No... they told us... the IHCA told the National Sailing Authorities (NAHCA) that Hobie meant Hobie and to maintain their sanction the local fleets could not run mixed events and call it hobie. Many fleets said.. OK ... out they go... Many other fleets so... stuff it, we don't care and we will do what we want.


Why? ... They said... that they saw no benefits from running mixed class regattas AND they worried that they would loose sailors and sales to other fleets. Its buisness and why should they do something that could hurt buisness.

I repeatedly challenge them on this premise... I think they have strong racing classes, with people who go racing a lot and if you fit the boat's profile... its a strong reason to race in a Hobie class. I bet you can't find any Hobie racer who says... I am stuck on my Hobie because it's the only racing game in town... Rather... I find people who say... I am stuck on my Hobie because I love it... and it does exactly what I want. (In fact... the hobie forum has a thread about... Why exactly are we excluding the F18's from our events? We ought to change this...)





Obviously, you are picking a boat that suits your size AND a racing /social scene that matches your interest as well.

The sheet loads on a F18 versus an F16 are a lot different and might be more managable by a women or young person. So... If the Hobie 16 racers were to move up... they should consider the F16 class. Secondly, if you would like some flexibility with respect to crew... consider the F16.

We both recognize The REALITY is... that the Hobie 16 racer has had COUNTLESS OPPORTUNITIES to move up... Many that I know switched to a bigger boat and then switched back to the H16. The racers are really clear what they want. A simple tough boat and most importantly, a competitive racing class that also gives them what they want in the social side of things. Its as close to a monohull as you get with respect to being family friendly. All of the other boats are technically much more sophisticated. Once again, the Hobie 16 sailor says.. I know what I want and I love my hobie 16.

Its absolutely silly to tell someone... NO you don't want that boat... you really want this boat.

So, I don't think I have ever heard Wouter declare that he wants to raid the Hobie 16 class of its sailors. Rather, he wants them to keep an open mind with respect to which boat might fit them best if they want to step up the performance ladder.

What I hear him say is... the Hobie strong arm tactics which tried to keep things the way they were (back in the day) have BACKFIRED! The hobie only class racing has declined in popularity and the formula boats, A cats and F18's have grown in the EU. He points to the Hobie leaders bending over backwards to support the pretense that the Tiger REALLY is a one design boat... When the actual high level game is the F18 game. I agree with him completely on this score.

Thanks for that. I did not say Wouter wanted to take the Hobie sailors just that he seems to have a thing about them. It was me saying that might be a good idea to aim at getting the H16 guys to change and you convincingly express it is not a good one. I am pleased to hear Hobie were so strait up about why they did not want the competition, refreshing really, not to hear corporate spin. : )

I have absolutly *no* problem with any single make regatta. IMHO it is entirely up to the organizing authority as to who entries are open to. Point blank - every association will do what (they think) is best for them first. For Hobiecat that means organizing regattas for their boats, not their competitors. To blame any manufacturer for looking out for itself is naive (sp?).

To get true "open" regattas, the model of racing needs to change to non-aligned club racing. For most clubs, what is best for them is participation (in all forms) which might include a selection of invited classes along with open fleets.

The aim at the end is to have week to week club based sailing with specific class associations organizing a small number of headline regattas such as state/regional and national titles.

What this means is the workload of organization is spread over a much larger pool of organizors leaving the class associations to concentrate their efforts on fewer top shelf regattas.

My $0.02 worth anyway.

Tiger Mike

I watched Dicson sail a Tornado at the Kiwi trials a few years ago. (Wifee and I were on Honeymoon) and he was not doing very well.....

I generally agree that people just don't get introduced to cats early enough, this is why I support what Brian Phipps has been doing with the kids in the UK. Top job IMO.

This is one of the reasons I designed and built the 430. Designed after the 'A' Class, uni rigged and sailed one up, it seemed the ideal smaller sport boat to get young 'gung ho', would be's onto cats and eventually become the small, more affordable cat addition to the Olympics.
While it is a trap boat, it's wider than an 'A' at 2.4m making it more stable and very suitable for younger sailors.

It was a nice idea but the reality is way beyond my ability to bring to fruition and given that most cat sailors are not terribly interest in promoting the catamaran per se, I doubt it will happen in mine or my kids lifetime if ever.

Bump. Stuck in the holiday doldrums with way too much time on my hands:

This is a list of characteristics that were considered important to build a successful fleet.

loyalty
inclusiveness
good sailing club
guru
affordability
publicity
activtiy

I think it is important to keep a focus on growth.

Comments?

Hello Phill,

You asked for views from other F16 sailors. I am not, but maybe you find some interesting pointers.

Why am I (actually we) thinking about a F16 (to buy after next season)?
- We are fairly light for a F18 (about 130 kg), which will make it necessary to buy a separate set of sails (jib and spi) if we want to compete in F18 class events. This would also potentially put us at a disadvantage, especially in lighter winds; the F16 seems like a better fit for our crew weight.
- Also because we want to sail more with our kids (age 14 and 12) 2-up; F16 with less sail area (and weight).
- More options (1 up).
- Much lighter boat than a F18, we expect it to be much easier to handle onshore (sailing with one of the kids)
- We want to sail a fast, exiting and challenging cat, which is competitive (rating wise) – F16 meets this?

What is holding us back (so far)?
- We are not familiar with the class (but maybe we will be at the Zandvoort event next year); is it at least as exiting as the latest generation F18?
- Is it as competitive as has been claimed (e.g. I could not find a F16 which finished in the top of the Open Class in this year’s Round Texel and Tiengemeten)? It would help if the class can point at some compelling examples (in my neighbourhood / the Netherlands)
- Small fleet, while the F18 offers us lots of opportunity to sail in larger fleets, even at club event level (Muiderzand) and compare notes with fellow class sailors.
- Also (?) it seems like that F16 fleet is split up into two sub-fleets (1 / 2-up)?
- Risks regarding all-in costs, while I expect a full Carbon specs not to be much cheaper than a F18 (Carbon rig Blade goes for Euro 16.5 thousand), how well will the resell value of a F16 hold up?

- and yes, we want another year to discover the potential of our Capricorn….

Our profile: bought myself a 1-year old Capricorn F18 last year as I wanted to get more into competitive sailing. My previous old bird, a Nacra 5.5, did not give me a lot of hope and one (I) simply can not compare the joy of sailing a Capricorn with a 5.5 (which I had sailed for 4 years). This year my wife/partner joined me in sailing our cat, and after a great week at the Aruba Heineken Regatta, we now want to try to spend more time on the water, have fun, and become better/faster sailors. Our plan is to sail more races (both club events and larger ones like Round Texel and Round Tiengemeten) and see whether we can climb a bit on the rankings.

PS: great to see a forum with so many postings.

I don't have a problem with a single regatta, either. I DO have a problem when all local/regional regattas that are used as a "manufacturer point system" are single make events. This squeezes out all the non-manufacturer boats from many events.

In some areas, it has put cat sailing to extinction (or almost) and others it has helpd solidify the brand of choice. Was the solidifcation by choice of the sailor to pick that manufacturer or the pure want to go sailing and that was the only game in town? The manufacturer gained in some areas and lost in others - is it worth the bad publicity/divisiveness?

I was thinking of a way to bring us together as a group, no easy task since we are spread all over the globe!

Since laughter is the universal language, how 'bout something funny, a running joke. I have it! A "Sailor Of Distinction" award, or SOD award! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Anyone can nominate anyone, for anything, at any time. Then we all discuss and vote on it. We could even have double, triple or Five SOD awards for the truly "deserving"!

I'll even award myself a single SOD for capsizing under spinnaker in NO WIND! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Come to think of it, we could award the F18 group 5 SODs for bashing us! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Ad,

- We want to sail a fast, exiting and challenging cat, which is competitive (rating wise) – F16 meets this?




What makes up "exiting" ? The F18 class is extremely large at this time while we are not, that makes the F18 exiting. But in the way of handling the F16's react faster to changes in trim and steering, that makes the F16 exiting.

Different people value different aspects of a class and therefor will call different things exiting.

I can assure you however that in the way of sailing the newest F18's are not more exiting then F16's. Afterall all the new gadgets on the F18 like wingmasts, proper rudder boards etc have been featured on the F16's since the begining. In those aspects the F18 is only catching up with us at this time. But "catching up" is definately the right describtion as the difference between the two makes is indeed getting smaller with Nacra going for a wingmast and Hobie getting new rudders etc.





None of us did Texel this year I think. Personally I don't go because I find it to be too expensive for what you get and I dislike the risks of some dummy parking his boat on top of your boat in the surf.

Rond Tiengemeente, well I was at a right good spot, racing Dirk Zwitser on his FX-one who ended up at 55th place in a 182 boat fleet. However I capized my boat a short while after rounding the halveway mark. I had been leading the F16 (and also leading the FX-one etc) for most of that first leg. The final F16 winner (Bard and Lonneke on Stealth F16) had just passed me and was right in front of me. I was sailing singlehanded.

As you say neither turned out to be a promofest for the F16's this year. But I want to say this about it. People expect us, a rather smaller fleet with average sailors at this time, to make convincing results against a huge fleet (over 71 boats if F18's) with all the "who is who" sailing in it. That is a pretty tall order. Without attracting a world class sailor to the F16 class I don't think we are going to achieve that.

This doesn't mean however that the boat is not up to it, that it isn't competitive. At this time it is definately the skill level of the crews, my skill level definately included. As sailors on Spitfire have done very well in the past and a very skilled Australian crew has done well at the Westland cup in 2004 as well.

Afterall look at what the guys need to do with the Nacra Infusion to get high place scoring ?

But after all is said and done the Texel rating puts us F16's at 100 (1-up) and 102 (2-up) and so it thinks we are fast enough compared to the F18's and such. In club races, = my skill level, I found that those ratings are justified. I would loved to have hung on to Christa and have proven that even in larger open regatta's this rating is justified but it was not to be ... ... Right now it is my own skill level that is insufficient to make a big mark in open class racing although I'm pretty proud that I was racing (leading) Dirk Zwitser for 70 minutes during this years Ronde Tiengemeente.




The same argument was (is) used by Hobie 16 sailors and yet 12 years ago the non-existant F18 class arrived in NL and grew and grew.

F16 is a new class and as such it needs to grow from "no-boats" to "many boat" over a span of quite a few years.





We race together on a single start and scoring and quite a few race in both modes. With F16 it is not 1-up OR 2-up but rathr 1-up AND 2-up. Actually I've found this personally to be more enjoyable then I expected it to be when we decided to go that way. It is really great not having to worry about the crew blues.





It does dependent on where you order your carbon F16. Stealth offers a carbon mast standard on all their boats and they are the most inexpensive of all F16's. For 14.000 Euro you'll own a very nice Stealth F16 with carbon mast and carbon boom and spi pole as well as carbon reinforcements in the hulls. The Blade F16 with carbon mast is indeed significantly more expensive. But both are still waaaay cheaper then a plain glass/alu F18. We are doing something right here I say.

Resale value of the F16's, I don't think second hand F16's took long to get sold on to a new owner. I know of two exceptions to this rule where 1 of those boats is waaaay overpriced for its age.

I think it is much harder trying to sell on nacra I-17's and those kind of boats. Of course selling F18's and Hobie 16's is really easy but I really do think that F16's do come in 3rd spot in that listing nevertheless. So the resale value and ease are pretty good for F16's. At this time there is still more demand for secondhand boats then there are on offer.

Personally I would seriously consider an alu/kevlar F16 at this time as that is the most price attractive option for now. 14.000 Euro will get anyone an excellent boat that way and it will be in the range where resale value will be very attractive to the market after two years time.


But the best advice that can be given is to test a F16 yourself and see for yourself whether it is worth taking the risk to buy a boat in a emerging class. Zandvoort seems like an excellent place for that as it appears all new makes will be there. AHPC new Viper F16, Aus build Blade F16, US build Blade F16, Stealth F16 and some golden oldies like the Taipan F16 and quite a few homebuilds. Hopefully we can persuade Bimare to come with their (full compliant) F16 as well.


Regards,

Wouter

The Star class allow world champs to use gold colored class insignia instead of the standard red color. I like ideas like that and what Pete just came up with. But I think 'awards' should be visible on the sailplan somehow. Great icebreaker and it adds something extra.

Just an idea..

Some classes give a chevron for a championship. Win 2 championships, you get 2 chevrons on your sail! I have seen 3 chevrons on the sail of a monohull I used race against. It seems like a good approach in lieu of flags or trophies. Then you can display your accomplishments every time you put up the mainsail!