While the Taipan 4.9 cut really nice is most conditions it can get pretty bouncy as well.

Just last weekend. We did a comparison between a new FX-one and my Taipan F16, in sever short with a wavelength of just about one boatlength.

The FX-one looked rather stable in these conditions, I felt like I was on a bronco. It was just absolutely the wrong frequency for my Taipan. The wind dropped so I could really use the sail to stabilize the boat. Finally I moved around a little bit and found a spot that was sort of acceptable. Boat was still going up and down but not coming to a full stop every 20 seconds.

Still showed to be on the good side of the FX-one though. Saved my honour there, but it must be said, its hull shape took the conditions better despite being noisy. My point being that there will be a set of conditions where a cutter won't really do its thing when a wave-piercer will.

2 weeks ago I encountered conditions that really did favour a cutter. Each time when coming of the short waves the hulls would sink in and act like a suspension system keeping the rig moving about slowly through the air and not shake the attached flow off. It was just a beautiful delayed reaction the oncoming waves.

But I too think that the trade-off is in the favour of the newer hull shapes like the one used by the Blade.

Wouter