Mr. Kirby Haws is selling his Taipan F16. His ads is in the Classifieds section of www.catsailor.com

The describtion is :

Taipan/F-16 -- 1994 #032.
Excellent condition.
New Harken 8:1 main block and sheet.
Recent tramp.
2 mains,
2 jibs,
spinnaker with snuffer,
trailer + box
beach wheels.
Seller motivated.
Daytona. 386-235-4911 (florida)

Mr. Haws is upgrading to a 38ft cruising cat.

This boat was previously owned by Micheal Coffman who won the Round the Island race with it. Alot of the stuff, like an F16 mainsail, F16 jib, F16 spinnaker/snuffer were bought by him in 2002 an 2003, so quite new. The jib is an aftermarket non-overlapping Goodall jib. It is sheeted of blocks fitted directly to the mainbeam. It is not selftacking but there is also no jib sheet on the trampoline that typically is in the way of the crew on standard Taipan 4.9's. I seem to remember that the spinnaker is a Smyth spinnaker. By all means it is a Taipan F16 over a Taipan 4.9. The other set of sails are the standard OD Taipan 4.9 sails.

I personally think this boat to be an attractive buy when looking at the state it is in compared to the expected selling price. In addition this boat will be an attractive buy by the Blade homebuilders in the USA. You won't be able to buy the required (shared) hardware for the same price when new. As far as I can tell the mast, mainsails, spinnaker setup, rudders + rudder stocks, boards, all blocks and fittings can be directly used on a homebuild Blade F16. If you want to safe money on homebuilding then this deal is the ticket for it.

Here are some pictures of the boat when Micheal was making the upgrades :




See here the modified jib setup. A new jib was bought for this setup.




Here Spellbound (The boat on offer) being raced at the JPOR regatta in 2003 by Micheal Coffman.



Wouter