This is not really a fair comparison, neither is it true.

There are 150 PURE F16's in the world and if we count the Taipan 4.9's with that group we get over 400 boats in total. Do the Spitfire and FX-one combined top that number ?

Basically the F104 is counting different designs as belonging to their class. But really how comparable is a Mattia Esse to say the Spitfire or the FX-one. For one thing the Mattia Esse has 17.25 sq. mtr. upwind sail area with the other two having 18.9 sq. mtr. and 19 sq.mtr. Similar differences exist between these boats and the BCM Energy. Between the F104 boats there is a rating difference of 5% already. The F16 class grandfathers boats but not by that much rating difference.

How many Cirrus Evolution are there about anyway. Basically the numbers of the F104 are made up of the Spitfires and the FX-ones. The rest are just 1 and 2's.

Spitfire claims over 150 boats sold; what does Hobie claim ?

The attendence at the last FX-one Europeans (their biggest event) was down right disappointing. FIVE boats raced.

http://www.eurohobie2007.com/files/risultatiFXONE.DOC

FX-one did better in 2006 with 10 boats participating in their Europeans, however not a single French team despite the fact the event was held in France :

http://www.eurohobie2006.com/resultats/eurofxone_s.htm

How about 2005, when the championship was held in the Netherlands, one of the regions with most FX-ones sold : 9 boats with 3 sailors over the age of 45 (and 2 over 50).

http://www.kzvg.nl/EK%20Hobie/ekhobieuitslagen.HTM

I wondered about this in the past but I don't see these attendence numbers as pointing to a class that sold many hundreds of boats. The Spitfires at least get 20 to 30 boats at their UK events. FX-one are thrilled to attract 10 boats to their UK nationals, that is if they held such an event at all since 2004. We never see more then 4 FX-ones at any Dutch event of magnitude, most often it is something like 1 or 2, seeing the 2-up version is even more rare. With only some 10 F16's in the Netherlands we achieve similar attendence numbers. I think we have a single Spitfire in the whole of the Netherlands; if was on sale for about 18 months before it switched owners.

I may be wrong but it does appear to me that the F104 is basically the French Spitfire class with a handful of FX-ones and some other boats thrown in. As such it is as we F16's were in the beginning. Mainly a Taipan 4.9 class with a few others thrown in. Nothing to be ashamed about, it can grow. However, claiming to contain more boats then the F16 class in the whole world seems like stretch to me. Afterall, using similar wide criteria we can count the Spitfires as F16's !

And I don't see UK + France having anything like 400 F104's. I'd surprised if there are more then 20 active F104 crews in the whole world, with all of them found in Northern France. Please correct me if I'm wrong.




Another interesting observation is that the F16 class can not converge on the F104 at all. Basically, our class rules are fixed and with the number of boat sold and our growth numbers we can't modifying anything or risk upsetting the class. In principle this means that all the converging has to be done by the F104 class, which they will not do as that means that they must become full F16's.

Personally, I don't believe in fighting any class directly (with the exception of the US 18HT class in 2003, we HAD to do that). I've come to the opinion that for each class the biggest fight is for survival on its own merits anyway. Most classes fail on that even without being pressured by a competing other class. The rest is just a came of winning territory. Currently the F16's are secure in all area's of the world, the class has gained its critical mass and isn't fighting for its survival anymore. The F104 first needs to achieve that and only then can it enjoy thoughts of "fighting" the F16 class for "dominance". Same problems are had by the nacra F17, FX-one and Spitfire classes. None of them are anywhere near achieving critical mass on a world scale. This is actually were alot of the 1000's of F16 class work hours went into. Creating a stable base world wide with at least 3 builders committed to supporting the class.





And your help is inmensely appreciated !




I think there was already a Taipan 4.9 + spi article in the Multihull World magazine a couple of years ago. It may be an idea to give it another go with the Blade or Stealth, but most of the time these mags request a sum of money and other privilegdes for having them write up an article. I have never seen the F16 class go to great lengths to achieve such a thing. Basically we grew (and grow) because we gave potential customers test rides and through our internet presence. This seems to have helped us very well. I personally rate multihull magazines rather low in importance. Most of the time it is a flash, such articles have no staying power. And we all know that these articles are written according to a standard template. Lay a couple of them next to one another and they pretty much all read the same.


I think what you are doing is best. Making the French sailors aware that the F16 class exist and that free personal test-rides can be arranged for seriously interested parties. From that the rest will follow. The F16 specs do a great job of convincing potential customers on their own.

Because what do you think any customer will choose out of the following comparison.

A 140 kg boat costing 14.500 without extra's like a snuffer setup or selftacker and having a rating of 1.04 and requiring a righting aid for solo sailors. http://www.sumhit.com/sites/bcm/fr/catamarans-options.asp?IdProduit=3

or a 110 kg F16, being cheaper at 14.165 Euro's when fully fitted with all "extra's" as standard and having a rating of 1.01 (or less) and not requiring a righting aid.

If this Evolution (more like a step back in evolution if you ask me) is made to directly compare to a standard F16 (snuffer, selftacker added) then it costs 15.560 Euro's. A singlehanded righting aid is added for another 215 Euro's. For 15.775 Euro one can have any F16 design fitted with a carbon rig (we call that a righting aid ! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> ) and be smack at 107 kg ready to race in 2-up mode.

I have yet to meet any sailor who would chosen differently then go for the F16.


And again, many thanks for your efforts !

Wouter

Few design differences, almost same overall weight and sail area... In my point of view, Spitfire, FXone and the BCM evolution could be considered as real F104, like blade, stealth and Viper are F16. Nevertheless, I agree with you that the F104 is mainly the spitfire with (very) few other design.

So, lets say that the F104 is only made of spitfire, then 150 spitfire can be compared to the 150 "true" F16. In one case, that's in france+UK, in the other case that's worldwide... My point is that there is a high concentration of spitfire in france, and that's why the F16 will have a hard time to grow there.

That is also the reason for what a sailor could choose a F104 instead of a F16 despite the better rating at the same price. A large class with high concentration of boats allows to do real time regattas and numbers of sailors really like to have that chance. That is already the case for the spitfire in some regattas (for example, the eurocat).
Make two differents set up of the same boat could bring some builder involved in the F104 to our class. And more builder mean more buzz...

"It may be an idea to give it another go with the Blade or Stealth, but most of the time these mags request a sum of money and other privilegdes for having them write up an article."

Given this, I agree with you, multihull is probably a bad idea...

"And again, many thanks for your efforts !"

You're very welcome, but you know I have a personnal interest in all this. I want to be able to do some real time F16 regattas in france when I will come back from the US and buy a blade (or the new bimare???)!!!

Ciao,
tom_in_fire.

Ps : Wouter, you seem to understand the french very well! Your traduction was quite good! Where did you learn french?

High school, taking French classes is conpulsory for all Dutch teenagers. When doing the course line preparing for a higher follow-up education like University, the minimal required time spend on French is four years. For me that was 20 years ago but whatever you learn as a kid you never forget. Same with German (But I did that for 6 years). English is conpulsory for the full length as of course Dutch is.

Best of luck !

Wouter

One of the main contributor of the french forum (Stéphane Etienne) is interested by trying a Blade. For sure he will not buy one, but a good review from him in the french forum will be a good avertisement for the F16.
Gill, I think your blade in Kokzijde is the closest. Would you agree to give him a ride test? If so, I could pass him your e-mail adress to arrange this...

Ciao,
Thomas.

Thomas,

I tried to post a few responses on this French forum, but I can't see them show up. I did log on and didn't receive any error messages. Do I need to be accepted somewhere or something ? Do you know ?

Wouter

To all,

I have been reading up on the F104 founding specifications and history and it is basically at the point were the F16 class was during 2001/2002. The official language of the class rules and such is French, this will seriously limit its cloud outside of France itself.

Even more interesting is the absolute similarity between this F104 and the F16. One wonders if these French sailors have ever researched the stuff that has happened outside of France in the last 6 years. Basically they are reinventing the wheel.

One of their "unique" points was defined earlier this year as establishing a class where the same boat can be raced 1-up and 2-up and against one another. Where did I see this concept before ?

Seem BCM(=Cirrus), Mattia, Sirena/Swell(=Spitfire and SL16) and Hobiecat were invited for the meeting where this class was founded.

On the blogs some old falsehood as rehashed again. Like the lightweight boats (F16's) being fragile for ocean going conditions and that that is the reason to have the ready to sail minimum weight at 135 kg. Even with events as recent as the Alter Cup and Global Challenge I think the F16's have disproven that canard beyond any doubt.

I hate to say it but they are setting us all up towards a big confrontation. France going F104 while the rest of world is going F16. In the end there can be only one. The only place still open to both being the UK.

I know it is an impossible thing to ask of the F104 sailors, but we must really ask them to consider not creating a whole new formula class so similar to the F16 and rather join hands and work together to grow the F16 class. The international succes of the F16 is already certain, with the joining of France it is even garanteed to became a major class like the A's and F18's. For the F104 to achieve that on its own is too unlikely with the US, Asia, South Africa, Australia and parts of Europe already going F16. Add to that the fact that AHPC, Bimare, Stealthmarine, Formula catamarans (Aussie Blade) and Vectorworks are are already committed to F16's.


The class rules basically specify as the F104 boats :

No faster rating then 1.04 under SCHRS system where also :

max length 5.52 mtr
max width 2.55 mtr
min ready to sail weight 135 kg

Mast, beams, boom, spi pole etc must all be straight alu sections
Carbon may not be used for hulls, mast, boom, spi pole or beams.

Old spi pole length rule, the "800 mm past bows when layed skewed over the boat" rule that confuses so many people.

All materials not explicetly allowed are forbidden

Then some additional rules very similar to F16 like having no minimum crew weight as long as the crew can right the craft unaided.


I actually wondered why they didn't create a F100 class and have the F16 play with them in the same fleet ?


All this does tell me that Gill was right all along. The F16 class really should make a trip to Eurocat (Carnac) in 2008 and let ourselves be seen in the French scene.

Wouter

Maybe Greg was aware of the F104 particulars when he designed/built the Viper?

Thomas,

Please note that the SCHRS (FFV) rating for the F16's is not right. It is currently listed as 1.020 and quoted as such in the French blog discussions. However, the true rating is 1.008 (with F18 being at 1.005). A similar correction will be made to the F16 solo handicap. The cause is that SCHRS is using incorrect data for the F16 rig. A request for correction has been send.

So the performance difference is more then what the French sailors think it is.

Wouter

I don't think so. I talked with Greg about this new AHPC F16 design ever since 3 years back while F104 was only formally launched in april 2007. And Greg mentioned time and time again since the start of the F16 class in 2001 that they would do a F16 if the class picked up and the Taipan wasn't the fastest installment into the class anymore. Looking back now, that is exactly what he did.

Besides, if he had known before hand (and wanted the Viper to be a F104) then he would have maximized it under the F104 dimensions. There is no point in making a 135 kg 16 footer when you can make a 135 kg 18 footer. Customers won't buy a 16 footer when the in-class competition puts out 17 and 18 footers, even if it is faster. Its a perception thing.

Besides the Viper is slated to be 125 kg, which is below the F104 minimum weight of 135 kg, and at that weight it is faster then the SCHRS handicap of 1.04 as well. Breaking the class rules on these two points already is not a good way to introduce a F104 boat.

No, that Viper is an F16, pure and simple; albeit a slightly obese one.

Wouter

Hey Wouter, me thinks that MarkP might just have been using a slight bit of Welsh humour there about the viper and you could have replied with just the obese line.

English for the Europeans must be so hard to understand as there are so many ways of expressing humour in written form unlike the European languages where there is no such thing. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Not really Wayne.

I have to reply in a serious manner or else a rumour will have been started.

Give a 100 people a clear quotation and 10% will misinteprete it.

Give a 100 people an ambiquious quotation and 10% will inteprete it right.




And that is what all mainland Europeans can understand and speak English but the English can't understand and speak any of the mainland European languages, right ?

The question here of course is whether I was serious or that this was a form of Dutch humour ?

Do you know ?

Wouter

Ahh, welsh humour. I still remember the "broken Blades" thread MarkP introduced himself with..

English humour is wonderful, caught "MP and the holy grail" on TV last weekend and had a real laugh. I think welsh humour need some facial expressions, intonation and body language to go with it before I get it, without having it pointed out to me.

Don't go there Rolf. I'm still trying to forget that thread which was just a summary of the recent problems posted by others but somebody shot the messenger with a machine gun.
On a more serious note. As Gill has already mentioned a couple of us are intending to travel to Carnac, France next April for the second biggest Cat Regatta in the World (Eurocat). At present there could be 4 F16's so it could be an excellent event if a few more would make it (any takers ?)

Mark,

in true Python style "On second thought, let's not go to the broken Blades thread. It is such a silly place." However, your arrival on the forum was a notable one <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Agree that the F-16 class need some serious representation in France to demonstrate the working F-16 concept. It is really too bad that the language barrier still is there.

Surely this cannot be true Wouter , the Chairman of SCHRS sails a f16 himself and was closely involved with the data collection this year for the current calculations I would be astonished to find that the f16 handicap is incorrect , or perhaps uk f16s are undersized ???

This problem predates the tenure of the new (F16 sailing) chairman. He inhereted it.

I've been trying to correct this rating for over 2 years now. Send mails to Olivier Boven (former chairman) and such but I never received a reply. Then with this discussion of F104 on the French forums and our errornous F16 SCHRS rating of 1.02 I gave correcting it another shot. And the new chairman is a dream to work with !

Basically what the problem comes down to it that I was able to arrange an F16 rating under SCHRS based on the class rules of 2003. Of course we modified the class rules somewhat in 2005, these class rule changes has never been taken up by the SCHRS committee and so they still list the old rating of 2003. The modifications to the F16 class rules were small indeed but under SCHRS they result in a 1.2% rating drop just the same. This is mostly due to the introduction of the higher aspect daggerboards, these are of course unregulated in the F16 class rules.

The good news is that the corrected F16 rating will be very close to that of the F18's again. Compare 1.005 for the F18's and (expected) 1.008 for the F16's ; about 10 secs per hour difference.

So under SCHRS we are practically back again to "first-in-wins"

The Texel Handicap has always been immediately adjusted to the changes. That is what I like so much about the Texel setup, among other things.



I wouldn't count on that !


Wouter

Is there anyone who knows what the number of similar boats is needed to have seperate results at Carnac?

Gill

I've been keeping on eye on this French forum, but it appears they are way behind the curve. Probably bcause they don't read any English Language websites. For example, they have just discovered T-foils because some Spitfire crews are adding them to their boats. And they are analysing equality of performance between the F18's and smaller lighter boats like the F104's (and F16's in the rest of the world). Not to mentioned the discussion if they should copy the F18 setup in having to different sets of sail area's for different crew weights. In the English language based scene these topics are already considered old, proven or discussed till their conclusion.

Basically, T-foils work, lighter smaller boat can be just as fast as the F18's and different sets of F18 sails don't work nearly as well as intended.

If one or two of them did a search on for example catsailor.com then they'll find most of their questions and considerations answered and proven with race results.

Also they are continueing to call the Viper F16 an F104, Stephane had to pull some tricks to "proof" his stance but the intent is clear. They want the Viper to be a F104 so as to claim an builder not local to France as getting into their F104 class.

F104 is basically a French class and from what I read non of the big builders like Nacra or Hobie is closely involved. At this time it is basically the Boulogne and Mattia yards with a group of private Spitfire owners. Again, Bimare is not longer actively supportive of the F104, in favour of a different 16 foot design and AHPC, well their Viper is an F16 with a rating of 1.030 were a raing of 104 or slower is allowed under F104.

I hope this updates the F16 class on what is happening overthere.

Wouter

How big is the Spitfire class, Wouter?

Just thinking positively for a moment, if F104 doesn't take off, does this suggest that Boulogne and Mattia could be convinced to build F16s? Is it in any way possible that those builders might not be aware of the F16? I'm trying to imagine what the business rationale would be behind marketing a boat that is a little slower that a competing class.

I've seen many claims, the highest being 250 boats sold. But I don't believe that. Mostly because we have 300 Taipan 4.9's sold since 1988 and you can see them pop up in race results everywhere in the world, their australian national seeing as much as 50 boats; how come that even with 250 Spitfires sold (since 1998) we only see them in results in France and the UK with about 30 boats at their largest event (Europeans in UK).

But real production numbers are hard to get by, but there is a trick to accurately make an estimate of their real numbers. Just note down all the sailnumbers you ever see in any race results. Also note down how many times the same sailnumber is encountered. The most accurate estimate of the number sold is then the highest sailnumber * (1 + 1/number of different sailnumbers encountered).

This trick was used to estimate enemy tanks, planes and artillery in WW2 and proved so accurate and succesful that modern wapon systems are no longer produced with nice sequencial serial numbers.

This method falls down when the sailnumbers are not started at 1 or when sailnumbers are passed over. Both tricks are often used by sailboat builders. However here is where the count of the encountering the same sailnumber comes in. Basically, it is possible to modify the above method to still produce accurate results even when sailnumbers are passed over. It is more complex but it can be done.

So if we really want to know the number of Spitfires sold then we can find out. I haven't done this in detail myself yet, but at first glance I come out at about 150 boats, which to me seems realistic for the combined market of UK and France knowing that the Spitfire is NOT a very popular boat like the F18. But if desired we can do the in depth analysis.





I find it very hard to believe that Boulogne doesn't know about the F16's. He must as his Dutch agent knows me well personally and is absolutely aware of the F16's. Surely the topic has come up between them. I even seem to recall the F16's have been discussed between them. I'm in the dark about Mattia though. I fear Boulogne and Mattia are not easily swayed towards the F16's. They are really held back by the light weight of the F16's.




The same reason why Nacra and Hobie are giving us 145 kg singlehanders. Ease of production and entlargement of the profit margin per boat. Most often by using the same parts as used on their F18's. An F16 must be designed as an F16 from the bottom up. It can not share components with other boats and be a succesful F16. Masts will be too heavy and too stiff, beams will be too heavy (for no real net stiffness gains), daggerboards and rudder setups will be ludicroudly overweight. F18 has a minimum weight for the daggerboard of 3 kg per single board for example. F16 boards PER PAIR are between 3.6 and 3.8 kg. F16 stocks are 0.4 kg where the F18 stocks are typically a few kg per stock.

The Viper F16 at the global challenge was measured at 137 kg including repairs and such. On the daggerboards, rudders, stocks and beams already 12 kg in total could have been saved. Greg practically said so himself. He had to used some Capricorn parts as the Viper parts were not all available.

Having 145 kg 16 foot boats is not necessary from a technical point of view even when using cheap basic materials like glass, aluminium and vinylester resin. Of course with kevlar, carbon and epoxy more can be done. Such heavy weights are as good as always inspired by economic considerations. Basically any 16 foot boat with spi over 125 kg is heavier because of those reasons. 107 kg is light for a 16 footer and it takes some effort to get there but beyond 125 kg even you and I could do it. Remember my homebuild Taipan F16 as build from 4 mm ply is 121.8 kg ready to sail in 2-up attire ! Lighter homebuild Taipans have been made by amateur builders all the way down to 105 kg (= excl. 5 kg for spinnaker package). So my boat is by no means special.

I feel the business rational is that they feel that they can corner the French market before the F16 class does, which is likely, and then not be forced to spend more effort in designing a proper racing catamaran like the F16's. For all other intents and purposes the F104 is identical to the F16 class. Same concepts of 1-up / 2-up and targetting the lighter F18 crews as well as the more recreational racers who switch roles often.

Wouter