You said "His SCHRS handicap number also put him down the fleet." - I checked ISAF SCHRS, Stealth is 1.08, Stealth "R" is 1.03, Spitfire is 1.04. [quote]
Hi Steve, If you check the SCHRS numbers, you will see that Formula 16 has a one up,0.98 and two up 1.02 handicap number. When Andy raced over here he told us that his number, singlehanded, was 0.99. So that's what he raced on.
[quote] You also wrote : "Apart from John Pierce, you don't see the Stealth sailors featuring in the top positions, as you do the Spitfire sailors." Could this be because John is on a Stealth F16, others sail older models ?]quote]
I think that it is because John is an ex Tornado and of Olympic standard, while , as he says, the others do not race.
[quote] You also wrote :"The Spitfires have good numbers at events and get good racing against each other. They feel that they do not need to race F16." - Is this the general consensus within the class ? [quote]
I think that most Spitfire sailors are only barely aware of Formula 16. It is not yet active in the UK.
The Hawk numbers were building up very fast in the first few years. I think that, if Formula 18 had not happened, the Hawk class would have held its own against other similar classes like the Tiger. As it was, the Hawk had to go F18, if it was to have any chance of surviving. Overall Formula 18 has been great for cat sailing
[quote] Just hope that Spitfire doesn`t keep it`s head in the sand when F16 takes off.
Because, as I have already said that the Spitfire sailors, both UK and French, are top class, they will be able to compete evenly against other F 16 cats for the moment.
I do not believe that the class or builder will change the cat to bring it up to the F16 rating.
[quote] My opinions of our boat and the F16 class are of course very slightly biased, as we sell them, as are Dermot's of the Spitfire as he sells them. [quote]
Hi John, I was trying not to talk about the actual boats. I was just trying to give the facts about the sailors and the way the classes were developing. Andy's boat speed was very fast and the Stealth was much admired by everyone. I think that he would say that we made him very welcome and I know that we would love to see him, yourself or any other Stealth sailors at our events. We have also had Dart 18 and Hurricane 5.9 sailors over many times. Even the Dutch Dart 18 sailors have made the trip.
We have had one problem with visitors which we Irish cannot understand - for some reason they seem to drink too much and always go home in terrible condition.
