It kind of depends where in the country you are sailing. I moved to FL from an area where you sailed a Hobie or did not race at all (16 or 20, the other Hobie models were treated the same as the other X brands)

When I came to FL it seamed there was at least 1 of every boat made at any given regatta. There was a pretty core group of I20's but they all disbanded to jump on the F18 bandwagon a couple of years ago, other wise it was portsmouth racing. I will not argue the plus and minus of Portsmouth racing again in this tread, but to compete head to head on our H16 with the big boats it had to be blowing 30 plus which is pretty rare in Florida.

When we started looking to upgrade everyone pushed the F18 class as the next great thing, but shy of Nationals there was not realy any more racing locally than anything else. I ended up not going that way due to the weight (both boat and required crew) The F16 fit exactly with what I was wanting in a boat. I now have a boat that is competitve on the water and is a blast to sail. I may not be able to beat the big dogs but that is me as I would most likely not have beaten them even if I was on the same platform.

Sail what works for you. If you want to race and there is handicap racing then your choices are endless, but you can not listen to what people say especially on this forum. Wouter gets pretty wound up about this, but as far as miss-truths go, there is significantly more negative bashing going on than the opposite.

See you on the water

Matt

(Who knows, Tradewinds, we may even be on the big course this year) <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />