John,
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<br>>> bearing in mind with the longer mast you can have a longer spinnaker luff length.
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<br>While Thinking about your comment I'm inclined to risk it on the mast heigth and to fix the draw of the genaker as Steward proposed. This will defuse the biggest danger (genaker luff length) and satisfy the wish of having as little restrictions as possible as to allow for development.
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<br>Somehow I don't fear an arms race on mast height. Only experimenting to proof the validity of the rated mainsail area formula will show wether an arms race is really to be feared.
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<br>>>Personally I would fix the mast length (8.5m) seems about right, then at least there is only sail developement to pay for, and sails are a consumable item anyway, a boat owner >>would hope that their mast would last the life of the boat.
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<br>As remarked by a gorupmember , this will put BIM out of the F16HT. How high isnthe Stealth mast ? For the Taipan and BIM are quite close to one another.
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<br>>>On another issue I have been running some figures through the texel and isaf handicap formulae: to get a 16ft boat weighing 100kgs with a 17sqm kite to rate the same as an f18 you end up with main around 15.5 sqm (with mast) and >>jib about 3.2sqm.
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<br>Do you have the ISAF formulae ?!? Can you send them to me please. I've been trying to get them but no-one has responded to my e-mails yet. You don't have the FFV formulae as well do you ?
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<br>BTW , you've used the 8.5 mast = 8 m luff in the formulae
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<br>Texel gives 14,85 sq.mtr. by 8 m luff and 3,35 by 4,7 m luff
<br>Anyhow, It would very much like to fo the check calculation in ISAF or FFV too.
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<br>>>Now we sail the stealth with main 13.75 m and jib 4.9 m, not much difference in all up area, but the boat is only 2.29 m wide, increase the beam by 300mm and the righting moment goes up by about 13%, our crew weight is 148kgs (325lbs), I wonder if we may be designing a boat for lightweight crews, just a thought has anybody looked at this?
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<br>I'm confused by what you say in your last sentence. Can you clarify please.
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<br>Wouter
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