Hi All

The F16 Challenge has just been completed over the weekend Feb 11 and 12 at Changi Sailing Club in Singapore.

Sat was 4 sprint races in the afternoon with beach starts and finishing outside the club. Around 5 knots of breeze and different wind angle for each race.

Sun was a long marathon race around Pulau Tekong. Only made about 1/4 of the 20nm distance. Wind completely crapped out to nothing and the tide was against the fleet big time. Took the fleet nearly 5 hours to do 1/4 distance. Not fun.

Thanks to Scott and Alice for organising a great event.

Results are here:
http://www.csc.org.sg/water/race/result/feb06/f16results.xls

Pics of us floating about are here:
http://www.csc.org.sg/water/race/photo/f16/index.htm

Racing was pretty close and the beach starts a bit of lottery. Good to see 2 of the Shanghai sailors coming down to sail (Dirk and Olivier).

Cheers
JC

Hi James,

was nice seeing you again and although the 28 knot from the weekend before would have been a much more challenging wind environment for the F16 challenge, it still was a nice event. Thnaks for putting the links!

Dirk

Hi JC,

I don't seem to be able to read results, it's a format I don't have or something? Any chance of a quick story, who won what boat Blade or Taipan? etc.

Rgards Gary.

I don't seem to be able to open it either, but I am in an Internet cafe so that may be it. Will try another day at a different cafe and will post it up.

From memory, the first 5 were all Taipans. 4th or 5th was a sloop rigged Taipan with their results adjusted according to Texel handicapping.

All the Taipans standard AHPC spec at 2.34m wide with normal overlapping jibs (no self-tackers) and the standard Aussie-style square top (ie 40cm wide).

There was one Vectorworks Blade racing, but they were back in the pack. Their mainsail for the first day had a mish-mash of battens so could explain why they were off the pace. Its mainsail looked really bad, but fixed it on Sunday with fibrefoams but that race was a drifter.

There was a one-off Taipan at 2.5m but did not really challenge in any races.

Both of these boats (one-off Taipan and Blade) had the big head mainsail and self-tackers as well. Quite suprising that they didn't figure in the proceedings, but both skippers still learning about their boats so hopefully they will improve.

Also can really see that the narrower Taipans do lift a hull quite a bit earlier than the wider boats. Certainly an advantage in lighter conditions. With racks on the narrower Taipan you wouldn't lose any advantage in heavier winds.

This Sunday sees the fleet race around Pulau Ubin, an island in front of the club. Hopefully we get good winds and a good turnout.

And of interest, after sailing the Capricorn at the Aussie Nationals and the Taipan w/kite the past few weekends do find that the Capricorn does nose-dive a lot easier and more frequently than the Taipan. Should be the opposite. From sailing both the larger square top main on the Capricorn really makes a difference in pushing the bows under. Tried last weekend in 15knots to get the Taipan bows under. Had more chance when crew sitting in, but crew on the wire out the back the bows really sat out, but still couldn't get the bows to dive.

Cheers
JC

hi gary,

I think hopes are always more ambitious than what reality offers it. while it definitely would be interesting to get an idea which design or mainsail etc. is doing better in what kind of conditions, its very difficult to say from these races. you never know performance is based on the sailor and which degree can be related to the vessel itself.
you need high competitive proven sailors, a reasonable number of boats, a course with constant wind conditions not to much surprisingly favouring one side etc...

From that point of view it makes perfect sense to give a statement in a F18 worldchampionship, an A-class worlds, olympic tornado sailing etc... but these 'just for fun' sailing events will never offer a clear view of what the boats are capable of...

regarding the nice singapore event [if you came for fun] they had a strange idea of doing le-mans like beach starts where your starting position on the beach towards the first mark was quite crucial and chosen by a lottery system... so how much can you still talk of a serious race with such a starting system? than the sailors were quite different skilled, so pretty sure the final outcomes much more gave an impression of the crew strenghths than any conclusion about boat design...

Hi JC,

thanks for the info, interesting comments on nosediving, Capricorn V'S Taipan, are you sure you where pushing both boats as hard, pressure in F18's can make you push boat very hard. But certainly my experience with big square top is that it will drive bows under if you are not careful.

Regards Gary.

Certainly sailing hard on both. Though Taipan was out of competition, but certainly did try hard. Crew was having hard time holding on. Every windy sailing day here in Singapore seems to be on a non-organised race day.

Tornado_Alive mentioned about learning to sail the Capricorn on the edge and its nose-diving capabilities in another F18 post.

Dirk's comments about designs and trying to compare is all correct. There seems to be too much emphasis on getting the "right" boat rather than just sailing. In formula classes, the winner and the better boats will be those with the best crew organisation and tactics. Having a higher average speed compared to your competitors better than having the fastest speed.

JC