So it`s true ....
The Auzzies ARE crazy !!
Gary, we`ve also hoisted the kite in marginal conditions, but we`re sailing sloop, so there`s more weight on the boat, more hands on deck when it gets gnarly. I find sailing sloop I have much more control, when solo I struggle with the lack of weight on the boat in strong breeze.
You guys must have developed the technique to sail in breeze solo, something we don`t practice often.
I`d love to have seen the look on the Tiger`s sailors faces when you sailed past them, how do you shape upwind against them ?

Hi Steve,
"I`d love to have seen the look on the Tiger`s sailors faces when you sailed past them, how do you shape upwind against them ?"
In those conditions not very well, but in lighter conditions OK except against the front runners, Capricorn F18s and Bundock on a Tiger.One race I was 4th out of 10 boats around the first mark.
Gary.

Hi Gary,
We`ve found much the same - At our recent provincial champs we started 5min behind the Hobie 16`s with the Tigers starting 5min behind us. In a 40min race the Tigers would finish with us or just ahead, but they only made their gains on the upwind legs, seems we can hold them off downwind in certain conditions. A friend of mine on a Tiger couldn`t believe that he was struggling to catch us downwind in 12-15knots, seems we get more out of the lighter breeze with a light boat, whereas they really turn the power on in over 15 knots. Make no mistake, they do get past us, but not quickly. I`ts upwind where they make big gains.
I crewed for him in the Cape Point Challenge, 85km race to Cape Point & back, and we pulled an hour out of the Mozzies then, but conditions favoured the Tiger. We started an hour after the mozzies & Hobie 16`s, but the wind had filled in quite a bit enabling us to catch them, so not really a fair comparison. We had a 4hour elapsed time, the first Mozzie just ahead of us.
There`s no doubt we`ll struggle to pace with them upwind, maybe need to work on that high-aspect main on a taller mast

Cheers
Steve

Interesting thread, I've owned a couple of Mosquito's, I got out of them due to the large differences between the boats, it wasn't class racing. I like the sound of the South African Mosquito racing, a virtual one design. Its a fantastic boat to sail, I've overtaken several Taipans when the wind increased to 25 knots, the addition of the kite downwind for cat sailors has rekindled my interest in the class, I have my plans out again, if only they would freeze the design.
This is off topic but you guys are probably best qualified to answer, The Mosquito makes it has a F16 with a dispensation for underweight, how long is that dispensation going to last?

Hi Darryn,
Let me try to answer your questions :
Perhaps it`s different in Aus, but in SA we had an ageing fleet of fibreglass mozzies, mostly built in 1977-1980, they were really heavy, mine was 147kg. The lightest timber boat at the time was 125kg, and he was always at an advantage. Other timber boats, built the old way, were from 130-140kg, so the boats were`nt that far apart, but still not close enough to be "one-design".
Then one newcomer to the class, who is now instrumental in the growth of our class, got hold of the 1995 Auzzie building plans, built a boat to 100kg & blew everyone away.
The rest soon followed, built 7 wooden boats, all to within 5 or 6 kg from eachother (4 boats were built by one builder). We then appointed a professional boatbuilder to make a mould off one of the timber hulls, and he produces hulls which weigh the same as most of the timber hulls. I`m sure you could build a boat a few kg lighter, but we`ve found the spinnaker evens things out a bit. Upwind a heavier boat is not at such a disadvantage, and the spinnaker provides enough power to overcome a weight disadvantage, within limits. We don`t consider a 5-8kg weight difference as a big deal, the winner of our nationals` boat is about 7kg heavier than mine, and he still beats me most races. I think a 10% weight difference is not really going to determine the winner as much as sailing skill. Having said that we are trying to keep the class as close as possible with regard to boats.
With regard to being dispensated for being "underweight", we are sailing off an ISAF handicap of 1.13, based on an all-up weight of 100kg, and none of our boats are that light here in sloop configuration with spinnaker.
The Auzzie boats, even at 85-90kg with spinnaker,would be on 1.09 / 1.10 on ISAF, which makes it about 5 or 6% slower than full F16, a situation which allows us to race against full compliant F16 boats, since we`re not faster than them on paper. This has been arranged with the F16 class chairman in order to promote F16 growth, I don`t see dispensation being removed in the future, as long as we accept the spirit & intent of the class, which is basically "first in wins" in open-class 16ft boats which are similar in performance, such that any performance difference between boats is easily negated by sailor skill.
I hope I`ve answered you questions.
On an interesting point, ISAF rates certain boats as being quite a bit faster in cat-rigged format, the number I get for a sloop mozzie at 90kg would be 1.09, while cat-rigged is 1.05, VERY close to actual F16 predicted performance, although I don`t believe this is accurate, as we find the sloop is faster, in Aus the guys say cat-rigged is faster !
Perhaps we don`t know how to get the best out of the boat without our crews!!

Cheers
Steve

Steve explained it right with regard to the dispensation.

Please read rules in section 5 and 6 of the F16 ruleset to take knowledge of the basis of these dispensations.

Rule 6.1.3. is the main rule in this respect, although it only works properly because of the other section 6 rules.

Rule 6.1.3. states: Both the SCHRS (ISAF) and Texel ratings of the design must be equal to or "slower" than the rating assigned to the formula 16 class.

AS long as the Mosquito's adhere to this rule they can succesfully invoke the grandfather rule. This yearly review of the grandfather status is only included so that we can prevent any grandfathered class from blowing the F16 class up by entering a non-fair boat exploiting the openness of the grandfather rule. Up till now the Mosquito sailors conduct has been nothing but prefect so I don't even see a remote chance of that happening.

Up till now the grandfather status is automatically renewed yearly and I'm fully planning to do that, also this is layed down in the rules 2.5.x which state the spirit of the rule. In short F16 may only rule on issues that clearly involve an unacceptable inequality to the F16 class.

Of course the inequality of the Mosquito's is only to themselfs and not to the class as a whole, therefor F16 "must" allow them according to the class founding principles.

I say, there is not danger of teh Mosquito's losing their grandfather status. I personally would think it to be a great loss as well when this would happen.

In all other aspect I refer to the text of Steve

One additions :

I'm well aware of the skewed ratings that are assigned to cat-rigged boat by especially ISAF sytem and in less severe fashion by Texel. The F16 rules have been correctly mildly for that by allowing the cat-rigged mode to be rated a little faster than the sloop rigged version on paper. F16 doublehanded Texel = 101.43 = high in the 102 while the cat-rigged setup is rated as 100.65 = low in 101 So on paper the catrigged setup is rating about 1.8 points = 65 second/hour faster than the doublehanded sloop setup.

Back then this was mainly based on experiences in the Taipan class. They seems to be similar to the experiences in the Mosquito class. I think about 2 points is conservative approximation of the error of Texel with regard cat-rigged solo sailed boats. I have entered several modification proposals to the Texel committee regard this and other points based on the same set of experiences. This was thus fully intentional and I think it was one of the greater decisions at the time.

On the side : this also clearly shows how thought out the F16 rules are and how much effort has gone into designing the right framework that will produce the setup we want.

Wouter

147kgs? for a Mosquito? thats incredible, I bet the new boat feels "lively" compared to the old one. I cant agree with you regarding weight, the drag on a heavier cat is so much more. Sailing skill is important but boat speed is god and you wont have boat speed with a significantly heavier boat then your peirs.
Thanks Wouter for the detailed reply on the F16 rule.