Tim,

You should really contact Matt or get a test ride on the Blade in these conditions.

As recently as 15 march Matt himself wrote on the F16 forum :

"4-6 foot rollers with big wind chop, and we never had an issue with waves smashing the cross bars."

Many times over the same comments were made by other who sailed the Blade (and prototype Blade) in such conditions.

Arguably the longer I-20 hulls make the ride smoother, no doubt about that, however better is still something that needs to be seen.

Matt in the same posting wrote :

"We raced the leg back right with a couple of 6.0, I20, H20, and the Acat. Same thing applied. We had boat speed equal with any of them when the wind piped up. In the lulls, the bigger boats would creep ahead."

This means that a whole lot of speed is gotten from this short hull design, only 16 feet.

Jake have a correct answer : there are wave-piercers and wave-piercers and the name wave-piercer itself is very misleading. In principle the hull shape that was first used on the flyer A-cat can be made to work on any boat and for any boat weight, but you must really understand how it works. Many designers simply don't understand, but this doesn't prevent them to claim that they have improved on the concept anyway. There is alot of misunderstanding in this field. Nils Bunkenburg designed the Fox and FX-one while Eigner designed the Flyer A-cat, Hobie failed in these designs, Bimare tried and failed, even AHPC tried and failed with their mark 5 A-cat. AHPC bought the flyer hull shape and Bimare finally copied it right. Melvin appears to have understood the setup and designed the promising A2, AHPC got it right with the Capricorn F18. Phill Brander was on the mark from the start and has proven it with both the Blade F16 and F18. The jury is still out on the Ventilo's.

I think I will post a more detailed reply to Jakes post to explain.

Wouter