the true spirit of F18