I am not sure the big boys will ever consider the F16's as their market place, they make robust beach cats not racing cats which the F16's are. There are just too few hard core racers willing to spend 10k on a boat and once those hard core have boats then you aren't going to sell many more without changing the design regularly.

Certainly from a previous business I learnt early on you have to look at the mass markets and not the niche market for big number sales. To the likes of the niche manufacturers like Stealth however there lies a small rich market of budding racers, a small enough market not to interest the big boys and yet big enough for small adaptable companies to make a good living.

The only time this situation will change is if one of the big boys decides to make a 16ft robust beach cat at about 125kgs to replace an existing out dated model, their brand name plus loyal customer base will buy in the knowledge there resale value will be high, initial cost not to much, longevity will be good, adaptable 1 up or two sailing and they will only be 30 seconds slower over 1 hours sailing in an emerging racing class <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Nacra has come out with about 3 different F18's in the last 3 years

I give you the Nacra A3, the Melvin designed and built A cat marketed by Nacra. If the A cats can do it with their low numbers but dedicated A cat sailors, then the F16's can do it too, if they want to.

BTW, while Nacra has come out with about 3 different F18's in the last 3 years, Hobie is still selling the same old Tiger and doing quite well with it.