Seems the F16 class in S. Africa is starting to grow slowly, albeit in the Preformance Class 1 category, ie equal to H16 with spinn. Unfortunately the full F16 boats would cost way too much to grow a decent class, so we are concentrating on getting Mosquito, H16 & Dart 18 with spinnakers together. This has proven difficult to date due to geographic locations of the various fleets. In the Cape Town area, the Hobie 16 class is quite strong, but are not buying into the spinnaker concept since we often sail in strong winds and the Hobies fall over without spinnakers. The Mosquito fleet have grasped the spinnaker concept & run with it, more on that later. The Dart sailors are keen to add a spinnaker after watching the Mozzies sail past them at double their speed.
Inland, the Hobie fleet seem to be adding spinnakers, with 6 or 7 sold to date, as they sail in lighter winds. There are virtually no Mozzies inland, as their small sailplan lends itself to coastal sailing. The Dart 18 fleet is very strong there and unlikely to convert to spinnaker sailing, as they have their own exclusive regatta circuit which works well for them.
These issues make it quite difficult to arrange open F16 events, since most sailors prefer One-design racing where fleets are big enough, and the classes are split geographically.
The Mosquito class has 15 spinnaker boats now, and recently held their National Champs, although not open to other classes, so not strictly F16. We have intentions of holding a F16 PC1 Regatta at a central venue in 2005, incorporating all 3 classes, and hope to attract at least 20 boats.

That`s all for now, see "Smaller is better" for more news on the Mosquito Nationals.

Cheers
Steve