Mary,

This month's Catsailor Magazine was a superb issue and I really enjoyed it! The insite to Vectorworks marine was awesome - I really wish them well and hope they bring us an F18 option soon.

Did you find the plastic heart yet?

Hell yeah!!! Awesome job. I posted a similar thread on the F16 section, although it would have been better here.
Link to catsailor thread

Jake, I was under the impression the US F18 rules only allow Hobie and Nacra F18's to race...have they changed that to allow all other F18's, like the European rules?

Timbo,

The North American F18 Class Association has the same rules as the International F18 Class, with a few exceptions, mostly because there is no infrastructure to have every F18 go through Measurement and obtain a Measurement Certificate. A Mystere Twister participated in the 2002 North Americans held in Traverse City, MI. The NAF18 Class welcomes all F18s, regardless of who built it. The fact that the majority of the F18s competing in North America are either Hobie or Nacra is an indication of marketing, not restrictions by the Association.

Chief Measurer
North American Formula 18 Class Association

And F-20.......

Yeah - Sparky said it right. Build it to the specs and bring it. Rules and measurements can be found at http://www.naf18.com in the downloads section. For one brief initial moment the NAF18 boat specs deviated from the International F18 rules but no more. Only the rules regarding sail verification and boat verification (i.e. WHO does the measurement verification) are slightly modified in the NAF18 class. All weights and dimensions are the same and open to any manufacturer.

I think the Blade is a damn sexy boat and would scale well to the F18 spec (although they would have to ADD some weight) - wave piercer bow but with adequate volume up front to handle a blow. I was very impressed with it at Tradewinds having sailed along side it once and having it show a slight upwind advantage over us on my F18.

Jake,
There is a Blade F18.
Measured and certified Sailing in the Australian Nationals.

Regards,
Phill

Sparky, if I took a Nacra 5.5, added the factory Nacra F18 sails, would it be allowed to be raced as F18? I think it meets hull and mast measurments.

Who will measure any new boats/sails? Since the Blade is allowing several different sail makers to chose from, if the Blade were an F18, would that be allowed, or do all the sails have to come from a pre-certified manufacturer? Did you measure the Mystere and it's sails?

Can a Nacra or Hobie F18 show up with Ulman or North sails and race F18 today?

That's what I'm talking about.

Phill...sweeeet!

Hi Mary and all at Catsailor,

I agree with Jake. That was one of the most exciting issues of catsailor. I too especially liked the Blade 16 article. Looks like a great boat just right for people like me (you know, the little people...).

Steven Bellavia
Hobe FX-1, Sail #211

Timbo,

The N5.5 has not been measured to the F18 Rules, so I cannot comment as to whether it would be legal. I think that adding the spinnaker gear would still leave the boat under minimum weight for the F18, but I don't know. As for the sails, that would be legal under the current Rules, however, the N5.5 mast is shorter than the Nacra F18 mast (another change) so you would have to get the Nacra F18 rig also.

The NAF18 website lists all the NAF18 Measurers and their location. Any one of those could measure a new boat or one that is not a recognized F18. Sailmakers have the option of being In House Certified. If they choose that route, they will need to contact me and I will take them through the requirements. It is not difficult, but they will need to understand how F18 measures sails. The numbers were different than North's computer model when I measured North Sails' first F18 sail.

I was not in attendance at the 2002 North Americans, however, the regatta organizers recognized the Twister as an F18 legal boat.

Ullman and North sails would have to obtain a Measurement Certificate to be class legal. A measurer would have to conduct the measurement, submit the Measurement Form to me and I have the final say in issuing a Measurement Certificate. The process is straight forward and pretty much immune to judgement errors. It is the identical process used by the IF18 Class.

Timbo,

BTW - Les (aka Sparky) is the the Chief Measurer for the NAF18 class - so he's da man!

I think your 5.5 might even meet the minimum F18 boat weight specification of 396lbs.

Mmmmmmmm...preeeetyyyy.

Thanks Les. I sold the 5.5 a few years back. When the F18 thing came to the US, I wanted to upgrade my 5.5 rig to F18 but the -then- class leaders said no, it had to come from the factory as a "F18" boat (they didn't have a measurer yet I guess?). So I sold it, got an Inter 20.

I'm between boats right now but strongly considering the F16 (Blade) because it's light (230), and the ability to race it solo (with a spinnaker), or two up if it's really blowing, or just take my kids out on it. Hopefully the P numbers will have the F16's close enough to the F18's that we can all race together, uncorrected.

Timbo,

The 2004 Portsmouth numbers are on the USSA website (I think Rick has a link to it). The F16 is rated significantly slower than the F18. Wouter claims to have designed the class to be as fast as the F18, which would mean that the F16 and F16 Uni (rated even slower) have attractive Portsmouth numbers for Open class racing.

It is the Race Organizer or Race Committee that will decide if you get to start with and race with the F18s, but it never hurts to ask. Best of luck.

Les,

You're correct that the F16 in sloop config. rates slower than the F18.

Wouter's description of it being on equal footing to the F18 is based on some international? rating methods. (Texel and one other). Based on those handicapping formula, the F16 sloop rates nearly straight up with an F18 and the F16 uni matches the A Cat.

Of course, this is all based on math and computer models and other BS. However, I hope that when I start lobbying to race the F18 guys straight up, that they won't be afraid of the slower boat.

Jeff.

Jeff,

There doesn't seem to be too much fear in the F18 Class!
Most of the F18 guys welcome the competition, no matter where it comes from, based on what I have seen. Their reaction would usually be "Bring it on!"

Actually, I expect a good and thorough butt whipping from the likes of Nigel, Krantz, et al. I'm ok with that...so long as I don't have to do any math to figure out how bad it is.

Hopefully they'll let us play.

Dear Fellows,

The systems rating the F16 equal to F18's are Texel and ISAF measurement based systems as well as the Australian VYC yardstick system. These 3 system spans the whole world except the USA where USPN rated the F16's significantly slower than the F18. I think it is far less likely that 3 systems are wrong with one being right when compared to just 1 being wrong and 3 being right.

Also we have had several races where the F18's and F16's sailed head to head with the F16's winning on elapsed time. Last summer in Netherlands saw the F16's race in the 25 boat open boat fleet with mainly unmeasured F18's and F20's and a few FX-one and 2 I-17's. The F16 crew sailing off the F18 rating won that.

Gary Maskiel on his solo F16 is sailing of a rating equal to the A's in Australia and has won a few events.

So it is not some Wouter math here. The signals are abundant and continueing to come in. Still some people cling to the USPN system number af is that more believable despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We all know how dependable the USPN system is with respect to boats like Supercat 20 ; so it shouldn't be a great shock to anyone that USPN can be significantly wrong.

Best argument I can find is that the USPN system rates the spi equipped Taipan 4.9 slower relative to the F18 than the australian VYC yardstick system rates the SPI-less standard Taipan 4.9 to the F18. Of course the Taipan has been extensively raced in Aus for a decade now so we may assume that its VYC rating is dependenable.

I fully agree with sparky that the F16's have peachy numbers in the USPN system. Ask the other Taipan and F16 sailors like Jennifer and they will tell you the same. We know it.

But also the F18's shouldn't mind us racing them first in wins, if I right than that is fair; If USPN is right than it is certainly not unfair to the F18's. The F18's were raced first in wins in the past as well and F16 did very well :

Summer sizzler results (on elapsed time)

Overall Skipper Sail # Class Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Race 5
1 Jennifer Lindsay 262 F16 2 2 1 3 6
2 Mark Murray 324 F18 DNS 1 DNS 1 1
3 Chuck Harnden 189 F16 3 4 2 2 3
4 Scott Hubel 964 F18 4 3 3 4 2
5 Chris Runge 24 F18 1 5 4 5 4
6 Seth Stern 221 F16 5 6 5 6 5

Jennifer will say that she got lucky because mark Murray was early over the line twice but than again the other F18's weren't so unlucky and still ended up at 4th and 5th place.

Now I will be fair. The F18 crews are very good today even in the USA and for any F16 crew to come close they must have trained often. You can't step onto a F16 and expect to be in front. Sailor skill is still very important. But if your skill is comparable than the F16 designs won't hold you back. The older Taipan 4.9 with spi design has a small disadvantage at its reduced width and other style mainsail. Also the spinnakers have improved again over the last years. But none of this causes the Taipan 4.9 + spi to be 7% slower than the F18's as the USPN predicts. 1% to 2 % maybe but not more. The newer boats with upgrades like the Taipan F16 (full width, new style mainsail, selftacker) and Blade F16 will be within 1 % of the F18's (either faster or slower depending on the conditions)

When compared to 30%-40% differences in time as a result of sailor skill this 1%-2% difference is neglectable.

And surely more boats on the water without corrected time math is more fun. I just hope that we F16 sailors get up to level in sailor skill quickly enough. Far too often we blame the boat for slowness when it is rather crew skill related.

Wouter

Guess us Pokey F16 sailors in the USA are just slower than the rest of the world.., as the numbers are based on reports from RC around the USA.

Hope you don't try to give the F16s a faster number in the USA since they seem pretty fair wherever I have raced.., OOPS! I have not raced the Texel. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Rick