I'm not ruling out windsurf rigs and that has been my personal opinion from the beginning.

As the situation stands a windsurf rig can be fitted to the F12. I see no need to forbid it.

Still the designing I've done so far does not enclose optimizing a windsurf style rig. The reasons for this decision are as follows :



-1- Cost limitations

A class 5 mast can be homebuild by an absolute amatuer.


-2- Sail efficiency.

A sailboat rig at this time can have a significantly higher aspect ratio then the windsurf rig.

I'm not sure that the current lower aspect surfer sails can easily be scaled up while retaining their excellent behavior.


-3- A cat is significantly different from a surfboard

In my experience a catamaran has a much lower need for gust response then both skiffs and sailboards. Having the sail respond to a gust while it is not necessary means losing performance. At this time I feel a more conventional catamaran rig is more suited to getting optimal performance over the full range of conditions from light to strong. It not about holding a sail down in all conditions, it is also about getting maximal performance in all of these conditions.


-4- Windsurf sails don't really have a mainsheet system that affects the leech tension.

In affect with a more conventional rig you have one extra tuning control. With f12 you have two more as the traveller setup can be set to windward (something normal cat traveller systems can't do).


-5- I'm personally not experienced in windsurfer sails.

I understand catamaran sails to a large extend and surf sails to a much lesser extend. In effect I do what I know best. Maybe somebody else needs to do the design work involved with F12 windsurfer sails ?



But again these are not reason why the surf rig is disguarded (it is not), they are only reasons why I'm not developping it further as opposed to the class 5 landyacht based rig.

But if anybody else wants to spend some time on this I'll be very interested to hear the results.

Wouter