In commenting on various post I will switch roles from time to time. Some comment I make as a chairman of the F16 class and others as a private F16 sailor. Yet others again as a proxy for Greg Goodall as he is unable to reply himself with current preparation for the F18 worlds that is on within a week or so.

I will denote my role by naming it between accolades.



>>If any class is restricted from evolving by carrying the bagage of a "truck load" of restrictive rules that class will die.


(Chairman) That is our balancing act. Although the F16 rules are still a far way from "A truck load of restrictive rules". Several rules are even so wide that it is discovered that no design will even go to the max. allowed ; example Spinnaker pole length. Others are general wordings like : The catamaran shall be rightable by any crew in all conditions. The latter will never limit development. There are only a few really restrictive rules and these are length width weight sailarea (Even A-cat class has those) then mastheight, mast gate heights and spi pole length. Of course the A-cat class has no spinnaker or jib so no rules needed for that. The rest are definitions needed for intepretion of the rules or general wordings. If you look at the rules you will see that we are much much closer to the A-cat setup than say the F18, F20's or Tornado classes, not to mention the various one-design classes. We definately have a long way from being "a very restrictive" ruleset. I think it to be a long reach to imply that the current proposals are enough to qualify the ruleset as restrictive if they are accepted.


>>The problem that I see is that it is easy to incorporate new rules, but it is very difficult to "get rid" of ones, down the track, that are "restrictive" to the growth of the class.


(Chairman) I generall agree that this is the case although I would like to underline that teh F16 class just did away with one rule (1.13.1) because it was obsolete and it didn't strike me as an particulary difficult excersize. The thinking of course is that when everybody percieves that a certain rule is of no particular use or benefit than no-one really cares whay happens to it. However when the perception is that is does matter than the discussion flies high. Sort of like the discussion about beams now. Apparently some have the perception that it does matter. To bring balance to the class we need to talk this one out between ourselfs. It may not be a fun discussion but it is a necessary one.

(Private sailor) I see a very well founded basis to keep the "no-permanent beams" rule indefinately included in the rules as I really don't see international shipping change their box dimensions in the coming 50 years. I don't see how such a rule will impede development, it is almost the other way around. I don't see why we ever want to get rid of this part of the rule in the future if this part was excepted by the class. This underlying cause for this rule will continue to exist as long as standard seacontainers don't allow a fully assembled platform to be shipped. I grant that the discussion about allowing carbon to be used for the beams is a different matter as these can be expected to become cheaper over time.


>>Secondly the use of carbon fibre. Any one who is familiar with the costs of carbon fibre over the last 15 or so years, will know that it has been one of the only fibre reinforced plastics products (used in "fibreglassing") that has dramatically and consistantly DECREASED in cost. That is why it is being used more and more in the "boat building" industry, not because it is such a better product (which it is) but because the price is becoming more accessable to the general public. This is the trend that can be expected to continue the more that carbon is used. For that reason alone it is imperative that the use of carbon fibre HAS to be allowed full reign for use in the construction of any class that still wants to be around and relevent for this and the next generation of sailors


(Chairman) OF course we can compensate the rule to include this possibility. Afterall we are free to propose amendments and one could be that we change the rule to be a temporary one with a automatic ending when the retail price of a carbon beam drops below a certain percentage of the whole boat. There is no reason why we can have this. It will limit costs when the beams are still expensive but the rule will drop automatically out of the rule set when the price drops to within reach of the normal sailor.



>>I think in one of the previous posts a price of $2,000 was stated for the costs of carbon fibre beams for an F16?


(Chairman) As supported by the experiences of some of us who have looked for getting carbon beams for our boats. This included myself and I decided against it as I had to pay about 1100 Euro's = 1900 Aus$ to get a pair of them. Several others have similar experiences. For now this number as quoted by Greg has checked out on several occasions.

Maybe the price of pre-preg carbon is not the dominant cost factor anymore when compared to tooling and labour.


>>well I am not sure were that price was sourced from but I purchase beams for an F16 (front and rear) for considerably less than $1,000 Australian, in fact for $1,000 Australian I could retail them and make an acceptable profit.


(Chairman) Yes I heard about that through my network of informers and I won't go deeper into this one than asking you for the contact detail so I can check up on this claim. I wish to underline that the class checks up on these proposals before they are put to the public. That is what we do in the preprocessing phase. Similar with the sea container dimensions. Up till now the numbers checked out.

Could youn you give me the name and contact info of the company that can supply you with these "considerable less than Aus$ 1000,- for a pair of carbon beams". My next action will be to contact this company myself and inquire about their price for such a set. I will have them confirm it to me in writing with a garanteed "equal or less" price for the coming years to all 3rd parties. I will then get back with this info to this forum and present this to you all as this would be a very important consideration when voting on the rule part 2.

You can send the into to the Formula16class@hotmail.com mailaccount if you don't want to make this into public.


Regards,

Wouter