Allow me to reply what I found : sailing the boats and when I was witnessing the 2001 Hobie Nationals from the safety/race committee boat.



During the 2001 nationals we had strong winds and really tough chop.



During that event the Fox sailor argued repeatly that the conditions were to harsh to sail in. We made them sail anyway as the Tiger and H16 sailors didn't think twice about sailing in those conditions. They were sailing in something like windforce 5 to 6 (Just below 25 knots)



A invited Tornado sailor indicated that he was unable to keep the boat flat in the chop. He used the word hobbiehorsing when decribing that the wave piercer hull took a long time to stop hobbie horsing after the conditions induced that. He did understand that that the wave piercer hullshape was intended to avoid that, however he found it to be more willing to do so than his Tornado. (one personal opinion)



What was clearly visable was that the hulls of the Foxes pierced the waves beautyfully ! However the mainbeams DIDN"T ! It resulted in very nice whale like fontains of spray and some curse words. The tigers, despite their non wave piercing hulls seemed to do better, especially considering their shorter hull length. Personally I must say that the Fox did drive well in Greece when I sailed that one in the afternoon strong winds, however the Tiger drove just as well in my opinion and I REALLY did sail that one in BIG winds and BIG Waves (no swell !). It was only off the wind where the ride became nerve racking. The Fox has ofcourse less tendency to dive but I think that is the result of it's longer hulls rather than because of it's wave piercer hull shape.



Why do I think That ? Because the FX-one is the worst of the lot when looking at dive tendency. That boat becomes scary when downwinding in a blow. I counteracted this problem by not trapezing when going of the wind. Now the boats wants to lift sooner or at the same time as dive and give me at least some warning of where I am with respect to diving.



In short In don't really agree with your claim That :"The Fox hull design is much better for ocean sailing". I've experienced or seen definate drawbacks of the wave piercer hulls as used in NON a-class boats.



However, I haven't sailed a I-20 yet so I can't really compare the two.



>>the Fx-One has much the same set up as the Fox..



But sails differently in my opinion non the less.. The Fox is much more relax and the FX-one will bite you. I would certainly not equate the two simply as a result of their similar appearence.





>>again the hull design is much better than the I-17 for ocean sailing..



I can tell you that you have more than the odd one disagreeing with you here. Funny thing was that I actually sailed the FX-one (and FX-two) quite a lot last june because in constract to last year the FX-one WAS NOT popular. Many sailors opted to sail something else leaving the FX-one on the beach. I raced it against Pacifics and Tigers for kicks and often we switched boats as the other crew wanted to test the Fx-two themselfs. I gave many a good run when sailing the FX-two. Often, the other crews DEMANDED to switch back within one or two test runs.



The I-17 sailors that came to the resort were not really impressed by the characteristic of the FX-one.



In the past; sailors like David Chamberlain, who also testsailed the FX-one came to comparable conclusions.



His post can be found at :



http://www.catsailor.com/forums/sho...;Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=1945





>>.the narrow stems makes it easier to tack with just the main and cuts through the 2-4 ft rollers that we have here in the caribbean.





Well, I can only comment on the wave systems that I encountered or that I saw the Boats deal with when handled by somebody else.



With respect to tacking; I really don't expect that much difference between say boats like I-17 or the FX-one and both of them don't tack as well as skiffs for that matter.



>>so before you go making statement about the Fox or theFX-One you need to know what you are taking about......Harper Jones



However having said all this I agree with mr. Jones that I think to that the Fox is well engineered or that at least there is hardly any difference between the two boats (Fox - I-20) just make sure that the right block are fitted to the boat; DON'T opt for the pullyless jib blocks you will learn to hate those. But these could just be a sailing resort option.



However, I would advice against equating the FX-one with the Fox and conclude that the Fx-one is somehow better than the I-17. This does also extend to the same line of thinking when equating I-20's to I-17's. The hulls shapes of those two boats are also different in important area's; For example the bows of the I-17 are much different then those of the I-20 and I-18. Much finer entry and they increase reserved bouyance by going up rather than going wide and fat.



My main argument in this is that these singlehanders should be regarded as different boats and should be test sailed and evaluated accordingly. Believe me that is the only way to decide on the right boat for you.



Ofcourse, you should test sail all singlehanders and not just ythe FX-one or I-17 as you may find that these two might not exactly be the true benchmark for singlehanders at the present time :



I'm thinking about :



A class cats and F16's (okay granted that I'm a little biased towards the last)





Regards,



Wouter