Just wondering if there was any news on the US Blade production? Price? Timeline for production? No info seems to be given on the Vector Marine website.

Good question!

I was just wondering this same thing as well.

Any info?

Not sure, BUT, the first Blade F18 is now on the water and racing here in South Australia and will be putting in an appearance at "Foster" this long weekend, (looks good and seems to be very fast comparing it to the "Tigers" here)
Darryl

Darryl

It will be interesting to see how Chris Dean goes at the F18 nationals in Forster. Hopefully he will have the Blade flying. I haven't seen it in the flesh yet. The local tigers are not such a good benchmark though. They struggle to beat the kiteless T4.9s over the line.

Phil.

It has a really good looking spinnaker Phill that seems to draw much better than the other F18's that Iv'e seen so far, but they haven't got the sail tune quite right going to windward yet. Mind you they have only had it in the water twice and you wouldn't expect them to be anywhere near "right" for a while yet. It shows an "awesome" lot of potentual though for its first showing. It will be really interesting to see how they go at Forster, could " release the cat amongst the pigeons"
Darryl

We just got power back and starting to get people back to work after the third hurricane to hit us this season.
We appologize for not having the Blade out on the water this season. Seaveral items have take significantly longer than we would ever have anticiapted, and the recent string of record breaking events have added to that delay.

The good news is that the prototype is finally nearing completion. We have all of the sourced components with the exception that we are still awaiting the delivery of the first run of sails from OZ. We have foils in both glass and carbon versions and several assembled masts and cross bar assemblies ready to go. The completion of these will be very fast when the hulls are finished.

A formal anouncement of the project will be made when the first boat hits the water. This will include the delivery schedule, pricing, etc. There is 1 boat left unspoken for in the first run of 5 offered at 10K at this time.

Vectorworks Marine is in the process of changing our web site host and designers to have some more flexibility. We will include a page for beach cat production in the new version. During the short term we have been including photo documentation of the tooling and build process on the www.1design.net web site. When we get the offices put back together there are several new shots to update this site from whats posted today.

In talking to Phill and listening to the commentary from the people who have sailed the OZ boat to date, it continues to receive great accolades. I am very much looking forward to getting on one myself and racing with my family.

More news soon.

Matt

Here is a direct link to the 4 photo's of the preparation :

http://www.1design.net/gallery/blade

Wouter

This boat is going to be along the lines of solo and crewed racing correct? If so I cant wait to see the final product! Is there MORE OR LESS a timeline? for instance when can see this boat for sale?

extremely interested.

Robi,

>>This boat is going to be along the lines of solo and crewed racing correct?


The Blade F16 design was fully designed to strike an optimal balance between singlehanded and doublehanded sailing. Comments by test sailors make it out to be a very good singlehander in a wide range of conditions. The doublehander (mostly weight carrying) capability is considered to be a serious candidate as the new F16 benchmark. The rig is a proven setup as it is already used on the AHPC Taipan 4.9 and Taipan F16 designs.

Arguably the designers could have chosen to either optimize it for only singlehanded sailing or only doublehanded sailing. However they did not. I can bear witness that with each decision they investigated what it would mean for both setups and each time they chose what worked best in both setups.

Now I have the Taipan F16 setup (a modified Taipan 4.9 at 2.5 mtr selftacker etc) and I now know this to be a very good platform and in several aspects the better of the Taipan 4.9. Blade F16 design is expected to be on a par with the Taipan F16. Designers are very careful about making claims with regard to the Blade. This way she can not underperform to expectations. However I do dare say that they have given themselfs ample margin. If I compare my Taipan F16 to say any other singlehander I ever sailed (includes the 17 footer but excludes the A-cat) than I have to say that I'm extremely happy with my F16. If the Blade proves to be the equal to the Taipan F16, and we have not encountered any counterproof yet, than that is good enough by any standard. If time shows her to be better at certain aspects than that is all another blessing by the Gods.

Of course there are some differences between the three models ; Stealth, Taipan and Blade and I think any decision of purchase should be made on these rather than the expectation that one is better than the other.

Simply put the

Taipan F16 strongpoints are :

- Silent running - no slapping she is absolutely a cutter, she cuts through the water leaving a very small wake
- Faired mainbeam and decks. Very low drag when punching through waves

Blade strongpoints are :

- very smooth and rapid steerage, especially appreciated under spinnaker
- very stabil and smooth feel to the whole platform.

Stealth strongpoints are :

- Very attractively priced considering the carbon mast and Landenberger sails it has.
- Excellent downwind behaviour (under spinnaker); everbody I spoke to commented on that. Downwind seems to be one big sledride on this design.




>>If so I cant wait to see the final product! Is there MORE OR LESS a timeline? for instance when can see this boat for sale?

These are questions you need to direct to Matt McDonald, probably in private as I know Matt to be carefull when it comes down to public statements. A wise policy I think.

Wouter

Daryl and Gary,
I can't sail at Forster because of work so I drove up yesterday just to have a look at the fleet and the
Blade F18 in particular.
My fingers are crossed.

They ran a race yesterday in around 10 knots and Chris and Kenneth crossed the finish line 4th in a 38 boat fleet.

My understanding is that only the race hardened competitors from the Worlds were in front of them.

This is actually the first race for the new boat and they are still trying to sort it out.

I must take my hat off to the guys involved in this.
These guys had to build a boat in 10 weeks, fly a measurer down to make sure it meets specs. Trial it over two weekends, drive 19 hours and throw it in the water and hope they've done enough to be in the racing.

It will be interesting to see how things unfold.
It is early days.

Regards,
Phill

Hi Phil,

That's an awsome effort and a great early result by the Blade F18. Keep us in touch with how they go. Makes me feel a bit slack, a month ago I decided not to rush Altered as if I had it ready in time for Forster, I wouldn't have time to sail it before hand and get it sorted to be confident of a good result.

Cheers Gary.

aaaahhheeemm?

Mat I PMed you about this project please please let me know.



I am waiting on a email from Wouter or yourself.

Robi,

You have had contact with both of us before you posted this message. For this reason I don't understand what is expected of either of us. Please explain.

Wouter

Yeah that was posted after the second email. Disregard that post. Mat emailed me.

For a second there I thought I was forgotten! and thought for being CRAZY!!!

Sorry about the confusion Wouter!!

Robi