Good news, John.

Uncredible, normally the autumn time is a time to relax and leave the class work on the back burner for a while. But over the last few weeks it has felt like spring time; extremely busy with every and anything.

Okay, so the F16 Euro's

Please allow me to add a few preliminairy thoughts.

Personally I want to be present at the first European F16 championships. I could live with missing a few of the smaller F16 events but the first Europeans is a milestone I really want to witness personally.

This puts me in an akward spot. I really want to have a crew with me and as she is some high flying barrister with an extremely busy schedule I fear that it will be difficult to find a good date to come over. In addition, I'm spending all my money at this time on a change in career. I expect to be till my neck in exams and the start of a graduation project over the summer months of 2006. I just accepted a 50 % part-time job at the university without the possibility to take days off. I'm part of the education program and so I have to be there on the assigned dates. It is going to be really hard for to travel or get away for more then a weekend.

Having said this ...



If I had a choice then I would always prefer a week long European championship over a 2 day or 3 day event. Simply because the weather can really ruin a 2/3 day event which is much less likely for an event during a week.

Also the biggest cost and time spend is in the travel days and the trip to the location. Going to 2/3 event or a week event is about the same price overall. I looked and several hundred euro's is the minimum for a ferry trip and additional travel costs. I think this can be much more easily be justified for a holliday of a week then for a long weekend of which you spend 50 % of time travelling and assembling/dissassembling your boat.



Sadly for me : late june till late july = Most expensive period travelwise.



For me it will be really attractive to stack 2 boats on a single trailer and share a ride with another crew going over to the UK. This puts the trip in a budget level that I can really affort. With F16 being lightweight I see no reason why this isn't a serious option. Also I would enjoy the travel part alot more.

So I think that hooking up with other crews would be a big argument for me to decision to come out. Apart from that I don't I would mind much where in the UK the event is held. I much rather have cheap lodging and good water access/good weather.

For us Europeans the real travel bottleneck is the ferry. The difference between Datchet and Wales is 5 hours of additional driving and 2 extra tank loads of fuel (= 100 euro's). Not much in comparison to the ferry costs and time spend bobbing around on the RoRo ferry doing 10 knots with the times going through customs/check-in.




Personally I would require a garanteed minimum of 10 boats participating in order to have a European championship.


There is one more thing that we may need to consider. We are looking at selling 2 Blades to German customers and I know some more Taipans are in German and Zwitserland. For these guys a European championship in Wales will be a significant travel requirement. For most of us Dutchies; UK will be fine. If it is going to be a European championship than we may have to give some consideration to the central position of the event site to most of the sailors who want to participate. I fully understand that this can be a difficult point to solve.

Just recently a suggestion was made to have a Open Dutch F16 championship in the south-west part of Holland. This to present the prospected Blade buyers with an focal event in 2006 and it was expressed to make the location easy accesible to UK sailors. I think this OPEN event will happen and we need to make sure that both events do not impact adversely on eachother. One other point to take away from this is that similar ideas seem to survice with different people at this time. We can either have both events or combine both into 1 bigger event. It is important to stay aware of eachothers efforts.

Personally, I have deep respect for the UK guys for proposing to organise the first EU F16 championships. I know how much work that will involve and how hard the volunteers need to work to get people to travel and participate. I just want to express that and make sure that my next comments are not at all intended to take away any initiative of these guys. I wouldn't dare stealing the EU F16 for 2006.

Please allow me to make a case for the location of Hellecat (Haringvliet, Zeeland = South-western part of The netherlands) for usage as OPEN Dutch F16 event location or as European F16 event for 2006 or the any of the next years.

http://www.hellecat.nl/

General map of The Netherlands showing cat club Hellecat (Hellevoetsluis) on the creek

http://www.brandingsport.nl/html/kaart_2.html

More detailed map of body of water at Hellecat :

map : http://www.hellecat.nl/rondetiengemeten/vaarroute.php




Hellecat is the location where each year the Round Tiengemeente is held (This year the were 185 boats) and each spring and autumn time they run a series of 4 sundays of 3 races. This club has experience in running an event. It is also located very near to Vlissingen and Hoek van Holland which means that any UK team can get to the event site within 60 minutes of stepping of the ferry.

The location is a former creek of the North sea that was been dammed off. It still has all the wind conditions of the North sea but without the waves or surf. It is a significant body of water and it is surrounded but flat lands that are unobstructive to wind. This means that it has very stable wind conditions and cancellation of races due to weather conditions are very rare. There is never a breaking surf to go through and the new F16 sailors will appreciate this. Often the water is rather flat even when the winds pipe up. As there is no tide their is enough room (and well secured) for many many boats. The location in general is very central to sailors from the UK and Germany.



For more pics go to :

http://www.hellecat.nl/opkoers/nk%20acat/index.html Of the NK A-cat event that was held there in 2005



There are a few downsides, There is no sandy beach, it is a clay beach. Hellevoetsluis is a decent sized town but the first true city (rotterdam) is about 30 min away). The clay is a bloody nuisance if you let it dry on your boat.

Maybe we can work out : We come to you, you come to us deal here !

Let me see. Any other feedback ?

I would like to travel to England or Wales again. It has been awhile. You know what, if you approve than I can contact the various Dutch F16 sailors and make them aware of your effort concerning Euro F16 2006.

Wouter