Personally I think the FX-one is a better 2-up boat then it is a 1-up boat. I think I have been saying this for years now. At least this is what my personal experience with the FX-one is.


4 knots of wind are often luck-bad luck races. You, or some other crew, can easily have found a wind band or a hole. My own experience is that in these winds from 0 to 5 knots the slower rated boats typically do better on handicap. That is because any time the fleet is caught in a wind hole the clock keeps ticking slower for the slower rated boats. In effect, nobody is going anywhere but the slower boats win time as they are awarded increasingly more time to float around.

I've seen exactly the same thing happen in yesterdays club race of mine. Additionally the slower boats often don't have a spinnaker and a spinnaker in 0-5 knots of wind is often not really helpful. Yesterday alot of spi boats just dropped their spi's as they wouldn't stay filled. They still get the penalty hit for having one though.

Anyway. In general I think the Texel rating difference between the FX-one and F16's is correct. The speed difference is about 3% - 5%.

2 min (120 sec) in one hour racing (3600 sec) is 3.33% time difference. So on this info, I would say that yes, on a F16 you could have been among the pack of 5 F18's and maybe even have come in first. I wrote "could" and not "would" as races in these light winds require alot of skill and a very good portion of luck. Either one of these are unrelated to the type of boat chosen.


But he, don't let this spoil your pleasure in sailing well !!!

Nice going there Gill.

Wouter