Gotta say I was a little disappointed in the short pole idea of the F16 Class. I think it will hamper boat speed off the wind and perhaps even upwind.
Some examples:
In trying to develop a simple add-on to the Hobie Wave to make it good Youth Class Design, I did a lot of R&D on the subject of how open a slot should be.
At first I had a relatively short pole (relative size that is the rule for the F16) and went up the mast only fractionally from the hounds. The boat did perform slightly better than a stock Wave in speed tests.
Then I designed a sail that had its turning block near the masthead (stiff mast and no breakage problems with the Wave) and again it was a bit faster in tests, but not awesome.
Then I put on a longer pole, kept the turning block at the top and really opened up the slot. Zingo! Shazam! It suddenly began sailing at speeds comparable to a Hobie 16.
DPN for a Wave is 90, and H16 around 77 -- that is a big jump in speed.
Also, with my Taipan 4.9 sailing with a Hooter, I havre a 15' pole, yet due to what I think may be a fragile mast, I placed my turning block only about 30" above the hounds. And with that rig I was only about 200 yards behind some top Inter 20s, and Onsgard's N6.0 with a huge spinnaker after a 10 mile downwind leg.
This set up allowed for a very open slot and still throws a lot of flow back across the main. So much so that the traveler rarely goes out more than 6-8 inches. What happens is the telltale on the end of the spin pole is pointing just aft of 90-degrees. But the telltale on my windward sidestay is point so far aft it looks like a close reach. This means the main is sailing a close reach all the time (very fast).
In my opinion the 4.9 is much faster with a Hooter (smaller, flatter sail, but does not meet the mid-girth rule -- too bad we have one), than with the new spinnaker I just had to buy.
So, while we have to stick to rules of some kind, it is too bad we cannot have rules that will allow the class to be faster.
Some have pointed out how much slower the F16 Class was in comparison to the F18 Class this past week while going downwind. And it was pretty apparent. Dave White rounded the A Mark and hoisted his spin, and then shortlly after that John Tomko on the F18 rounded and hoisted his spinnaker and it looked like the F16 was parked. In a one-mile leg the F18 started out 200 yards behind and finished 400 yards ahead. They should not be that much faster.
Again, I understand you have to have rules, but then again the A-Class has rules, too. And they are very simple.

Guess I am concerned that a faster rig is simply ignored because traditionally the monohulls all used to have full, big-shouldered spinnakers and had mid-girth rules.
Yet cat sailors have led the way in speed technology and understand that the leading edge of the sail is more important than having lots of sail area (also known as high-aspect sails)

If you get a chance sometime, just try speed testing with short poles and long poles and discover the results.

Anyway, these are just some observations.
thanks for listening,
Rick