hi paul,

yeah, i was watching at the weston drift a couple of months ago and no it wasn't me in garda.

the 700 was an utter beast of a boat. the speed and power downwind (and upwind for that matter) was awesome, but gybing was always a 50-50 chance. if i had really knuckled down and practiced i probably could have got on with it, as it was i just got depressed about having to try and compete with loads of skiff experts. the appeal of the f16 is "the thrill of the 700 but with stabilisers on" which probably shows my total ignorance and misguided beliefs about cat sailing <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />. would this be even vaguely acurate?

to everyone else who's responded - thank you very much for your help. it has shown some interesting questions which i need to bottom out; my nearest Acat supplier claims to be an agent for the AHPC flyer yet people here are telling me that they've stopped producing this with the introduction of the gel-tec flyer2. i'm also going to have to send mr. saarberg an e-mail to find out what's going on with the tool (the catamaranparts website is completely blank on the a-class page)