Your absolutely right Chris, and we hope the F18's keep concentrating on each other in the future and ignore us (as they naturally should do when they want to get the best out of their boats against the rest of the F18's), as that gives us the opportunity to "sneak" up on them at open regattas (just joking) But seriously, the F18's have been the only competitive fleet sailing locally that we have been able to use with some accuracy for "yard sticking" the F14 against, it may be a little different this coming season when, hopefully, there is an expected new Blade F16 on the course and a Mosquito (or two) that go with a spinnaker. To get the first fully optimised F16 (and Mozzie with kite) out on the water here can only be “all good” for F16 and for cat sailing in general.

Chris,

Welcome to the class !

Is "Aus 666" (as in Blade 666) going to be your F16 sailnumber ?

If so then become a class member (Free of charge) and we'll reserve that number for you.

Wouter

[color:"red"]666 [/color]

[color:"red"]"THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST" [/color]

Gotta call that boat "The Beast" !!!

Thats a scary number! seriously! Post up some photos.

What is in a name, or in this case a number?

I would not tempt fate by asking for a number like 666. I tend to be somewhat superstitious about boat names and numbers.

Rick and a bunch of people on his boat were rescued once in the Gulf Stream by a freighter named "Kindly." (Good name.)

A boat that we maintained for a while was named "Incorrigible." The wife of the original owner of the boat died of cancer. And the wife of the current owner (at the time we were involved) also died of cancer. (Bad name. The second owner should have changed the name to something less aggressive sounding. Boats are supposed to be female in gender.)

A young sailor (college student) drowned when trapped under a Hobie 16 named "Wet Screams."

I am going to post this on the "Cat Names" thread on the main forum, too.

You are now entering..........THE TWILIGHT ZONE

I recall one doctor who named his boat after his wife.. She divorced him not long after.. the boat name was "Quichabitchen"
Another spent so much time upside down he renamed the boat "Howlongcanyatreddawata"
And finally a skiff sailor who named the boat after himself. His name was Boozimaker.. The boat was Tit-Builder2.. From memory all his girlfriends were very well developed..

Thats like a guy here Stewart, who spent more time upside down than right way up with his first cat so he named his second cat (with the name upside down) "this way up" with an arrow pointed in the appropriate direction, - we never saw him ever ditch again, and people kept asking him why he called his boat by that name?

That 666 is on the Blade F18 at the moment and Chris sails it like "one fast SOB" (we only talk about the sail number in very hushed voices here, NOT that sailors are superstitious at all)

The number 666 came about as something different & there does not seem to be any sort of organisation in numbering for the F18's here is aus. Truth be known the blade F18 is number 53 from the aus f18 stables.

The Blade F18 photo's have been posted previously & can be sent again if anyone wishes.

Wouter, I'm pretty sure the closest Chris Dean will get to a F16 will be sampling our boats.

Oh, I thought that the second boat was going to Chris, sorry. A misunderstanding must have been created somewhere along the grapevine. So who is the other part of "us"

Wouter

Thanks for the welcome.
I have no plans to sail an F16 at the moment although having a go on Marcus's boat when finished may change my mind.
For those who are interested I have put some new pics of the Blade F18 on my website.
http://www.sailingsupplies.com.au/Gallery/index.html

Regards Chris