If anyone is interested, I still have DVD's of F14 sailing at a variety of locations and courses AND THE DVD's ARE FREE
If anyone would like to have a copy of one, just email me your postal address and I will post one to you.
My email address is
ao14@optusnet.com.au

IP:

Darryl,
Thanks for the DVD.
Well done, cool footage and music, a joy to watch.
I must say your F14 looks like a very neat package.
Anyone interested in making a 14ft cat really motor
should take you up on your offer.
Thanks again.
Regards,
Phill

I'm glad that you enjoyed it Phill.
Just as an update on the continuing performance results of the F14, The Alpha F14 sailed in the Adelaide Yacht Club’s once a month winter series last Sunday. It had to sail with three F18's, these being a Hobie Tiger, the Blade F18, and a Nacra F18. There were two races on the afternoon with light conditions. The wind was from the North/NW at 7 to 10 knots, with a few minimal shifts. The course for each race (back to back) was three beats and three windward returns, ideal conditions for the F18's. The Alpha stayed with the F18's during the first race, but finished behind all three, BUT by back calculation of the times, the Alpha sailed up to a yardstick of 74 (the F18 yardstick is 70). So not too shoddy a performance. In the second race the Alpha stayed right with all three of the F18's for the whole race finishing less than two minutes behind the Blade F18 and in front (over the line) of the Hobie Tiger, the Nacra F 18 was behind the Alpha on the first beat and turned onto the run well before the first buoy to sail downwind with the Blade and, as a consequence, he never went through the finish line.

Just finished watching the CD, very cool boat, it seems to be a pocket monster!
What is the cost (U.S.) on that little demon? Will there be a US distributor?

What is optimum crew weight?

I would love them to be built in the US as the exchange rate between Australia and the US is not the best for export from here at the moment.
There is a weight range of 75kgs to 90 kgs sailing the Alpha at the moment with no apparent difference in it's performance and we have had up to 105Kgs sailing it, still with no apparent performance difference. There is a lot of available power in the rig for heavier guys to use and it is tunable enough that the light guys can suitably set the sails to suit their weight. The large weight variation of the crew, without greatly effecting the performance comes from the hull shape and the fact that there is a lot of bouancy in the hulls with "tumble home" that tends to equalise the resistance of the hulls to forward motion regardless of the weight that is on the boat (within reason)

I have sent out over 250 DVD's now, to all parts of the world. (So there seems to be a little interest in the Formula 14 concept?) I hope they will inspire a few sailors to put their own F14's in the water. It is an absolutely "magic" feeling sailing a 14' cat on equal terms with cats that are so much larger (and cost squillions more) and the feeling when rigging and derigging in a fraction of the time it takes them too, puts a smile on the face of any F14 sailor that is difficult to conceal.
There are plenty more DVD's for anyone who wants one if they emails me their postal address
Darryl

Just topped the three hundredth DVD sent out! It went to, of all places, Bratislava Slovakia?

How can someone get one of those boats in the US are plans available???

Hi Craig, unfortunately, the only way to get an Alpha Omega F14 in the states, at this time, is to order one from Australia, which, with the way that the exchange rates between the Australian and US dollars are, is fairly "costly". Mind you it would still cost considerably less than any F16 cat availably in the states and it competes “head to head” with them (and larger cats as well), so it is still very good value for money.
I have communicated with a manufacturer in Florida, with the object of them producing the Alpha’s there, and although they showed interest in the idea, they are not sure of the commercial viability of producing a 14' cat in the states at this time. The free DVD is not only to let people see how well the Alpha F14 performs, but is primarily to encourage people “out there” to design, build, or convert their existing 14’ cats to the F14 concept.
14’ cats have fairly much stayed the same in basic design for more than 35 years, while the movement in other sized “off the beach” cats has shifted towards lighter, higher performing, better designed craft, carrying a spinnaker. To illustrate just how much better performance a 14’ cat is capable of, we built the Alpha F14.
It is all well and good talking about what a 14’ cat could do “IF”, so instead of talking about it what we thought we would do was let people SEE, after all “seeing is believing”.
Al the best
Darryl J Barrett

Several times now I've heard this kind of talk. Am I mistaken or isn't the exchange rate 1 AUD = 0.75 USD? This seems good to me. I'm about to buy an AHPC spinnaker priced at ~800 AUD so I send them $600 USD. This easliy covers shipping and I still get a deal over US spins.

Do I have it backwards or are you hoping for even more of an imbalance? (Or is that it'll be costly for you in OZ?)

Exchange rates

You are right, the Australian dollar is at approx' 75c US at the moment which is slightly lower than it was a month or two ago, and that is the problem.
This problem is two fold, firstly with the perception within the American market that the potential purchasers in the US have with the comparative pricing of Australian goods landed in the US compared to locally produced products, and secondly the main concern is that it was only a couple years ago that the Australian dollar was only valued at approx' 55c US so that this change in the price comparison between US and Australia dollars has meant that it appears that Australian prices for the same goods have dramatically increased in a relatively short period of time, whereas in reality they have stayed the same and it is the exchange rate that has changed.
Look at the comparison, an item that costs $10,000.00 Australian right now would cost approx’ $7,500.00 US (plus freight, duty etc at the same greater exchange rate), a couple of years ago the same item at $10,000.00 Australian would have only been $5,500.00 US, (a comparatively huge increase).
To be able to compete with prices of products manufactured locally within the USA, especially fibreglass, we in Australia have to have a favourable exchange rate (i.e. it needs to be below 60c US) or else we are just priced out of the market. The same manufacturing cost in Australia compared to the US are much higher, it is only when the exchange rate is favourable to us that we are able to compete on the US market when we export from Australia to that market. At this point in time, all things considered, it would be MUCH cheaper to manufacture the same product in the US than it is to make it within Australia and export it.

What's the hold up, get Vectorworks to mfg. the A/O F14.

Great video!

Ken

I would love Vector works to make them there, but its Matt McDonald that you have to convince, He is still a little unsure of the "financial viability" of producing a 14' cat in the US.

Hey Darryl:

Awesome cat!!!!! Awesome video!!!!! It looks super fun!!!!! I recently bought a boat, otherwise I would have to have the Alpha Omega F14 now.

If you work something out with anyone in the USA keep us posted. Although I am not ready to buy another boat right now. Who knows I may be in some near future.


Waldo

Try this link to the F14 web site
http://www.formula14.yachting.org.au/

Darryl graciously sent us two different copies of this DVD. Unfortunately we're not able to view either one on several different machines.

Does anyone know the Codec? We obviously need to download something.

Mine would not run on my TV's DVD player but it worked in my computer. I didn't even know my computer's CD player was a DVD player as well. Lucky me.

Fun to watch his "little" boat blow by some big dogs.

It should play on any Macintosh computer with I DVD installed, (it is recorded on a Mac G5 dual processor with operating system OS 10) or for that matter on any home DVD player. I will look at home to see if it has to be recorded for Mac and PC platforms, but I think that it should play back on a PC platform as it is anyway (CD's have to be recorded as "mac & PC" to be readable on both systems but I thought that DVD's were compatable to both automatically) What computer system are you trying to play it on?
Most of the DVD's are recorded in PAL and you have to set "older" type DVD players to that format for it to play back, the newer players automatically recognise all the different formats and play back automatically regardless of the recorded format.

My home TV's DVD player is a new Sony unit and your DVD would not play. It did play on my PC. My computer is a typical PC, a Dell P4 with a CD recorder/DVD player. Nothing fancy.

By the way, thanks for the disk. I've watched it a lot.

I've tried on both Dell & Toshiba laptops, a Sony dvd player and my PS2 and had no luck at all. There must be a specific codec used when recording the dvd. I need to know that codec so I can download and install it on my PC.