Sorry to ask this contentious question but seeking objective views ..I am planning to buy one of these in the coming months and have no chance to see and sail all boats myself. My main experience to date is on H16 and 8.5m racing cats ...so subtleties of line set up hull volume etc on the different boats is not so clear to me

-I will not have f16 class racing just relaxed open class racing so a super light boat to be super competitive is not a high priority

- Sailing solo 75kg and with crew 140-160kg
- Only Ocean sailing 5-20 knots flat to 1.5 m swell/chop
- Beach storage in tropical climate so concerned re durability carbon mast on Stealth
- Easy single hand handling and righting important so I can sail more

Can you help with the pros and cons of the various boats please

I will run by the various designs and give my feelings about them. I have a homebuild Taipan F16 whose construction was the first under the F16 ruleset at the start. Other commercial boats, the Stealth F16's, were completed sooner however. I have no affiliation to any of the builders or dealors and these are all my private views.


General discussion

All commericially build and optimized F16's are excellent boats in my opinion. Each has its strong points and weak points but the overall picture is pretty succesful in handling and performance despite this balancing. The differences are more like nuances then real drawbacks. All modern style F16's carry crew weight surprisingly well. The Taipan were noticeably best when you stayed below 145 kg, but the modern F16's with the redesigned hulls handle weights up to 160 kg competitively. Recreationally or in fun racing the F16's go up just as high as any F18 which is just under 200 kg combined weight. However, all F16's remain sensitive to weight placement on the boat. Meaning, you have to work as a team to keep the weight distribution optimal at all times. The punishment is loss in performance. The F16's are less like a sit and sail fast boat then other classes, the crew and boat are one unit that has to be integrated with eachother for optimal performance. This is a skill that needs to be acquired. But after a while it is a responsiveness that you will miss in other classes.

Overall boatweight doesn't appear to influence overall performance much at all. After acquiring the proper sailing skills, having the right sails is much more important. Any factor beyond that is almost negligiable.

All F16's can be righted singlehandedly either with or without a simple righting aid like a waterbag (pillow case). I know of persons weight 70 kg and higher that right F16's without aids other then the standard righting line. However, they typically need some wind to perform the trick. Righting in absolutely flat water and no wind is the most difficult and I would say that any singlehanded sailor would need to the between 75 and 80 kg to right an alu masted F16 then, using only the righting line. For the carbon masted ones you can subtract maybe 5 kg's. Please note that righting any beach cat in flat water and no wind is a hard thing to do and I think only the A-cats are easiler to right then the F16's in this respect. All other makes requirding more body mass or righting aids. There are plenty of singlehander beach cats on the market that require quite strong winds and waves to be righted without aids. I refer specifically to designs like the Hobie FX-one where I needed all of my 86 kg and something like a 15 knots of wind blowing direcly onto the trampoline and sails to be able to right it. In the same conditions I would only just hang of the F16 righting line under a 45 degree angle and quickly stop hanging for fear of picking up to much rotation speed and capsize the other way due to momentum. At your weight you appear to be just at the threshold of rightability in all conditions including flat water and no wind. For conditions you would typically capsize in you are heavy enough in my opinion to right the boat. Therefor you would need only an back-up righting aid for the times you are unlucky enough to go over in conditions where you really should have gone over in (light winds etc)


The Taipan F16

The benchmark for the F16 class of the past. Still one of the very best singlehanded F16's. Has the least bit of volume in the hulls of all F16's and doesn't really like crews over 145 kg. It still has excellent light wind performance that the modern F16's can only claim to approximate. The modern F16's are however noticeably better in the rought stuff. An commerically build Taipan is right on minimum F16 weight and that is very nice in handling. Put a selftacker on the boat and a modern mainsail + spi and it will be a very good F16 to start out on. It's only real drawback is its dive tendency on a screaming reach, in severe chop and when bearing down at the top mark. You get used to it after a while and it typically pops back out of the water but every ones in a while it doesn't and you know it ! This is quite excellerating but less fun in a race where you are pushing things. Note however that it is still heaps better the H16 in this respect. On the downwinds, you'll quickly learn to ALWAYS pull the spi, even in nuclear conditions, as that significantly improves the dive recovery.


Stealth F16

This boat has one great advantage in comparison to all others, T-foil rudders. These simple work like a charm. The boat feels rock solid and behaves in chop and gusty conditions like a 20 footer. This boat can be pushed hard in any conditions and any sea-state. Its light weight carbon mast allows lighter righting weights and sees it weight at or below minimum class weight. Additionally, it is the most inexpensive F16.

Personally, I like its appearence less then that of the others and it "speaks" less to you as a sailor. The other boats maybe feel a bit nervous but the Stealth feels to me a bit too sedated.


Blade F16

There are two versions of this boat. The one build by Vectorworks Marine in USA and the one that is homebuild or build by Formula Catamarans in Australia. Just recently VectorWorksMarine (VWM) launch a new F16 design called the Falcon F16 and I expect that this version is very comparable to the Aussie Blades.

I sailed the VWM Blade F16's quite a few times and I especially like the Alter Cup version with the Glaser sails. That is a fast boat that will have you battling it out with F18's sailed by equally skilled crews. No doubt about it. This version of the Blade has all the good stuff of the previous designs and improved on all drawbacks. However, with one small exception. Its dive resistance is better then the Taipans but it is not fully where it should be. Mostly because it has a rather sharp threshold. It has more dive resistance but as its threshold is alot more sharply defined as well it feels more on its toes. With the Taipan you got ample advance warning, with the blade you have to know where the threshold is or risk crossing it suddenly and unexpectedly. I think this too is a skill that can and will be acquired when sailing the boat, but I rather see it improved in the next design. But havind said this, my friend (who owns a Blade) and I appear to have sassed it out and can push it quite hard nowadays, we are 157 kg combined. Harder then I can push my own Taipan F16.

Apart from this I can not find any real drawbacks.

The Aussie Blade has taller bows and higher freeboard and I suspect more bow volume as a result and it appears to be just right in this aspect. I fully expect the new VWM Falcon to have the same improvements. But it is too new to tell.


The Viper F16

This design too has a taller bow and increased volume compared to the previous designs and it too is judged to have improved on dive behavior and handling in severe chop. In my opinion it is the best fitted out F16 available today. It is overweight by some 15 to 20 kg and I personally don't like that but with my one boat being 121 kg I can't say that it is a biggy. I haven't sailed this boat myself but it appears to me like a very capable F16 that has its design fully dialed in. It will never become a 20 footer as no F16 every will with the possible exception to the Stealth F16 but it appears to have adressed all outstanding points succesfully, as the Aussie Blade and possible the Falcon F16 has done. As a result it will be a significantly loighter and more sensitive F18 with equal performance to the F18's. One that can also be singlehanded with similar performance, as all F16's can.


Falcon F16

Not much known yet. But I think it can be said that it is an evolution of the VWM Blade F16 and must be ranked together with the other newly launched designs like the Aussie Blade and Viper.

Time will tell !


I hope this helps and I really do advice you to get a test ride on at least one of these models. Just to get a feel for what F16 is all about and whether it is something for you.

Wouter

any chance you could describe the sass?
Good description of the diving tendency of the blade. Can be very abrupt.

Thanks Wouter this is very helpful...

Quote

It will never become a 20 footer as no F16 every will with the possible exception to the Stealth F16

What do you mean by the quote above?

Also I read somewhere that carbon masts and the consistent sun/UV of the tropics are not a good match. I want to leave the boat on the beach with the mast stepped.. Does that mean a alu mast is a much better choice?

The thinking is that T-foils on the rudders make the Stealth "virtually" 4 feet longer. Without going into a debate on this, which we have had before ( ), the conservative conclusion is probably still "not enough data".

Good question about carbon masts. Never heard that modern A-class or other carbon masts had issues. Masts come with UV filtering clear coat or paint so it should be OK. I think I would want a white painted carbon mast though.

Today we have about 1 meter of snow outside our house and I am about to put on my snowboard. You on the other hand have UV and heat to worry about *boggle*

Hi Siam,

I guess that either south Australia or northern Europe have more UV intensity. I stored my carbon mast outside and up, however it was the first season. One neighbour is storing his A-cat mast up and outside as well, for some years now without any but cosmetic problems. As any organic material, any gelcoat will be harmed by UV radiation. But this is not realy a show stopper for carbon masts, because there are solutions:
At the begin of the season I put wax on it to protect it. More consequent would be paint or this scotch film stuff, that car builder use to protect their new cars.
Have fun with your new boat.

Cheers,

Klaus

Other considerations might include-

Difference in length of the dagger boards as here we have a range between low aspect (Taipan) to ultra high aspect (Stealth). For my use the long skinny dagger boards create more problems then they solve.

Also the Taipan traditionally has less beam then the others which also may be an advantage/disadvantage depending on crew weight and weather conditions.
Then there is the freeboard issue for example the Viper is going to be more of challenge to re-board after capsize/righting then the Stealth or Taipan.

And then we have the weight issue. In my opinion “lighter is better” in every aspect.

I generally agree with Wouter on the designs. All of them are really up to each other performance wise. To choose a design I guess it depends on having/not having a dealer, having the same design around, even the looks.

Personally I like Landenberger sails a lot!

My Stealth is one of the old one, pre-f16 box rules. Its mast has spend all its life so far rigged and uncovered in the club parking lot. Granted, it is good old england, wet and gray, not exactly a tropical climate, but still, I don't see anything wrong with my mast.

Okay.

I won't give you an exhaustive desciption, we all know about putting the crew on the trapeze and have him or her stand behind the skipper trick and others.

Our basic evaluation is that that you just don't want to get caught beam reaching under spinnaker with the VWM Blade F16 is the rough stuff. Most specifically chop.

When we HAVE to do this (as at last years REM-race) we devide the leg up into the fastest (beam or broad) reaching part without a spi and a second part from which we can make the mark on our fastest spinnaker course. We have found that the F16 we sail (2006 VWM Blade F16 with Ashby sails and a Landenberger spi) can go surprisingly deep and fast at the same time. The boat react quite fast and we use this feature to ride the chop in well coordinated s-curves where we sheet the spi accordingly. I do the spinnaker handling and Frank does the rudder and mainsheet thing. I continuously call out the line loads on the spinnaker sheet and Frank reads the chop ahead. He adjusts his steering action to the chop situation before the bow and the reported spi sheet loads. The thing to avoid is the onslaught of a gust coinciding with running down a wave.

In the rough stuff I don't trapeze as crew under spinnaker but sit tight at the back of the boat. Not loading up the boat in the sideways direction helps reduce the severity of the dives. In the REALLY rought stuff, the Skipper Frank moves down the trampoline and sits next to the traveller car and I sit "above" him on the hull. We both have our buttocks against the real beam. The boat lifts a hull more easily then but we can steer deeper while keeping the luff hull out (= speed and depth) and with our combined weight far back and pinned down we can survive pretty deep dives. Actually, we tend to destroy the waves we overtake as the boat, now sailing with a full round spinnaker feels very powered up and just slams into the waves without decellerating much at all. We typically tend to run a good angle lower then the F18's that way and indeed make time on all of them that way. We typically make the inside corners.

I admit there is still a bit of black magic involved. You have to "know" how the boat wants to be run or coached over the next wave and through the next gust. But when you put your mind to it, it eventually becomes almost intoxicating. It is a mind thing, like dancing with a high strung woman. You have to bring yourself to fully understand her and find her needs and doorways and then string these in the right sequence. When done right she'll twists and turns around all obstacles graciously or simpley detroys them head one without a care in the world.

You have got the responsiveness in the F16's so use it !

Dance from one opening in the waves to another. Turn, turn, turn, turn to the rithm of the waves, the music that is the seastate. And use all of the limited weight you got when forced to do the "brute force" thing.

It is like a (argentinian) Tango (not the ballroom version). Gracious and well adjusted movements mixed with sharp decisive actions.

Pulling the spi flat during a gust helps and quickly releasing it fully when left without further options does so too. The trick is to know when to do what and when to switch from one approach to another.

But the tandem sit is a good trick, indeed. Mostly because both persons can really pin themselves to the boat, and thus survive even violent decellerations and moving my own 86 kg weight another 0.5 mtr back makes a significant difference.

For what it is worth

I hope to do some sailing with my own F16 again this year ! I get appitite for it by writing this down.

Wouter

Paint the mast white, problem solved.

I leave my Marstorm carbon stick up on my Tornado in a boat yard in Southern California. It's two years old now and not appreciable signs of trouble with the clear-coating. I do expect to need to re-finish it at some point. I would consider painting it...but have heard I might get challenged on it at a class event...they might think it has been modified to change flex characteristics. Also, just the pure beauty of seeing all the carbon twill helps make the no-painting decision easier :-)

Mike.

Mike,

I was stunned to read about having measurement/protest woes over painting your Tornado mast. Glad to hear that the clearcoat is no issue then!

At midwinters last month in San Diego I had to spend time wiping the mast off after the I20 guys had finished drooling all over it :-)
Seriously, they all wanted to pick it up feel how much lighter it is than the I20 stick.

Who makes it? Is it only by Marstrom? I had a very nice carbon mast on my old Bimarre Jav.2, can't recall who made it but it was nice and quite a bit lighter than the I20 stick.

It was also in basic black and looked really nice when new! I did worry about sun damage though.

Ummm yes...the Marstrom T mast is made by Marstrom...though theorectically the plans/layup schedule are supposedly to be made available to anyother builder now that the 2 year exclusion period is over.

Other interesting point is that the T mast runs about ~$4.5-5K USD...seems high but the currect price quote for an I20 stick is $11k USD. Quite remarkable when you consider Marstrom's are much tigher controlled in terms of flex/engineering, they are known for charging premium rates and work is second to none.

Riba used to make the masts for Bimare - They build all the carbon bits for the Italian Formula 1 cars. Bimare got thier own Autoclave now and brought it back in house. This allowed them to be able to refine the bends and structure, so I would say they are a bit better even than before. The Jav 2 mast is very strong as opposed to the paired down A section. They have been pretty indestructable (at tleast there has been few reports of failure) and a lot lighter than the I20 section.

Black is cool looking, but a bad deal in FL. The sun will eat it up eventualy and even with fresh clear coat added regularly, subjecting a composite to that much heat is not good. Not to mention, I blistered my forearms rather badly 1 day in June dropping my mast.

Yeah...Riba, that was a very nice mast! Matt, did you see my PM for you?

Mike Dobbs, please excuse my stupidity, I have all I can do to keep up with my boat, I have no idea who makes what when it comes to Tornados.

Timbo,
Please accept my apology for any implied stupidity...not my intention. Was just an attempt at humor. Further up the thread "my marstrom carbon stick" was mentioned.

Cheers and good sailing!
Mike

Mike, sorry I missed that. I was either skimming too fast or my memory is even worse than...what's her name...claims.