Gary,

As an Australian you are probably very aware of most things I write in this reply however I will put them down anyway.

>>Does anybody know if there is a F16 designed to be sailed one up.

I know that both Blade F16 was designed to function as an optimal compromise between a singlehander and doublehander. Phill, as a regular singlehanded sailor, has put alot of effort in this. The base was a doublehander of course but it had to be and fell like a proper singlehander as well. I don't really understand how Phill went about this but I'm aware that he is very happy with how it sails in both modes. The few test sailors having sailed the Blade in singlehanded mode were no different in their appreciation. I do know it has alot to do with the shape to the keel line. At a time it was feared that the doublehanded setup would suffer as she behaved very well in singlehanded mode, however this was later debunked. The Blade has a very wide range of crew weights easily running all the way up to 165 kg combined crewweight, which is alot for a 16 footer.

I understand that the Taipan 4.9 is a good singlehander with a good doublehanded mode till about 140 kg of combined crew weight. Of course its hulls mirror 90's generation A-cat hulls with a tornado style stern. I think it's singlehanded performance is reflective of this (when sailed without a spi).

The Stealth F16 was designed as a doublehander from the beginning and some sailor prefer to have a special singlehanding mainsail made for the mast. Apparently the doublehander has a quite powerfull main. Having said this, I think about halve of the Stealths sold are almost exclusively sailed as singlehander. The jib kits function there to transfer the boat into a doublehander when occasionally taking somebody along.

I think the boat most designed from a singlehander setup is the Bimare 16 or javelin 16 but we haven't heard much of these lately and even the Bim owner in my area has sold her bim. So now we have no active Bim F16 sailors in our class.
The Bim 16 however fits the same describtion as the Taipan as a 90's generation A-cat hull design. The javelin 16 is too unknown for judgement however its hulls appear to be the same 90's generation A-cat hull shape but with a trimmed foredeck and stern. I'm not sure this is an improvement over the standard hullshape. A wave piercer hull needs to be redesigned from the bottom up and is completely different from any old hull shape.

The Australian yard of Alpha-Omega is looking into the F16 class and I don't know yet the specs of their design although I hear that they are looking to make it full carbon construction without raising the price much. It will be a feat to see that one.


>>Seems to me all that is needed is a shorter A class with slightly fatter hulls.All the F16 designs I have seen have enough volume in the back half to support two adults. Creating more drag than is neccesary or why would A class be so slim.


to this I would like to reply that one doesn't reduce drag much at all by making the back of the hulls more narrow. Problem is that the wetted surface area isn't much impressed by that. To much volume in the hulls can lead to a singlehander that doesn't have a pleasent behaviour in waves and that may degrade performance but I don't think the named boats suffer much if at all from that.


>>Also do any F16 have canted hulls,

Stealth F16 = Yes
Blade F16 - Taipan - Bim = No

Wouter