Just to keep everyone in the loop, F-16 things are slowly happening in Southeast Asia.
First off, here's the first photo of the 2 locally built F-16's side by side at Changi Sailing Club, Singapore.
Maybe it's just the colours, but the boats do attract a fair bit of attention each time they're out.
The big squarehead sails are turning out to be amazing and soon we'll try one on a standard Taipan. Not only does the big head power up the boat, but with just a little tweak on the rotation and downhaul it is very easy to twist off. Speed and handling are vastly improved over the standard head. We have a set of Goodalls and Ashby big-heads but have not tried these back to back yet. I'd expect both sets of sails to perform admirably well as the shapes have been honed on the F-18's and passed down to the F-16.
Watching the Blade go through the water is a real pleasure and the new-generation shape i.e. flat forward/rounded rear really works. The bows can easily be encouraged to ride up on the water surface by just moving the crew weight aft a little.
This is something that also happens on the Taipan but not quite to the same degree. The added volume of the 'new' shape also means the load carrying capacity is increased. I'd hazard a guess and say that these 'hi-volume' design F-16's will take a few of the smaller crews away from the F-18's in a matter of time.
It seems that there is a fair bit of interest locally in the 'new' Formula 16 scene - or maybe its just the colours! We will be having a 60nmile race at the peak of our sailing season (Feb' 06) dubbed the F-16 Challenge. On top of that it looks like there will be a big Monsoon Cup in Malaysia, early December and we are trying to get the F-16's to be a part of the show. Soon enough we might have a bit of a circuit in Southeast Asia for the F-16's.
We are still planning to ship at least 1 -2 F-16's to Europe for next years summer season as we'd like some of our sailors to compete over there. Like wise we have a year-round summer here but, the peak of our sailing season is December-March. This coming season will see some very good local F-16 events happening.
