If you ask people what they think of the Dart Hawk (the boat I believe was measured for the initial SCHRS number for F18) people will say, nice boat at the time, but slow now.
I think the dart hawk is one of the most misused examples of the catamaran scene. That design will go very well in todays F18 fleet if only somebody took the effort to put a decent rig on it. The hull design etc are just very good. This boat was killed because of other factors, like a british pound that was overvalued making the boats very expensive to mainland europeans and the fact that it good a bad rep because no professional crews were sailing it. This statrted the rumour that the Hawk was a slow boat because the crews that did sail it where your average recreational sailors who understandibly didn't finish very high in the professional sailor dominated F18 class.
Personally I think the Hawk to be a better platform then the Nacra Inter-18 and Nacra F18. It just needs to have a modern rig.
Wouter
