Björn (and others)

I'm posting this reply on the public forum as it may be wise to have all involved read this :

Currently there seems to be 2 or 4 German parties who are looking to get into F16 sailing. I know of you Björn and of Martin personally, but the Blade support point in NL mentioned that he has been contacten by 2 German parties in the past about acquiring such a F16 boat. I sense that these latter two are other persons than you Björn (Martin) as mention of these was already made back in june, if I remember correctly.

If indeed we have 4 independent parties in Germany then it may be wise to bring them all into contact with eachother. Certain enough Germany is a rather new are in the way of F16 sailing. In southern Germany and the Swiss Alps there have been several Taipan 4.9's + spi sailing since 1999, but pure F16's are a new development.

In European terms the F16 class was first started in the UK and Netherlands and from these places we try to spread out towards Germany, Danmark, Belgium, France, and regions further away. The first Taipan has just made it into Sweden, now. But the first area's to develop a F16 race schedule will be the UK and NL. For Germany in specific we just do not enough boats for such a thing. That is for a pure F16 (One-design) class schedule. However, all regions in the world with a F16 presence started by having the first boats compete on handicap in open catamaran races; from then onward the fleets grew. Catamaran sailing is in general diffferent from dinghy sailing in that catamarans most often sail in mixed fleets. Dinghies are very much focussed on their own classes and only racing other boats of ones own class. Catamarans however more often then not race in open classes, were all makes race on another on handicap. The advantage of the F16 class in this respect is that we have the same handicap as the most competitive fleet in Europe; the F18 boats. This F18 fleet is also by far the biggest fleet around. So in effect, you race these F18's just as you would race boats of your own class. First over the line wins. Over the last years we found the F16's to be very comparable to F18's over broad ranges of winds and courses. This means that you can cover your position and even play tactics with the F18's directly. The only thing you can not do is participate in a One-design F18 event. But then again you can't race a F18 solo while you can race a F16 solo. Both classes have their pro's and cons.

I expect that at first you will be looking to hook up with the other 3 German F16's and the Taipans or travel and race other F16's in the Netherlands. In neither case should you expect large fleets of F16's; we are simply to new as a class to be at that point yet. We need to grow some more over the coming years.

I think that this winter we in the Netherlands will again designate a few events (in NL) as F16 get-to-gethers. Just as we did in 2005. All these races will be of the open-class variety as we all like to measure ourselfs against the F18's. We have not ye made a similar effort for German events. But that shouldn't be too difficult to do when a few F16 owners are residing in Germany after this winter. I fully expect a few Blades to go that way in a few months.

The listing we used for NL for this season 2005 was (1 event per month) :

-1- Spring Cup (voorjaarsbokaal) Almeerderstrand (each single sunday of April)
-2- North sea regatta : may 2005
-3- Round Texel 2005 : june 2005
-4- Westland Cup 2005 : july 2005
-5- REM-race 2005 : august 2005
-6- Rondje tiengemeenten 2005 : september 2005


Some of us also attendent several events outside of this schedule, the events in this schedule were just the basic events.

When a new schedule is made for 2006 I think it will look much like this listing. Only events -2- en -4- are typical class oriented events, which means that F18's have their own starts. The other events all group us in with the F18's and other fast spi boats. So in these latter events you will be racing a handful of other F16's and about 20 to 50 F18's. All in all this means, never a dull moment ! If you are well ahead of your fellow F16's then there will always be plenty of F18's and F20's to hunt down.

At this moment it appears that a Blade F16 group deal is being formed. I give this effort a very high rate of success. That is all I can say at this moment without risking upsetting the dealings. As of yet it appears that 2 other Germany buyers are part of this deal. Also this deal will most probably establish a local support point for the Blade F16 boats in the town of Zandvoort. This pary has been doing repairs and support professionally for over a decade, naturally on other makes. If implemented, then this support point will handle all international shipping and even assemble the individual boats so they are ready to be picked up with a boat trailer.

By going through the route of a group deal will take away all the efforts involved in personally importing a F16 boat and will also cut down on transport costs. By any standard this is an attractive deal. I have received cleareance to spread the word that the group is looking to maximize the number of boats brought in with a single shipment. So everybody who is interested is adviced to either contact Hans Klok (support point NL) or Matt McDonald ; e-mail respectively : info@catamaranparts.nl and info@vectorworkssail.com

While checking for Hans e-mail adress I saw that he publically names the Blade F16 on his website. So I guess the dealings have resulted in an agreement now. He is still building up his website at http://www.catamaranparts.nl/

Through this support point (Hans Klok) a customer can order a Saarberg carbon mast to go with his Blade F16. Standard the Blade F16 comes with an aluminium superwing mast. Hans has been working with Pieter Saarberg (know for his A-cat masts) for many years; they are related to eachother by family ties. So that says something about his support point credentials, I venture.

Okay back to the topic :

Ehhh, yes. I'm also willing to answer any questions about any make of F16. Currently we have both an Stealth F16 and Blade F16 on offer here in Netherlands. The Taipan we had on offer has been sold. Funny enough all parties selling these boats are buying back a new F16 to replace the old one. People can contact me for more info on these. Mail to formula16class(at)hotmail.com


Wouter