To FlyF17,

With respect to the Stealth I can only advice that you contact John Pierce about that yourself. Stealthmarine(at)tiscali.co.uk




The last bit of your statement assumes that the alternatives to the F16's are TRULY optimized for singlehanded sailing. I know that such claims are often expressed by various sources but I'm not sure wether in direct comparison these claims are indeed validated.

Personally, I only call the A-cat boats "truly optimized for singlehanded sailing". All the other boats; FX-one, Nacra 17, Hobie 17, F16's and what not are all less then truly optimized for singlehanded sailing in the way the A-cat is.

A different question is wether a particular design lends itself well to be singlehanded or not. Here the criterium is less stringent and more designs are able to claim this.

Everybody has their own set of criteria of singlehanding, so I shall indicate on what I judge the different "to-be-singlehanded" designs personally :

-1- Ability to right the boat unaided and with simple means
-2- Ability to handle the boat off the water singlehandedly (unaided)
-3- Ability to handle the boat on the water singlehandedly
-4- Ability to perform well on the boat singlehandly
-5- Ability to race the boat well in modern fleets of fast (spi)boats
-6- Ability to adjust the layout of fittings and controls to personal preference under class rules
-7- Ability to fit the boat with aftermarket parts of independent suppliers
-8- Factory support network
-9- Robustness and resistance to abuse

Both the nacra 17 and FX-one score big on points 3 and 8; But do less so on points 1, 2, 6 and 7. Points 4, 5 and 9 seems to be somewhere in between.

With respect to the F16's I can say that these score pretty darn well on all points with the exception of point 8. The last is simply because the F16's simply don't have the larger dealor support networks as the big builders have. That is a fact. Point 9 is surprisingly enough not the weak point of the F16. There is less to work with indeed, but for example I've seen the Taipan take abuse that I dare not put other boats through.

In my personally opinion; the Blades and Taipans excel in points 4 and 1/2/3 because of their well tuned controls and light weight. Example : My cascading 1:12 downhaul allows me to really crank on the mainsail luff with just my left hand (I'm right handed); I have yet to see a similar system on many of the alternatives. The boom setup of the F16, never ever hangs up and operated smoothly all the time. Over the years the FX-one and nacra 17 has altered their designs to similar systems. So indeed the three designs are converging, thus making them all more comparable. But it must be said that the F16's had all this stuff from the vary beginning, meaning in the Taipans case as early as 1989.(and that is not a typo). In time I expect more stuff to appear on the other boats as well. Stealth F16 is leading the way with the T-foils on their rudders.

So in direct comparison I personally value my own F16 over the alternatives of the big builders. With one of the big builder products I have quite alot of experience and I wouldn't want to trade boats with it.

If you are asking me wether the Blade is truly and fully optimized for singlehanded sailing then I will answer that it isn't while stating at the same time that neither the other boats like the FX-one and Nacra 17 are. All named boats have made compromises that took all away from the true optimized setup that the A-cats are.

If you are asking me wether the Blade is less suited to singlehanded sailing then the other alternatives then I will say, "certainly not, if anything I regard it as better." In one particular comparison I'm absolutely sure as I have more then sufficient experience with the involved boats.

Sadly, I don't have much personal sailing experience with the Nacra 17. I only sailed a few times against a nacra 17 and the fact that we never saw eachother after the start is almost exclusively caused by the fact that our sailing skills were nowhere comparable. So I really don't have a proper data set with respect to the nacra 17. My current data suggests that there is a significant performance gap in favour of the F16's but I really think this to be to strong a conclusion considering the limited data I have. Also I have no personal data on the US nacra 17 which I fully expect to be faster then the EU versions.




Well, you can only judge this properly yourself. And you really should do that. But I really do think the Blade F16 to be better than the others in both uses. I know that my own Taipan F16 is in comparison to the European versions of the FX-one/Nacra 17. And the Blade compared again favourably to my Taipan F16. And I found that I'm not alone in this See this posting

I can fully confirm what Carbonated wrote when looking at the Superwing mast to the FX-one mast. But I can't do so for the nacra comparison as I have not sailed one myself.




In my opinion the F16's do both roles very well, maintaining a lead to the other boats mentioned in both uses.

But really, you should go out and arrange a test sail on the Blade F16 and judge for yourself. You will know it immediately, at least that is what I'm told by the others who did before you. Don't take my word for or that of others. We all love our own boats. Get straight to the basis and test drive it yourself.

Ohh, actually we have a former A-cat owner (Boyer mark 5) in our F16 pool now and he commented that the Blade is frightingly close in feel to his former A-cat. He doesn't feel at all as if he has made a noticeable step down by selling his A-cat in order to get an Blade F16. I'm sure that if we measure it really well that there should be a step down but it is not obvious at all. This in turn is a pretty good achievement in my book as teh F16 is also a fine doublehander while the A-cat is not. So in the F16 class we have been able to strike a pretty good compromise.

If you want then I can bring you into contact with this former A-cat owner. You can ask him yourself. Or you can go to thsi posting of him were he writes down himself the things I mentioned above Blade compared to boyer A-cat

There is another test sailing report here : Double handing the Blade F16 By Tim Bohan, a Florida based cat sailor and well known contributor on these forums

I can quote many more test-sailors with similar quotes and experiences. The blade boat is indeed well received as a design.

But don't take our word for it, see for yourself and get a test ride.

Wouter