Check this out:
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/cata/messages/17740?o=1&xm=1&l=1

It seems that Greg Goodall, himself, is claiming that the VIPER is a F16 and a F104... I don't quite get it as for me the mininum overall weight for a F104 is 135kg...
I will also add that I don't understand how the same boat could claim a F16 rating (of 1.008) and a 1.04 rating. It's either a very slow F16 or a very fast F104. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

After several weeks now, this is still not clarified and this has some influence in the french catamaran sailor community...

Ciao,
tom_in_fire.

When some time ago the Viper claimed a 1.04 rating "because of weight" I was already thinking Greg was playing on 2 horses.
Now the worst thing that could happen is that Greg sells his Viper as an F104 in France, because then Nacra, Hobie and AHPC have a F104 and it will be difficult to encourage Cirrus or Mattia or anyone to built an F16 compliant model.
Again resulting in difficult sales in France and difficult class building.

Gill

Yep.

Thing is will anyone buy a 135kg F16 ? (I assume unless it's very cheap that is a no.); I believe the target weight for the Viper is 125kg.

Will people outside France adopt F104 ? I currently cannot see it.

1, In the UK the Spitfire is the only other boat that is "around 104" on current SCHRS (1.035) and I doubt the Spitfires would be interested in diluting their UK series with other boats. What are the F104 class rules? Or is it just that you have to rate 1.040 ? (note the extra "0" - SCHRS is now 3 decimal places).
2, There is a F16 fleet in the UK and we quite happily co-exist with the Spitfires. I don't see a "heavy F16 selling to F16 sailors or a F104 selling to Spitfire sailors.
3, Will the other parts of the EU buy into F104 ? Not sure; I'd hope there are enough F16's in the NL to reach critical mass. Other places are more of a 50/50.
4, Will people with F16's want to sail a heavier boat (not me, I bought a light boat and I want it to stay that way).

Greg used the wrong handicap calculator; he uses Texel to get to the 104 rating while the French sailors use the SCHRS or FFV handicap system to get at 1.04 rating.

There is a slight difference between these two handicap systems. Greg needs to increase the weight of his Viper to 131 kg or more to get to the 1.04 handicap rating under SCHRS/FFV as required by the F104 class (if we can call it that). The right amount of additional weight is dependent on the aspect ratio of his daggerboards.

Of course nothing is as easy as pouring an additional 6 kg resin into the hulls.

So yes Greg is still partly right, he can always make a F104 out of his Viper F16. Just start adding weight till you get there. And take the difference out of the competitive weight range.

The boat will still cost the same of course. But look at the bright side, you'll get 6 kg of additional weight for no extra charge !

Interestingly enough you can also transform an F16 into a full compliant F18, just add 70 kg of weight to the boat. Transforming an F16 to the F20 ? No problem, add more weight again.

As the F16 is such a small boat it complies with all the class rules of other formula classes except the weight rule.

Wouter

I really don't think we need to worry to much about the French F104 class. It may well be a setback with respect to getting the F16 class to France, but in the rest of the world the F104 won't make it. F16 is too well developped there and customers will simply not be interested in another 135+ kg "singlehander". The Asians and Aussies are already spoiled by the Taipans, A-cats and F16's. They will not be impressed by a 135 kg boat, they feel the 125 kg Viper is pushing its luck as it is. The US will be out of reach because of the Dollar-Euro exchange rate going south. UK and NL are going F16. And because of (again) the Dollar-Euro exchange rate, the VWM Blade will be very attractively priced against any EU build F104. Less cost, less weight, more performance; A difficult choice if there ever was one.

Shouldn't be to hard to survive this.

Besides, if we really have to then the F16 class can do well without France, but the F104 can not do well without the rest of the world (outside of France).

Wouter

Yes but has anyone ever seen the 125kg Viper? Perhaps in reality they will not need to add any extra weight to make the French F104 class. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Simon, Wouter,

You are correct, the F104 will not grow out of France and the class consists out of cats with the same rating, but is not at all a formula class. Differences in mast lenght, lenght and width of the boats and so on prevents a fair race...

Also the class is not developped at all...

But still, better to have one class in Europe, then having 2 aiming for the same goal.

A clear statement from a well known catamaran builder like AHPC would have promote F16 in france.
Very few people know Stealth, Vectorworks or catamaranparts in france. The known builders are known because they have build competitive F18, and AHPC is one of them. Now with this statement, all the known manufacturer in france have theirs F104 (nacra,hobie cat,AHPC now, BCM (cirrus))...
And the fact that AHPC promote their F16 like a F104 in france give you a clue about the importance of the french market. F104 will not grow outside france, but france has one of the most active catamaran community so that it is not nothing for the F16 to not penetrate that community (I'm not shure I'm clear here <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />).
That's too bad because I thought the viper would have been able to drag some attention to the F16 class...

Bah, no big deal, a beautiful blond single handed on a blade at the next eurocat could do the job <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />.

Ciao,
Thomas.

haha, that would get attention...anyone willing to help get a hot blonde on the water? Sex always sells!

Maybe a blonde will not do the job, but she can do my jib... ;-)

Tom, I think your partly right. On the other hand, the class still needs years to devellop (even only in France) and at the moment no real unity consist between models... 2 mayor drawbacks...

Tom, I also sent you a PM.

Gill

You are completely right here and indeed if "we" drop the ball on this one then we'll allow ourselfs to fight a setback later. Better be smart now and do without. A good promo at Carnac next year may help alot.

Wouter

I agree with Wouter (a first!!) and would making this event our 2008 Nations Cup help swell the numbers or do people think it's to early in the season for such a prestigious regatta?

How does F104 work then. Do all boats have to rate to exactly 1.040 on SCHRS ?

If so the Spitfire no longer qialifies as the rating is 1.035 ?

Or do the F104 class round the SCHRS rating to 2 decimal places and so anything from SCHRS rating 1.035 to 1.045 qualifies as F104!

anything between 1.035 to 1.045 with a minimum weight of 135Kgs mass produced in more than a certain number of units (5?). But this is completely unofficial as there is no FFV approved class, just people who want to race on real time with each other.

So far the 104 class is composed of Spitfire, Hobie FX-one, Matia S and Cirrus Evolution.