Hello Andrew,

>>We had a fleet of 17 Taipans and that's great at Forster.

You had more didn't you ? I saw same 25 named in the sloop section and 8 in the catrigged section. Makes 33 in total.

Great turn-out by the way.


>>The Taipan class is still growing very successfully and much of that is attribruited to the simplicity of the boat.

Humm, we had the simplicity of the boat back in 1998 and springtime 1999 together with the demo's of Jim in US and Greg in EU not to mention great finishings at the Texel race and some US races.

After a long delay Arjan bough the Texel Taipan in 2000 I think, I know because I was involved in that. That was it for the Netherlands, the US saw some 3 to 4 sales in the years after that. Back then simplicity of the boat was not a big selling point.

Then in early 2001 the Formula 16 class was created. We now have 4 Taipan F16 here, 1 Stealth and a 5th F16 wannabee with a preference on the Taipan F16 version and talk of how to progress the class the comming season and reach critical mass. Similar development was seen in the US. All of these boats are fitted / sold / build with spinnaker packages. Just recently Jim did another promo in the US. But the tripling or quadripeling of the Taipan numbers in the US was achieved in the time before this promo.

Going on your reasoning one would expect the sales to decrease as a result of the increase in complexity that the spinnaker package introduces. Still this didn't happen. With this the question becomes wether it is really the simplicity of the boat that is causing its numbers to swell internationally or something else.

Another important consideration is of course why the F18 class was able to grow into a "26 boats attending the nationals in US" within the time span of 2 years when the Taipan 4.9 class did not even have a nationals in the US before 2002 and only after the F16 class had coined the idea of a F16 nationals in the US.

Similar things are happening in Australia. Let me put it this way in Europe the Nacra 5.5 and 5,8 classes as well as the TheMightyHobie18 classes were succesful. Then along comes the F18 class. Nacra and Hobie classes vote down the spi packages as being to much work for their crews. Within some 5 years the F18 class has grown in a full scale class and was showing continued growth, both the Nacra 5.5/5.8 and TheMightyHobie18 class had to terminate their class organisations and events as no-one was attending these anymore. Where did all these F18 crews come from ? Did the F18 class attract only new members and did they nacra 5.5/5.8 and TheMightyHobie18 sailors all quit because the didn't want a spi package ?

Because make no mistake about; that F18 class is a 10 foot st. bernard k-9 ; It all looks cuddly and harmless enough but when that when that baby decides to go and sit on your lap then you are going to know about it and there is not much room left on the couch. And if you are not careful enough than nobody will see you anymore as the K-9 takes all the attention.

Now if sailors are really in general not interested in spinnaker then how did the Australian F18 class ever achieve to grow into their 27 boat inaugural nationals within less than 2 years ? Where did these sailors come from ? And why did they choose to switch classes ? For now the F18 class did not pick many sailors from the Taipan 4.9 class. How long will that last ? How long till the top sailors of the Taipan class will jump ship ? What will happen when the top sailors start leaving the class ? Can a class survive on the bottom halve of fleet ? Nacra 5.5/5.8 and TheMightyHobie18 sailors thought they could do that. Lets look at the Tornado class, a majority voted down the spi package, surely this constitute enough crews to keep the standard Tornado without a spi alive ? Well were are they now ? Now 90 % of the crews voting down the spi package are sailing with one right now. Their commitment to the spi-less tornado setup was that strong.

It hurts me to say that I am convinced that the choice is NOT between a (internationally) succesful spi-less Taipan 4.9 class or a split fleet of Taipan and F16 sailors but rather between a slow but assured strangling of the Taipan 4.9 class or a continued presence and maybe growth of both the Taipan 4.9 and F16 class by close cooperation and coordination between the two classes.

The path towards continued existance and growth of both classes is found in the spinnaker package. With it the class has a good basis to with stand the attractions of the F18 class as well as the A-cat class. Without it, it will never reach international critical mass as die out as a result.

And Andrew, I've been involved with the Taipan 4.9 class since 1998 and I know what I'm talking about. And I for one am not willing to let the Taipan 4.9 class die and have it replaced by an overweight platform of equal or maybe even inferiour performance because some Hobie 18 sailors do not understand the power of the F18 class.

Andrew, to give you an example. Right now the only classes that mean anything here are :

Tornado
F18's
A-cats
F20's
H16's

The others : TheMightyHobie18, H20, H14 (only one event a year now), H17, Nacra 5.5, Nacra 5.8, Nacra 6.0, Nacra 5.7, Nacra 5.2, Prindle 18, Prindle 19, Prindle 18, Prindle 16 (at one time just as succesful as the H16) ARE ALL DISCONTUED and their class organisations have been disbanded.

I did race committee work (counterstart vessel-course official) for the Hobie nationals in 2000. Only the H16 , F18 (hobie tiger) had races of significant numbers. We had to send away the 1 TheMightyHobie18 sailor, 2 H17 sailors and we did not see any H14, H20 or other hobie boats. The FOX and FX boats were to new to be able to attract any significant numbers.

I can assure you that we too had many TheMightyHobie18 sailors in 1995 who would never let go of their beloved TheMightyHobie18.

Right now even Hobie USA has officially cancelled production of the TheMightyHobie18. The Prindle has been discontinued for several years now (only available on special order with minimum of 5 boats or so) same for the nacra's except the updated (spi ?) reacreational/sail school oriented nacra 570 and nacra 500.

Do you see where this is leading too ?


>>>Eg: Why is the Hobie 16 still around...

Yes, why is it still around ? Does the Taipan class have within it the same reason that the H16 class has so that it can be expected to weather this F18 storm succesfully ?

Hope of the sailors left behind by a majority of their own top crews (Summers ? ex TheMightyHobie18 sailor) will never assure the continued existance of the class in decline.

Don't fall in this trap Andrew, it is an attractive trap but just as in the Tornado class their support will disappear from under your feet like quick sand.

These guys are the followers and once their class has dropped below the critical mass they will forget what they've said and jump ship aswell or get out of catamaran sailing.

Andrew I have seen this happen several times before.



>>>The 1st Taipan international event will be sailed Sloop.

Well that would be logical as the Taipan class rules will never include the use of a spinnaker. Part of the reason why the F16 class was created is this certain fact. To give a framework to the sailors who did want to expand the capabilities of their platform by adding a spi. The other reason is to preserve the Taipan class and the potential for ligtweigth 16 footer that she champions for the future. This may sound corny but this is actually true. I've raced F18's and if I had a dedicated crew than I would not have chosen a Taipan spin-off as my new boat. Now I have a dedicated crew again and she is eye-balling the spinnakers on other boats like the F18's; I'm so very happy that I've went for the F16 myself; it will be the right boat for us.

Now she has a bad left hand sue to an sever accident so we decided to swith roles; I do the crew thingy with the spi and she will be the skipper next year. Women are better drivers anyway, right ?

The thought that the spi is too heavy on female crews is actually a very narrow one. It assumes that the man has to be the skipper by definition. Besides, crews on the Mossies and US Taipan sailors are experimenting on their boats with 2:1 spi sheeting systems and are jubilant about it.

Andrew, I see several women crews on 49-ers; how do they do it with that 30 sq. mtr. spi ? Apperently it can be done well with careful thought. Similar to stepping on a cat for the first time and learning to control that beast.


>>The F16 is great for distance racing or if you sail predominantly in light winds or have a good crew who has the strength and willingness to sail with a Spi then it is perfect. I know most of the crew's on the Taipan's in Australia enjoyed it, as did the skippers however for most of the racing we do the crews lost the enjoyment they used to have and many of the other crew would never sail with a spi. Hence we started to split the class... Never a good thing.


The F16 class is great for the Taipan 4.9 class survival !

That light winds argument is nonsense, it didn't hold back the F18 class in both US and AUS so why should it hold back the Taipan class.

No guys really, careful cooperation and coordination between the two classes is key. This way we can preserve the non -spi attractiveness of the Taipan 4.9 class as well as secure its future and maybe we can even attract some TheMightyHobie18 and nacra 5.8 sailors who really don't want that spi. In turn the spi setup will keep the top sailors in both classes and be succesful in attracting new sailors in the weightrange of 110kg's -160 kg's allow both classes to grow internationally. And the spi setup will sufficiently equipe the taipan to weather the F18 introduction.


>>We seem to be forgetting we are not out there to beat the F18’s but to help the formula concept grow and hopefully create an alternative class to the F18 that people under 145kgs can sail successfully.

Indeed, and we will not being doing that be hunkering down withing the Taipan one-design rules and shutting our eye to what happened to the classes that found themself in such situation a few years earlier.


I propose to intensify the cooperation and coordination between our classes and to decide on tactical grounds which events to do in which setup. I strongly believe in this and I hope I have convinced you of this aw well.

regards,

Wouter