F16 forum is now the second biggest forum on catsailor.

Number 1 is of course the good old Open forum with 10.028 posts. Hobie 16 forum used to be the second in line with 1554 posts but has just been overtaken by this F16 forum with 1556 posts. To a large extend thanks to Brobu and his tuning thread but he mostly tipped the balance.

Now it is questionable how long we can retain this honour but considering that we started a big later than the H16 forum changes are that after a few exchanges of place we'll be permanently in front.

But far more important is that catsailor features the most active forums in the world and being second on that site places us very high on the world ranking list. with 2,85 posts per day this forum is able to make it worth while checking it daily or bi-daily. Often stagnation is the problem of other sailing forums.

Personally I must say that I enjoy this forum very much, especially posts made by Aussie sailors about tuning and the event reports that really are starting to become a good tradition.

On another personal note, with this post I retake my hall of fame poster status with a 1000 post. I earned that title before but it was taken away when they saw 1000 posts was not to far away.

To another year of 2,85 posts per day average !

wouter

It could actually become the biggest, if as many people responded to my question on how to sail with a spinnaker
as they did on how to sail an I-17 upwind ! At least now we all know how to go fast upwind if we ever sell our
16ft boats & all buy I-17`s, in which case this forum will no longer continue to grow ! (That was a joke, for those
who are easily offended - stop reading now !).
I wondered why there was very little useful info in reply to my question - I`m new to spinnakers so asked if
anyone knew the right or wrong way to sail with one. A lack of informative responses led me to believe one of
two things : a) that the F16 sailors haven`t had much experience with spinnakers either, in which case they do
not have the knowledge to share; or
b) that they do know how to sail with a spinnaker (fast) but don`t want to share information.
Looking at the responses to brobru`s query, I`m inclined to discard option b, which leaves me to the conclusion
that spinnakers are new to all of us & no-one knows the right technique ?
Any takers ? Or do I need to post this on the Open Forum (where I might get LOTS of responses, and they`ll just
keep on getting bigger, until they take over the world .....)

Cheers
Steve

Steve-
Well, I can only respond for the F16'ers I know (in the US) and most of us fall into your first category-
We are still trying to "sort them out" completely up here so I don't feel like any kind of an expert on that subject. I can tell you my impressions and experiences and what I have been told but I think this is clearly the largest area right now for gains in our boats and indeed the entire catamaran community. I have both the 21 sqm and 17 sqm chutes for my boat and which is "faster" I think depends a lot on conditions and I am now thinking that in certain conditions a quite small, flat and high aspect spinnaker may be quite a lot faster. These sails add a whole new dimension to our sailing, just like when the "Wild Thing" was perfected or prebent rigs etc. it takes a while to sort it out, especially in a non-onedesign class where many parameters can be changed- And there has been discussion about long poles, short poles, lifting of the bows by spis (allowing planing), steering issues, what's best for a cat rig vs sloop, etc. I have been mostly occupied this last season with developing a means of hoisting/snuffing- which is necessary (on a cat rig anyway) to comfortably just using these sails-

Kirt

I must admit that I saw your post and wanted to react but was to busy at the time and forgot about it. My appologies.

Although I now see that you did get 3 replies to your question.

I will post my comments shortly.

Wouter

Seems I never saw this forum get more posts than the H 16 forum. Currently you all are at 1616 and the H 16 forum is at 1634. No matter its not like the Catsailor forums are the place Hobie sailors come to talk. Actually I know very few H 16 sailors that post on the H 16 Catsailor forum so you should pass it in posts easily sense this is probably the place most F16 sailors come to. It does seem to me you all have more to talk about than the H 16 sailors do sense you all are still developing and re-designing your boats, etc. I am surpised the F18 forum is not doing better.

Well yeah I expected the F18 to do better too, but it never really got of the ground.

The F16 forum was ahead for a week or so and than the H16 had a few fruitful threads. I suspect the 2 nd place will go back and forth several times this year.

We are indeed still refining the boats and stuff, but then again you in class member by a factor of 100.000 to 100 !

Wouter