Rick:
Are there plans to put the F-16's with the Other fast spin boats, or will we have another year of "what the heck with the course, let's sail where we think we belong?"
I know this would be an easier response if we had 5 boats pregistered, but what's the plan with this? You know that the F-16's will probably not hesitate to sail the longer course if they are lumped in with the 14's and such.
It is just not worth it to sail a short course on a fast spinboat, sorta defeats some of the purpose.
Would also help if you offered your Taipan to Bob . . .
Inquiring minds . . . . .
Can we all jump in with our input on this?
I vote long course for Robi's Blade, since he's out of touch until the race.

I second your request

Thought you were surfing off continent. . . .

ahhahah I am. We do have retardnet here in Puerto Rico

My boat would be available for charter. I will be pretty cramped for time however. I have spent the last couple of weeks getting the next issue out and now getting things done for the Tradewinds.

And for rooms, Mary posted in the Open Forum a list of other places to stay.
Rick

I have offered my hands and back to Rick as a volunteer on the RC. So first of all, he would need to relieve me of that obligation. Once that is out of the way, I would LOVE a chance to get some of the rust off. With a little help from my new friends, of course.

Negotiations are underway.

I have more help this year than ever before. "You are free to move about the country!"
Rick

Tradewinds 2006

We might make class after all.

I just received an e-mail showing me some pics of the first G-cat F16 sailing. The mail says that the boat has been picked up from the factory (I should I say Vectory ! ). Followed by (and I quote) : "... we will race the boat in the trade wind regatta in key largo the florida keys ... "

I look at the participants page and see that mr. Bruce Barss of Wabamun Sail Club has registered himself as an F16 crew. If I've been paying attention well enough over these past few days then Bruce is our Bobcat ! I guess he has worked out a charter deal for Ricks Taipan.

That makes 4 pre-registered F16 sailors + 1 commitment from the G-cat F16 crew. That makes 5 F16 boats on the line and the big boys course for us !

Yeeeeeeeh !

I still remember Matt Mc stating he was going to be there as well, although he hasn't pre-registered yet. I don't think he will be on the G-cat himself if he participates but rather on his own Blade F16. All in all I do sort of expect a 6th boat in Matt. That would be really great.

There is one funny development I see however and that is that the first time the F16 class is making class in an Florida event (we also made class in Georgia in 2002 remember, spring fever) Jennifer will not be part of it. Jennifer has been so active with her Taipan in the past and almost singlehandedly pulled us through some hard times. Now the first chance she gets to see some return on her good will and efforts she will be on a different boat. Sometimes life can be gruel. But I'm sure some more A-cats will register for the tradewinds later on.

Good luck to you all and if a friend is still in doubt about packing in his F16 and coming over then put some extra effort into it and lets see if we can beat the I-20 class in numbers !

Wouter

Since we now have 4 registered with the addition of Bruce on Rick's Taipan, and We essentially know Matt McDonald will be there, Guess we have a class!
RickMeister!
ARE we going to sail the F-18 Long Course????

2nd question:
However,
WHY has Matt not Preregistered??????
Anybody know????

Hey guys, lets pull a real stunt and muscle our way into the F18 start fleet. As in accept we race first in wins (no handicap calculations) and ask all the F18 sailors real nicely if they would like to spice up their racing fleet a bit ?

Wouter

Throw them in with the F18 course, let'm see what they can do....

Matt hasn't pre-registered because he is spending all his time making sure my new Blade is the slickest, stiffest, coolest, fastest, smoothest boat in this hemisphere.

No really, he is.......

PS: I bet he'll be there. He can't miss a chance at a good US F16 fleet, can he?

Wouter:
We Will NOT be muscling our way in. It would be impolite. That's my racing fleet. (and Besides, I do need a ride home when its all over. )
I don't think the complexity of the race course will make it any different, I would bet YOUR paycheck that all the Formular Spinnaker boats will be together on the start. Boats like I-20, F-18, & F-16, all should start together on the same line.
We went to a lot of trouble to beat the bushes to make a class, don't want it to be forgotten because we were sailing with the F-18's. Sure could save a buncha money on trophies, though if you only had to give out three.
Just to be sure, You get a lot of credit for helping with the motivation, too. All we're gonna do is drive 800 miles and race.
And Drink a RumRunner in honor of Tom Shannon, who will be noticeably absent, and dreaming about his smooth new Bright Red Blade.

I hope he's too busy, building boats!

That's what Tom is hoping.
Mebbe one day he'll be building them for you and me, TMan . . .

Ohhh yeah I forgot about that !!

Honestly mate, I don't think there is any chance of us succesfully muscle in on their start, it is there official midwinter remember ! There will always be some crews who claim they came in last because an F16 gets in the way on the start line. No, I'm sure they will be pretty clear about wanting their own starts and maybe even their own courses.




On the same course maybe, but I seriously doubt wether the 17 F18's will be starting with the other boats. I-20's and F16's maybe.





Believe me I would love to have missed this honour and see it go to a local US sailor. I don't particulary like beating about the bush to get sailors to come out to an event. I got more then enough other class work to do. Not to mention preparing for my own races in 2006. Still need to find a way to drive 800 miles myself and take a ferry to the UK for our F16 nations cup ! (Expensive !)




Tom ordered one ?

Ohh I see Tom is FlyaF16 now Tshan and he was the one with all the talk about painting the hulls bright Red. I thought that red hulls and Tom were two different things. I guess I have missed something.

Matt will be very busy with building then !

Wouter

Well, I do know that Matt (or rather Vectorworks marine in total) will be busy building a bunch of boats about now.

I haven't been keeping track that well lately but I guess some 6 to 10 boats are on order now, depending on how many orders from asia he has. Europe and USA are good for at least 6 boats during this time frame. Come to think of it, EU and USA is probably more. Anyway, enough on order to keep them busy for the next two months for sure. Ohh, and we got Asim from Pakistan who has one on order (Asia). Indeed close or equal to 10 is pretty realistic. In full production it will be 1 boat a week and 10 weeks is more then 2 months work.

And of course the new G-cat F16 is another project that needs attention.

And that is only the small boats in the way of F16's.

Wouter

W:
Coupla questions:
Q1: Guess he has only only hull mold. Is one set of hulls a week all Vectorworks can build from one set of molds?
Q2: IS Vectorworks gonna produce the Hulls for the GCAT F-16 as well? Did I miss something there?
Q3: Whatever happened to Hans Geissler's GCAT F-16 we were supposed to see debut at Tradewinds? Any scoop on that?
Q4: Where is Matt's Pregistration? He's such a tease . . .

Boat building involves more then just producing hulls. The fitting out requires alot of time as well as well, hence a week labour per boat. I'm not sure how many molds they have. But I do know that a new mold was made for the 2006 models so I guess that at least in the initial stages they may only have 1 mould.




That is my impression.





That one is coming to Tradewinds for its debut. I'm not sure who will be sailing it. I guess Hans himself with crew.


Wouter

Here are some links to extra info on the G-cat F16 :

http://www.g-catmultihulls.com/misc/formula16.doc

Here it is stated that : "Vectorworks Marine Inc. is very proud to announce that G-cat Catamarans has chosen us to be the builder of their renewed line of beach catamarans."

So yes I guess VWM will produce Hans's G-cat F16 who in turn will market it and sell it under his G-cat brand name.

For additional info go to :

http://www.g-catmultihulls.com/gcat5-0.html

and

http://www.g-catmultihulls.com/

No pics of the prototype G-cat F16 on there yet, but some of the prototype G-cat 5.0 which is now converted into F16 format. Note that the G-cat F16 will have a sloop rig.

Here is a first



I'm sure we'll see and hear more later; during and after tradewinds.

Wouter