As for the class not changing, I'm in the middle on this, the boat is great as is, but so was the N20, and guess what, no one is racing those in a competitive fleet outside of San Diego and West River. They did nothing and the fleet died. I don't want to see that happen to the F18.
Incorrect, the N20 class opened up the sailplan and the class died anyway. P19 did the same thing, completely different sail plan and still died. The H20 took out that P19 and F18 took out the N20. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that obsoleting the fleet and making it a **** ton more expensive is good for the class. It's not all rainbows and unicorn's in the A-Cat fleet, foilers destroy floaters in anything over 5 knots, the floater & foiler days of sailing together are numbered, in my opinion. It might also be worth noting the A-cat fleet is very gray and foilers can be a bit unkind to "senior" sailors. It will be interesting to see where the A-cat fleet is 5-10 years from now.
It's also worth noting that the most successful multihull fleet on the planet is the Hobie 16 fleet!
Incorrect on the N20 issue Dave. The fleet voted not to open up the sail plan at Spring Fever in 2010, with the Nacra appointed class president present (so a real vote), then half the fleet left and showed up with F18's the next year. The N20 class didn't open up sail development, and still hasn't (EP and Performance sails are the only class legal Nacra 20 One Design sails approved), just the south came up with a Open 20 rule and Texas came up with another and the West Coast is sailing Glasers...it's all fractured with no leadership. I had skin in the game at the time of the 2010 vote, so yes, I am well aware of what happened on the N20 front. There were certainly other issues at play, Nacra having financial troubles at the time, new Nacra under European ownership could care less about the N20 (F18 is the popular boat in Europe), effectively no new N20's built post 2006/07, mast costs being an issue, and the big killer, the class association just died. No one to run the class or drum up event support is what nailed the lid on the coffin of an otherwise great boat. And that is a common story with bleeding edge technology, single-manufacturer one design boats.
As far as F18 class health, its still doing well in NE, we had 15+ boats on the line at Sail Newport in early July and 8 in Hyannis a few weeks later. They are expecting 15-18 F18's for the NE100 this weekend, compared with 2 F20FCS', 1 F20C and 1 N20. I agree more needs to be done to drum up support. Pre-registration at this falls nationals is under 30 boats and under 30 boats attended the Charlotte Harbor FL, compared with 60+ boats in 2013 attendance is down. New venues and better spreading of the word are going to keep the class alive, its still the best double handed boat in NA, if you aren't light enough to sail a H16 and want to actually enjoy sailing downwind...
There already is a 18' foiling boat, its called the Flying Phantom, hull shape is the Phantom F18 hull shape but the similarity stops there. Talking with some to the F20FCS guys, the boat is great and a rocketship but you need a strong, experienced crew to sail, they are substantially more expensive than the F18, and in over 20 kts of breeze they are running for the shore as the boat is doing in the low 30kts downwind on the foils without the kite and its a handful, a big handful for the weekend warrior and older folks. The non foiling boats are more accessible to the average person. The big question IMO is what happens with the N17 (which is really the exact boat we are talking about here, a modern spin on the F18 Infusion with C boards and lower weight, but look at the build quality fiasco there).
