Dear Fellows,

The systems rating the F16 equal to F18's are Texel and ISAF measurement based systems as well as the Australian VYC yardstick system. These 3 system spans the whole world except the USA where USPN rated the F16's significantly slower than the F18. I think it is far less likely that 3 systems are wrong with one being right when compared to just 1 being wrong and 3 being right.

Also we have had several races where the F18's and F16's sailed head to head with the F16's winning on elapsed time. Last summer in Netherlands saw the F16's race in the 25 boat open boat fleet with mainly unmeasured F18's and F20's and a few FX-one and 2 I-17's. The F16 crew sailing off the F18 rating won that.

Gary Maskiel on his solo F16 is sailing of a rating equal to the A's in Australia and has won a few events.

So it is not some Wouter math here. The signals are abundant and continueing to come in. Still some people cling to the USPN system number af is that more believable despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We all know how dependable the USPN system is with respect to boats like Supercat 20 ; so it shouldn't be a great shock to anyone that USPN can be significantly wrong.

Best argument I can find is that the USPN system rates the spi equipped Taipan 4.9 slower relative to the F18 than the australian VYC yardstick system rates the SPI-less standard Taipan 4.9 to the F18. Of course the Taipan has been extensively raced in Aus for a decade now so we may assume that its VYC rating is dependenable.

I fully agree with sparky that the F16's have peachy numbers in the USPN system. Ask the other Taipan and F16 sailors like Jennifer and they will tell you the same. We know it.

But also the F18's shouldn't mind us racing them first in wins, if I right than that is fair; If USPN is right than it is certainly not unfair to the F18's. The F18's were raced first in wins in the past as well and F16 did very well :

Summer sizzler results (on elapsed time)

Overall Skipper Sail # Class Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Race 5
1 Jennifer Lindsay 262 F16 2 2 1 3 6
2 Mark Murray 324 F18 DNS 1 DNS 1 1
3 Chuck Harnden 189 F16 3 4 2 2 3
4 Scott Hubel 964 F18 4 3 3 4 2
5 Chris Runge 24 F18 1 5 4 5 4
6 Seth Stern 221 F16 5 6 5 6 5

Jennifer will say that she got lucky because mark Murray was early over the line twice but than again the other F18's weren't so unlucky and still ended up at 4th and 5th place.

Now I will be fair. The F18 crews are very good today even in the USA and for any F16 crew to come close they must have trained often. You can't step onto a F16 and expect to be in front. Sailor skill is still very important. But if your skill is comparable than the F16 designs won't hold you back. The older Taipan 4.9 with spi design has a small disadvantage at its reduced width and other style mainsail. Also the spinnakers have improved again over the last years. But none of this causes the Taipan 4.9 + spi to be 7% slower than the F18's as the USPN predicts. 1% to 2 % maybe but not more. The newer boats with upgrades like the Taipan F16 (full width, new style mainsail, selftacker) and Blade F16 will be within 1 % of the F18's (either faster or slower depending on the conditions)

When compared to 30%-40% differences in time as a result of sailor skill this 1%-2% difference is neglectable.

And surely more boats on the water without corrected time math is more fun. I just hope that we F16 sailors get up to level in sailor skill quickly enough. Far too often we blame the boat for slowness when it is rather crew skill related.

Wouter