Tornado Alive, and this is totally Internet Chatter and unsubstantiated at the moment, has posted the following

Talking to Greg on the weekend. From memory, they had boat 78 and 79 in the factory ready to ship. (could have been 88 and 89???)

If that is the case then AHPC probably have the largest number of sales of any one formulae boat in the last year.

Does anybody know the exact number Hobie or Nacra have sold of their F18's in the last year, I'm not talking total numbers but yearly sales.

I think the number TA mentioned is a total of boats built, how long has the boat been around for?
Definitely longer then one year, maybe two or three?

Correct, and shipped out to dealers, not necessarly sold..... So I am told.

Correct the Viper was launched officially in August 2007 and is now 30 months old as a design. Building 80 boats in that time with sales keeping up (no dealor stocks more then a few if ever) is a serious development. Almost 3 boats a month since the launch. The other builders, who have been longer on the market, are not that much higher in total produced boats.

Pretty good for AHPC if the provided info is correct. The quick sale of all Alter Cup boats can be seen as a hint into that direction.

Wouter

Yes the boat has been around 2 1/2 years but few boats were sold in the first year to 18 months, my guess probably 60 of these boats have been sold in last 12 months. Thats brilliant and good for the class and cat sailing in general.

But my question was " how does that compare with other Formulae boats such as the F18's". Again my guess would be that is probably more than any one manufacturers single boat type. Macca would argue that the F18 market is probably "mature" now but there has been a number of launches of new types this year and in my view the majority of those sales would be to top flight competitors rather than less competition and casual orientated sailors that predominate our class.

I do sympathise though with the original manufacturers though who have done all the ground work and hard PR slog and then along comes a second generation boat and sweeps all aside.

I remember spending over 5 years developing a product into a niche market, very slow sales to begin with and then slowly building up a good market. When the numbers of sales became obvious to competitors, they to joined the fray and my sales figures obviously diminished for a year or two until we to bought a new generation of equipment to the market. Sadly its not always best to be first in marketing and profitability terms.

A new launch for an F18 in for example the NL market alone can quickly ramp up an impressive numbers of sales. I remember the launch of the Nacra Infusion to be quite impressive and I saw these boats suddenly pop up everywhere.

I figure the 60 Vipers produced and sold by AHPC to be a modest launch by F18 measure (but still a big volume for a builder like AHPC).

However, the comparison is a bit skewed in my opinion for the F16 class is not the F18 class and here a single year batch of 60 boats ranks as very impressive indeed.

With regard to your last comments; ain't that the truth !

But afterall, the people of the first hour weren't doing it for profitability, but for the love of it. The feeling that such a craft and class would be just what the scene was missing. Because they themselves fancies owning and sailing one.

Other then that, I say the Falcon F16 is also a second (if not 3rd generation) product as the Aussie Blade is. Competitiveness and Quality of these designs is not in doubt; with good promo and customer support these products should be able to compete with the Viper very well.

Wouter