I heard some reports from a couple of teams who went to the Olympic training camp in Miami. A few youth teams on F16 went and sailed with some of the Olympic 17 teams. While the boat is new and there was not a lot of head to head time, the 16s appeared faster or at least as fast, especially downwind in the conditions where they were lining up together.
I highly doubt that, from what I saw the N17s are very fast downwind especially in light to moderate conditions (which I'm guessing Miami has).
When the breeze was light the Vipers were killing the 17's around the course, The moderate stuff is when it was even, Joseph and I got a chance to both get on the 17s when the breeze had picked up and that is when they excelled, leaving most of the F16's in the dust.
Then again, we were doing stadium racing...Shifty breeze going anywhere from 5-18 knots.
