At the end of the day, we hope to have a fully developed platform that we can ship across to Europe next year so that sailors from our Fleet in Singapore can gain some valuable experience by racing in Europe.
If we are not careful, us Europeans need to go to Asia to gain valuable experience racing F16's.
We have an issue in the European F16 class that seems incredibally difficult to kill. The class is well received and by now many believe in it and even want to buy a F16 boat, however getting a dependable supply line going seems to be harder then changing lead into gold.
Also we truly need to supply FULLY-OPTIMIZED F16's, Europeans don't want anything else and I don't blame them with the competitive F18 market right on their doorstep. Ergo the time for the standard Taipan 4.9's with a spinnaker addition (Now called Taipan Hunter) are over. Over the last 5 years we have seen to much development in the F16 class. The really sad part is however that the Taipan basic design is not at all outdated, it just needs to be updated with a modern suit of sails (+selftacker) and some better beams. Then it is still remarkably competitive. Just as you have done with the Rhino Taipan F16. A score of us have been telling this to everybody over the last years. But for some reason, the One-design mentality is again allowed to do its destructive work. The standard 4.9 was competitive 5 years ago but by disallowing it to move with the times it is slowly falling more and more behind the rest of the catmaran fleets which are simply dominated by the formula based classes like the F18's, A-cats and also the Tornado's (more formula oriented than one-design).
In all honesty the standard OD Taipan 4.9 is a dead end in the international scheme of things. Not because of the performance potential it arguably still has but because somebody is tying one of its arm to its back for no good reason. (Taipan) F16 is about to explode into an truly big class if only we can hook up buyers with boats.
The Blade F16 and Rhino Taipan F16 are completely the way we should go. When do you think will the production line be up and running ?
We've also seen how much improved the self-tacker on the Taipan is compared to the one-design! The trampoline now has a useful area and tacks are so much faster - something we weren't really expecting, but a nice bonus all the same!
Ain't that the truth ! It almost feels like a completely new boat doesn't it. Can you believe that there are fans of the old jib system still around ?! There is not much I disliked about the original Taipan 4.9 but I serious had no appreciation for the standard 4.9 jib system. It just took away from the excellence of the overall design. One of those things that make you go "uhhh". It is also such a dissonant with the other fitting that are arguably developped with lots of attention to detail and intended use.
I personally think the basic Taipan design has another 10 years of live in it as long as it is allowed to go with the times. I'm very happy that I decided to homebuild my Taipan F16 At least then I could do all the stuff than the platform needs for coming decade.
Wouter
