HI Wouter <br> <br>Well I would not write an Obituary yet. Remember that there are 10 or so active Tigers and 10 or so Inter 18's that have ever raced in the US. Obviously, they are waiting for the factory led group to organize an F18 program. The F18 class is all about potential. The current USA mindset is the F18 will be for teams sailing close to 300 lbs looking for lighter sheet loads. (What do the Euro F18 sailors think is the optimal configuration?) If the class can get some good sailors to move up from Hobie 16's and 18 's and some overpowered couple teams on the I20 and the N6.0 and H20 classes to move down they could achieve critical mass as a formula class (so long as they don't fracture into competing one designs at the regional level/Division level) <br> <br>A bit of US history <br>The Hobie 20 took off even though Nacra 5.8 and 6.0, Mystere 6.0 and Prindle 19 were active established classes. The Hobie 20 was certainly nothing new technologically. The H20 had great success in some areas of the country and floundered in others. All told the H20 achieved greater market success then all of the other boat types. Without question the Hobie one design philosophy had a lot to do with this classes success drawing mostly other Hobie sailors but probably equally important was the high competitive level that quickly emerged. Interestingly, the Hobie 20 class vigorously debated a proposal to raise the minimum crew weight issue. It was defeated and at 295lbs it was the lowest minimum of any 19 or 20 foot boat on the market at the time. Since much of the market were Hobie 16 sailors... racing at minimum was always viewed as faster... So.. set a low minimum to attract sailors. <br> <br>From my point of view your 16 HP class looks like a far better boat choice then a Formula 18 class in 2002. If the HP'16s are really the same speed as 18's in most conditions and its a 100 lb lighter boat.... That would be a no brainer.. BUT... the big BUT.. most racers ask me... is Who are you going to race against. They have an even harder time envisioning a Formula 16 class taking off in the US. Secondly, Bigger is always better to us in the US (been there... done that myself) Even non racers.... want big boats...(Mystere sold most of their boats in the US to non racers... Many of them were in way over their head when the breeze picked up... Scared Shitless. A lot of them would let the boat sit for a year or two rather then admit they made a mistake.) <br> <br>IMHO, the best solution will be for Formula 18 and 16 to race within a portsmouth open class. In the Mid atlantic. If you pooled Hobie 20 + Open( 19 footers and better) plus F18's at best we could get 25 boats on the line on our best day. <br> <br>If cat racing growth will be zero or negligable. <br>My argument and soap box is... In this 25 boat fleet we will have several levels of competition... The best Tornado sailor will be competing aginst the best formula racer (on portsmouth Is this a compromise... of course). Without competition though ...even at the Beginer level... too many racers will loose interest and drift away. <br> <br>The other model for fleet growth is one design. By organizational design and leadership of a dominant personality and group sociology... when one fleet becomes dominant... well pretty soon every one will then be sailing one kind of boat. Now... you have an A and B fleet) <br> <br>Here is the big unanswerable question... Which model works if you can't get new people into the sport. <br> <br>Which model works to actually get people into the sport and leads to growth when the marketplace offers many different boat choices to a consumer. <br> <br>See you <br>Mark <br><br><br>
