Bobke'

On paper if you consider the simple and stupid sail area to weight ratio comparison, the F-16 both in both double handed sloop and singlehanded uni configurations looks really good against a lot of boats (especially downwind) so that's why I'm interested in seeing the F-16 comparison to the I-17 with evenly matched sailors. A couple of years ago, I watched Jim Boyer race a spinnakerless Taipan 4.9 at Rehoboth. I was sailing with WF on the 18HT and we were amazed at how close the upwind performance of the Taipan was to the 18HT in 12-14 knots (keep in mind Jim did not have the weight of the spinnaker and snuffer on the boat).

I'm interested in the F-16 concept because I'm getting very involved in my yacht club's junior program as the 420 and Laser Radial coach. The kids just salivate over my A2 and I'll be "ruining" several of them in the near future taking them out for a sail. However, my A-class is not a double handed boat so I'm interested in the F-16 for the sole purpose to introduce these young sailors (I'm talking 12-18 year old teens) to state of the art high performance catamaran sailing. F-18 and I-20 are too heavy to handle and have too much sail area for these smaller sailors. The F-16 looks like a great recipe and the 230 lb overall weight is very attractive. Plus both the Taipan and the Blade are built extremely well.

The other thing I like about the F-16 is the bang for the buck. For around $15K, you can get a fully tricked out boat with trailer and covers and have the flexibility to race singlehanded and doublehanded.

But my favorite singlehander and boat is still the A-class. The quality of competition, simplicity, and ease of use factors are just too strong a draw and I credit the class for getting me really passionate again about cat sailing. And the boats are just so elegant on the water (clean and simple).

The Hobie Tiger, Nacra Infusion, and the I-17 are extremely
well designed and are good looking "sexy" boats but at this point I just could never see myself spending money on a 16' to 18' platform that weighs over 260 lbs. The A-cat and 18HT (and my lower back!) have skewed my preference too much towards the performance of the lighter platforms.

Bob Hodges