If all the manufacturers make boats at 120kgs then only boats can be purchased at 120kgs and therefore the manufacturers control the vote.

AHPC set out and marketed their boats well, they had top class sailors win events, they discounted and made sure their boats were seen at events. They gave good backup and had a good design, albeit probably 20 kgs over weight. They had good manufacturing processes in a cheap labour environment, they took the marketing of there boats seriously and because of that they are now the dominating manufacturer.

I say well done, you deserve to be top dog and now you can dictate to what should be a long running class. Every other manufacturer out there dithered about or didn't have the budget to really push their products and thus lost the marketing campaign.

Remember history is littered with great design being over whelmed by inferior design simply by marketing nous and expertise, the best doesn't always succeed.

If the class was to vote I would actually vote to increase the weight further to about 130kgs, its at this point the F16's suddenly start to become competitive in SCHRS and Texel handicap systems. At this weight the performance is not lost on handicap and it gives good margins on build durability.

The ironic thing is that if the weight is increased to 125kgs, it will have the opposite effect to what the manufacturers hope, that of sealing off the market to just 1 or 2 suppliers. At 125 kgs the likes of Hobie and others will all have boats on the water within 12 months, afterall all they have to build is hulls and use components from within their own range for ancillaries such as boards and masts. Cheap cheap development and a no brainer to at least be part of a probably the biggest growing market in small cat sailing.