Phill, what's your view of F12 as a concept (actually or preferably)? A loose alliance of people interested in junior sailing? A box rule? An international OD class? To put it another way, if Luiz were to take on the role of leader (not that I think that's likely, he's made his position clear), what exactly would he be leading?

How do you see the Blade 12 fitting in to the F12 picture? From your comments it sounds like maybe you see it as a feeder into an F12 that would be aimed at 12+ y.o.'s. Or do you see the Blade as a candidate F12 one design? Or one of several designs competing within a Formula class box rule?

Mark,
That is probably quite logical.
Regards,
Phill

Thanks Phill, that is consistent with the school of thought that F12 should aim at somewhere around 12 y.o. and up (or perhaps a couple of younger kids). And both RG's and Scarecrow's designs with boards and a stayed mast and the possibility of trapezing seem appropriate for the slightly older group rather than the very youngest kids just starting out. However it would be helpful to get comment from both of them on whether they see things this way.

Mark I'm aiming for under 12's with Scarecrows boat it is a very cheap basic design. Though Scarecrow looks like he's been chased off line he's doing a bit behind the scenes and at least 3 boats that I know of are to commence building shortly at 3 different clubs in a 700km stretch. So we have the start of a class down here.
regards

Do the existing F12 rules accomodate all the group's designs (Phill's too)? Is it necessary to widen the definitions so that everyone is "in"?

Also, I propose to vote the unified class rules rules as soon as possible, allowing only enough time to build and test the designs. I am afraid that if we take long too many different boats will be built, which would influence votes. Is three months enough?

We need everyone's support to go on with this. Remember: everybody will benefit if we converge to a reasonable class and all can support his own designs as well.

Agreed?

I agree with Wouter and Phil, I think you would make the perfect choice for leader of the F12 project. Wouter has done an excellent job in laying the groundwork with the class rules and there are a number of designs being built now, so much of the work has been done, I think you could just continue this work.

I hope you will reconsider.

Gareth

You are all too inteligent to really need a leader. I guess we can go on without one if we use our common sense and keep in mind that this is not a zero sum game: we will all win together.

What I can do is what I am already doing, try to keep things organized and moderate when necessary. I believe this will suffice to reduce frictions enough to achieve our goals.

I haven't been chased off line Jeff, just trying to avoid the need to put on staff 3 weeks before christmas. For those that are interested my design is basically ready to go I'll be printing out a full set of drawings this afternoon and checking them through before finalising them and sending them off to eager parties tomorrow. Its basically as per the renderings posted a couple of weeks ago although I have added an alternate deck detail for those who want a more rounded look to the topsides than stitch and glue construction allows (you know who you are).

With regards to rules, I know of approx 8-9 F12 boats (including Phills) due to go in to construction over the next month and the only one that falls outside the basic box of 3.75 x 2 is Phill's. As far as I know both mine and RGs fit the 4 rule box (length, beam, sail area, weight) although I won't be suggesting to the guys building my boats that they add weight at this stage. As stated before I don't see any value in mandating stay or stayless etc as I believe the class will settle into a "prefered" solution over time as it will for boards or skegs. My boat has stays because I believe this is easier for kids to rig on their own (its much easier to lift a mast and then pull a sail up then to do them both together). While it will be possible to fit traps to my design they are not part of the basic design and are by no means necessary.

Luiz, I'll add my vote to you being the first president of the International F12 Association. And will re-state my offer to host a dedicated web site. I've started drafting something up but really don't have much time so if someone else wants to do the work I'm happy to let them (don't all jump fwd at once).

What I would really like to see is someone from the US put their hand up to get moving (pick a design any design) as all the actual development seems to be coming from Australia (NZ is actually an Australian state we just don't always admit it as we find the kiwis a bit rough around the edges).

Here is where I'm at web site wise: Those whose emails are listed if you want them removed please tell be.

You appear to have been chased online Scarecrow <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. Nice site and a great line up of boats, definately rounded look for me, cant wait to see some floating and those two 420's of mine gone. My new motto is every time kids sail a mono ISAF kills a cat.
regards

Now we are getting somewhere !





I know it is fashionable to discard the EU branch of the F12 (you know, the original one !) but we too are very active overhere <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> and that includes the building of a prototype in the new year.

We just don't have any slick CAD pictures. This is most the result of me being an old school designer. I like the combination of mathematics and pencil/paper very much. Maybe some of the other volunteer can us a one ?


We are working on a deep V-ed (boardless and skegless) design along the following lines :

length 3.75 mtr (ex. pintles/rudders)
width 2.00 mtr (ex T-foils and other fittings like the tiller extension)
weight min 60 kg
mast 6.00 mtr
mainsail area 7.00 sq. mtr (sleeved c.q. pocket luff)
mainsail luff length 5.30 mtr

Boat will have a collapsable unstayed rig (push rod setup) with a tapered aluminium mast made from prismatic alu tubing. Boat will also have twin T-foil kick-up rudders fitted to the sterns.

So it look like this design will be compliant with the limitations as specified on the webpage. It still prefer a tighter rule set though.

Wouter

Please feel free to use the email sysfx@yahoo.com for the "South America" contact and to reach me.

Whatever title you use, it won't make me able to design a "International F12". Only through your work it is possible to get a boat with real chances to become THE entry cat for kids.

We already have:

-The initial box rule
-Four years of work
-Four designers
-Four designs more or less compliant
-A website draft
-Many domains, if RG is not upset (is he?)
-This forum and its participants
-A list of common goals (to be expanded)
-A bureaucrat to list obvious things

We still need to:

-Build and test the design prototpes - 3 mths?
-Agree or vote (if unavoidable) the OD rules - a week?
-Start the Class Association - during those 3 mths, maybe?
-Build first OD boats
-"Sell" the class (marketing plan)
-Organize races/events
-Expand the previous items into a work plan.

Do we know how many people are following this group besides the designers? Anyone experienced in the preparation of work plans and/or marketing plans?

Luiz,

Based on your post, it sounds like you still see F12 as a OD class. Is this correct? I know this is what was being pursued for a long time, but based on the material on the draft F12 website, it looks like Scarecrow for one may not hold this view. And Phill has suggested that the Blade may be a feeder into F12.

These are fundamental issues. I think it's important to make sure that everyone is one the same page (or at least figure out if they're not).

Mark.

No, he is just busy with an unrelated project, he will be back in a short while.

Wouter

Just to be clear on this, I can work under these 4 rules but I strongly prefer a more strickt rules set that is not an exclusive OD class. I think the current 4 rules are still top open to really give ourselves a really good chance for a succesful youth class launch.

I really would like to see the engines be highly equalized by ruling on the max luff length and max mast length. That will go a very long way in forcing equal performance over the different makes.

I also feel that rule forcing the boats to be boardless is very good to have. It is just so much easier then boards and the performance difference of the boards is too small to really be significant anyway.

Wouter

We are just following the lessons learned from the Optimist class. They had to change into a very strict one design due to pissing contests between parents trying to buy an edge to their kids and raising costs exponentially in the process. One of our goals is that low price homebuilt cats remain competitive against more expensive serial production boats.




This is voluntary work and it is impossible to force anyone to do or not to do anything. It is ok to develop four similar boats around a core concept, test them and then decide what works best for a OD class.

If a given design also succeeds by its own merits, it means that it is a good design and more of its features should be used in the group's project. In the end, the more successfull a design results, the more it competes with this project - but the greater its contribution to the project's success as well. Fair enough?

Internal competition should not be a problem if we do our work well. The combined work of four designers should result in a better selling boat than the four originl boats. Maybe not in each designer's influence area, but certainly in the global market, which is our goal.

What I do worry about is the possibility that big manufacturers refuse to support the class and use the work published here to develop their own youth cat. We must protect the project from this risk.

The final class rules discussion and definition (or vote) can be done by email to keep the data non-public. At that time we should have the class association runing to register the rights as its property. Afterwards it will be safe to offer the plans for serial production in large companies.

Luiz

"What I do worry about is the possibility that big manufacturers refuse to support the class and use the work published here to develop their own youth cat. We must protect the project from this risk."

Is this a problem?
I thought the purpose was to get kids onto cats. Any cat

It's potentially a problem. I believe the thinking is that a single OD class may end up putting more kids into cats in total than the sum of those that might otherwise take to a number of smaller independent classes - due to the benefits of global critical mass. The attractiveness of a particular boat for racing is related to the number of other people for you to race against. Coalescing around a single design is more likely to generate sizable fleets that will attract more and more sailors.

We need an international entry level cat to compete with the typical monohull entry level dinghies: Optimist and Laser.

(A 12 ft platform with two sail plans seems to be a good setup for the entire age range covered by the two dinghies)

The Optimist and Laser are a lot more efficient atracting kids than Optimist-like and Laser-like classes. The reasons are many, we are just copying them to make an international OD entry level cat class, designed to atract kids to cats with more effiiency than "any cat" classes.

If a big manufacturer develops its own entry level cat, it will result in higher prices, restricted distribuition, impossibility to build at home, lack of competition to reduce prices/improve parts, etc.

We want to create the boat and the class association. Afterwards the association will offer the plans to manufacturers for serial and kit production, as well as to individuals for home construction. This will spread the class around the world faster and increase the chances of success.

Sorry for being away for a bit, but various stuff required most of my attention lately.

Don't think its very smart to put a time limit on the home builders as experience varies from some to none at all.

How did we get from 4 designs to an OD ?

Luiz...the sites are still available, chatted to scarecrow last week and we are all organised to get that started as soon as he finalises the pages.

Cheers
RG

Thats easy we have 4 OD, that keeps the OD people happy and the non OD happy <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />