Suze,

Allow me to be absolutely frank with you here.

It seems some Stealth sailors and reps are busy creating a myth here :




This was never said or written by anyone on this forum or in any other public place. Nor is it a good discription of an opinion that is to be found among the F16 sailors. And I do protest the way it is presented here and in other instances in the past.

I do understand where the core of this myth is to be found. And it points to myself. However I never said or thought that the Stealth F16 was a "... poor relation within the F16 circus ...". things like these have been invented over time since my comments back in 2002 when I wrote that the Stealth is a very good entry level boat. With that comment I refered to the very attractive price of the Stealth F16, which was 11.500 Euro's for a basic boat, in relation to the other classes like the F18's and even the more elaborate fitted and thus more expensive F16's. Afterall, I do consider the F16 class to be an entry level class for cat sailors aspiring to become more serious racers and who later may pass on to truly competitive classes like F18's. Ergo the choice of words "entry level" boats. I am also of the opinion that entry level sailors in any class aren't best served with the more complex and thus more expensive boats in the class, it is just a waste of money if their sailing skills are still so undevelopped. At the time of my comments the only other F16 in the class was the Taipan and that boat costed 16.000 Euro's. In direct comparison with the Taipan the Stealth design was indeed basic. Effective, but basic.

With respect to the "'not so serious racers" part of my comments, I'm not to sure whether I ever presented in that way. I seem to remember that I wrote something along the lines of "serious racers would prefer a more detailed and adjustable boat", which they most definately do. At the time of these writings the Stealth F16 was very basic in its fittings and overall design, while the Taipan was a very elaborately fitted design. For example the Stealth mast rotation system was only an arm, a line and a jam cleat on the boom; you have to come in from the trapeze to adjust it and the jam cleats are commonly regarded as undependable in enduring use. The Taipan for that matter allowed full adjustment from the trapeze and used cam cleats. This is quite honestly a difference that serious racers do consider significant especially singlehanded sailors. And it does differentiate between the Taipan and the Stealth, as was the topic of my post at that time. These comments were made when comparing these two boats directly to eachother. It was not a put-down on the Stealth just a completely honest obvervation.

For some reason some Stealth related persons felt deeply offended by these comments even though the meaning behind these is pretty innocent. As with all designs the stealth has strong points and not so strong points. For some reason you choose to only see my comments of the "not so strong" kind and just pass on my other comments that described the "strong points". And to compound on that, the story has be reinvented to an increasingly more outragious case over the past few years. The truthfullness in it has now long been lost.

To that I now take offense.

Even more so because of my fair dealings with each builder over the years. Stealth sailors shoudln't fool themself that they were the only ones to have heard some critique over the years. Far from it. I remember much more difficult situations involving the Bim design for example. So by any standard, Stealth is not considered to be the ugly little duck in the F16 class and never was. I, nor anybody else, is not out to "get" you. The design and builder is, and always has been, considered a fully respected member of the F16 class.

I hope this clearifies the situation to outsiders and I trust we can put this recurrent theme to rest now.

Wouter