You are not really seriously about the idea that F16 should change the width from 2.5 to 2.3 mtr do you ?
Why ? Why would we give up speed by reducing width only to hope to increase speed by extra stiffness of glued in beams ?
In order to make a change or have something, you must first have a compelling reason to do so. Glueing for the sake of glueing is not going to do it.
With respect to glued in beams (and thus carbon) being cheaper. Despite regular request no-one has been able to show that glued in beams make a platform actually cheaper. However it was possible to show that bolted alu beams were way cheaper than glued in (and thus Carbon) beams. Especially when taking into account the required transport to new owners world wide. The last issue alone made it beyond common commercial sense.
I have the greatest respect for Marstrom but his masts, beams and boats are anything but cheap. I admire the A-cat class but new A-cats are anything but cheap. Hell an new and fully fitted F16 is equal in price or cheaper than a A-cat with only one sail and much less hardware. Maybe he can save 1000 Euro's on his boats by going for glued beams but they probably would still be way more expensive than the others. So what is the point. All builders, including AHPC, have declared that the use of bolted alu beams is way cheaper for them than any alternative. The fact that Stealth is offering their fully rigged carbon masted and halve carbon hulled doublehander for 11.500 Euro's makes a convincing argument. I would like to see Marstrom ever make a boat that costs less than 150 % of that. With or without 1000 Euro saving by glueing in the beams. Hell I've looked at carbon beams for my own boat and found that it would set me back at least 500 Euro's EXTRA ! Are you seriously argueing that hulls can be made 1000 + 500 = 1500 euro's cheaper by use of glued in beams ?
I think one issue I have with your argument is that the glueing itself may reduced cost in building the hulls but the fact that you need the (way) more expensive carbon beams to be able to do this, pretty much all but negates the gains.
Than there are limits as class structure and commercial considerations like getting the boats to the customers world wide. As a matter of fact we can have the same argument to glue in the beams on the Tornado design or the M20 and M18 designs. As far as I know none of these Mastrom produced boats have glued-in beams themselfs. Take a look at the following pictures :
look for the little knobs on the beams that are the heads of the bolts
M18 :
http://www.sailcenter.se/images/Batar/M18/ISAF-MARST-SOLO-CLOSE.jpgM20 :
http://www.watersportscheveningen.nl/m20.php#Why hasn't Marstom done that ?
Hakan, forgive me my directness as I respect your opinions. Still I don't understand what is so difficult to understand about decision to ban permanently fixed beams. Not even marstrom himself used permanently fixed beams in any of his boats expect the A-cats that by luck are just narrow enough to fit inside a sea container and the road limits of each country in the world. So why is it "weird" for the F16 class to rule on this aspect ?
Somehow I expect more from you Hakan, I really did
With kind regards,
Wouter
