Interesting question, I know lots of the individuals involved and watched the spiral closely.
The fate of the F18HT was tied to the F18 class but the Worrell 1000, BS problems and the collapsing dollar were what killed the class.
Once upon a time… there was no F18 fleet in the USA or Australia, However, in Europe, the class was taking off. The builders HOPED that they could maintain their SMOD business model BUT sailors had had enough of that and kept choosing F18 over one design. The Nacra Inter 18 (F18) was available in the USA but with a carbon mast and larger main sail so it was not F18 compliant. Nobody cared about the NON F18 character of the Inter 18 because they don’t go to race in Europe AND a carbon stick and bigger main made sense to much of the country who sail in light air. Not having a SMOD class ruled by builders or a very conservative class association appealed to US Sailors but it wasn’t a big factor. Sales of the Inter 18 were dwarfed by the Inter 20 (I would be surprised if there are 5 left in the USA today… all in Rec sailors hands.) The target market was 290 to 330 lb mixed M/F teams but the market did not seem to want a spinnaker performance boat in the 18 foot range. Bigger teams opted for the Inter 20. Hobie sold the Hobie 20 to this very same market but sales of this boat had slowed to a trickle as well. The racers saw the H20 as a sloop that you could race as a couple with weights in the 320 lb range. The Hobie racers did not see any compelling reason to switch over to the Inter 18 just to race with a spinnaker. They did not see ANY viable class buoys racing, and the boat was much slower then the Inter 20 and had no chance for growth. The 18 foot market was NON EXISTANT.
One or two years later… the Inter 20 sales also started to slow. The Midwest and Florida had active fleets. The Chesapeake had a schizophrenic but growing fleet and Southern California had a fleet that started well but seemed to loose energy and was dying. Meanwhile, New England was buying all of the Nacra 6.0’s from Florida and Michigan and not going along with the I20 movement.. A major factor in the I20’s growth was the Worrell 1000’s resurgence. Lots of boats including charters really got the fleet going but you saw two different cultures dividing the Inter 20 fleet. The distance racers and the Buoy Racers could not support that amount of racing. Attendance at nationals peaked at around 20 boats but you did not see a consistent turnout for buoys regattas in most areas. One factor that was underestimated was the physicality of the boat. It’s tough to race this boat with your wife or girl friend. So the social structure of an all male fleet is a bit different. The 20’s growth was bottoming out as well.
Hobie was faced with a legal problem. They had signed a consent decree years ago that prohibited them from using all aluminum masts. Hobie USA built all of their boats with comp tips. They imported the FOX from Europe and changed the rig to one with a comp tip to compete with the Inter 20. The market seemed to suggest that the boat should be successful and would get the Hobie 20 sailors to move up. … If it had caught on with the hobie sailors the world might be different. But it never competed with the Inter 20 in California and the comp tip was rejected by performance sailors. A belated attempt to use the aluminum stick failed as well.
Two people looked at this stagnation of growth and took the lead in shaking up the status quo set by Performance and Hobie USA. Both recognized that small and midsized teams needed a spin race boat that the ladies could handle more easily then a 20. My understanding is that Rob Jerry in New York decided to import some Tigers from Hobie Europe and found a way around the Comp Tip problem. My understanding was that you bought the boat with two checks. One for the platform and one for the mast without comptip. WF Oliver had fallen in love with the ease of use of the A cat and wanted to race a lightweight high performance boat. He tried the Tornado scene and found it too time consuming, expensive and too much like work. He looked at the F18 class and the F18HT class and opted for light. Also he felt that the taller stick would work well in the lighter air US market. He bet that F18 sailor would not be thrilled with the normal light air performance of the F18 class of boats. He found Bimare and Ventilo able to supply F18HT’s out of the box and other European builders considering building to the rule He opted for Bimare because of the pricing. His sailing partner at the time Matt Strubel sailed both boats and helped in the development of the F18 so he was confident that the F18HT would be successful based on the fun factor of sailing the boats. What made all of this possible the dollar to EU ratio that was on the order of 80 cents to the EU. The price of either boat in the US was thousands less then US built boats. The time was the right to bring boats in from Europe. (The A class grew by leaps as well with Boyer’s and Bim’s (WF Oliver) and Marstrom bringing one or two a year with him to the Key Largo regatta on his visits to the US)
At this point in time, the US market had a choice. What boat would replace the Hobie 20 as the largest performance boat whose owners wanted to race buoys more so then distance. The I20 was a dead boat walking. Since you have no class… which do you support and grow from scratch… the lightweight… light air optimized 18HT or the heavy weight, loves a breeze F18. Oliver aggressively pushed the 18HT provided by Bim and the class grew quickly as a Bim essentially one design class. He tried to solve the numbers problem for a viable racing circuit with a class trailer which would move 6 to 8 boats at once to a regatta and set up an east coast circuit that followed the breeze and weather over the year. He supplied boats for the Alter Cup during this time and cash for a regatta in Virginia Beach which generated a terific Video record of the race. All were successful.
Meanwhile, In Europe, The Tiger Hull shape was appearing to have an edge and the French built Cirrus looked to be at least the equal hull shape if not superior to the Tiger. Nacra decided to buy a design that was very similar to the Cirrus for the F18 and named the boat F18 to compete in Europe. I help sail the boat down to Annapolis for the demo following the boat show where it was named the Boat of the year (This was the boat Strubel was helping develop). Hobie USA figured out a way to market the Tiger throughout the country. The California Hobie 20 fleet was looking to upgrade and Dan Delave and I tried to forecast the future in a few emails. Dan opted for the Tiger. Meanwhile… (Hobie showed an FX1 and Wave at the Annapolis boat show…. Nacra did not have a display. Hmm…)
Meanwhile. Mike Worrel, attempted to grow the W1000. He personally told me that the race was trapped. Unless he had a factory willing to supply him with 10 to 20 charters, he could not grow the race into a truly international event. He had been advised that the F18 was the way to go because the class was exploding in Europe and looked like it would take off in the US with Nacra building the F18 and Hobie USA deciding to now focus on the Tiger. Remember, Jeff Alter wrote an open letter to the class which made the argument that future of cat racing in the USA was Hobie one design in the Hobie 16 and the Hobie Tiger. This was the racing program and that sailors should sell their boats and get with the program. Worrell agreed that the F18 would open the high performance scene to women again and this would help marketing the big race in Europe. He envisioned a period of growth in the race where EU and Aussie Teams would ship their boats over to race the W1000 for the experience. Worrell tried to get Nacra or Hobie to provide boats for the Worrell to get this started. They refused to bite. Worrell then approached Petrucci of Bimare and struck a deal for the ill fated Worrell 1000 and the F18HT on the one design Bim F18HT. I would guess that they had about 35 to 45 boats in the USA when the Worrell fiasco played out.
Meanwhile we had a period of politics. Hobie started the debate that open class at Hobie regattas was killing one design sailboat racing. Nigel Pitt’s tenure as pres of the HCA where he tried to get the sailors to support both class associations and one design racing generated a strong response that led to his ouster. Carrots from the factory, lots of sound and fury and a few years later… the Class association took the Kool-Aid and forced Hobie Regattas to exclude non Hobie boats. The NAF18 Class was kick started by Mark Biggers, a NACRA dealer. He made a good faith attempt to follow the EU F18 rules but noted … Heh... we don’t have measurers in the US… we don’t have the energy to measure anything and at most… we would weigh the boats at nationals. His rule changes were met with suspicion. Hobie and Nacra each tried to maintain the SMOD model. Nobody from the factories would admit that they did not like the F18 concept…. They were all for it… BUT… they loose money if sailors are allowed to modify their boats with NON FACTORY supplied stuff (F18 rules). So, they support nationals on Hobie Tiger using a one design rule that is different then the F18 rules and Nacra keeps the same basic rules but just insists on all NACRA sails and parts just like Hobie. Owners did follow the lead of the EU and took control of the F18 class, negotiated a way to certify boats as measuring in without having to get a measurement certificate for each boat and got in line with the F18 class world wide.
Where are we at today?
The F18HT class started to fall apart after the Worrell fiasco. The owners found that life prevented them from supporting the east coast racing agenda. Attendance dropped. WF Oliver’s personal life changed and he withdrew as a driving force in the Class. Peter Johnstone, of Gunboat and J boat fame took on a personal development program and spent a fortune rebuilding and redesigning his Bim. Great fun… but not able to be matched by the other sailors. The class’s development pedigree was viewed as the way to keep it going… the bleeding edge philosophy. However, unlike the F18 class where the cost of development was paid for by lots of EU sailors…. The 18HT development was paid for by a small number of US Sailors and they started to drop out as the price to play seemed too much. As Mike Krantz said… the Bim boat developed BS problems and was NOT suited for some of the sailing US Sailors were doing with it either. This issue speaks to the Bim boat... and not the class per se. The ICCT match racing challenge which selected the F18HT class over the Tornado kept interest alive but with the dollar now at 1.3 per euro… the enormous currency changes prohibit many new boats from either BIM OR Ventilo coming in to the US. The ICCT wanted to maintain the development feel of the event that on C Class's was called the little america's cup.
IMO, The class is fun to sail and challenging to keep it sailing well. The tall stick makes you pay for errors in breeze. There is more skiff character in the 18HT then in the F18.
The F18 class is growing and the I20 class is shrinking and the HT class is in hibernation. Only big guys and distance racers will be on the I20’s in short order. Almost all racers interested in triangles will pick an F18 and pray for wind… or a small and fit crew… Unlike in the EU… where the SMOD one design race has all but disappeared as important "must attend" events … the US builders have been able to keep this mentality going. Nacra and Hobie support nationals where the boats must use all SMOD parts. Your F18 legal boat is NOT Legal in these nationals. (bummer) Because Hobie Classes exclude all non Hobie F18’s from regattas in New York and California the F18 concept of run what you brung that fits the box rule is perverted. The NAF18 class has done a good job of running regional championships at existing regattas and finding hosts for the nationals. However, the US is not like the EU scene. Nevertheless sailors seem happy with the choices offered by Nacra or Hobie and are likely to continue supporting their SMOD nationals or the NAF18 nationals based on the time and money and the longstanding friends they have made in sailing ther SMOD classes over the years.
In the end, sailboat racing is a social contract… I agree to spend up to 20,000 bucks for a boat BECAUSE others of my group also agree to do the same AND they agree to race them under a set of rules explicit and implicit AND they agree to show up and race. The nature of the competition must be tacitly agreed to as well. Imagine the resentment that you would have if one of your competitors comes to a weekend regatta with a new spinnaker every regatta (AND he’s good enough to take advantage of it) A class’s strength is based on it’s ability to hold together and make changes that get buy in from the members. You have to have a lot of trust in your colleagues because your boat is a lot less valuable if you can’t race it and that is what motivates you in spending the 20 K for a race boat. But as Dave Ingham (Noted Portsmouth Hater) is prone to say… its not about the boat. I don’t completely agree… (I just couldn’t give up my Tornado for an I20) and Dave Krantz will tell you that a boat that doesn't hold up in the conditions that you want is a PIA as well. BUT the key to growing attendance in a class is to manage the social, competitive and resentment issues in the group. (I think that Portsmouth keeps more people racing what they have now and allows you to get to your formula class numbers when they upgrade to the dominant boat of the time.) BUT …. When Nacra introduced a NEW Melvin designed F18 yet continues to build the old Sirrus like F18 because they can’t get you a Melvin F18… …some people are bent out of shape… they feel they were undercut and the value of their existing boat was just trashed. Some are complaining … Oh for the good old days where the boats didn’t change and it was just about the racing/social group….
So, Will the US racer embrace the F18 model… or will they insist on going back to the SMOD model that has worked in the US for years. Time will tell… Personally, I would not be happy buying sails that weren’t perfect out of the box. The monopoly that the builders have in the SMOD usually gives you an inferior product that you won’t find if they have to compete for your buisnes…
Any one else have a different memory or point of view?
Mark
