BIMARE Javelin X2 F18HT won its first Europeans

The Javelin X2 of Daniele Saragoni and Roberto Casadei won its first European Championship in front of the much more expensive (some 5,000 Euros) Eagle F18HT sailed by the pro Helge and Christian Sachs. It was the six time in a row that the most important 18HT title goes to boats produced by BIMARE.
Full results at:
http://www.18ht.ch/pdf/results_euro.pdf

People are more important then things, so your post should have been written as :


Daniele Saragoni and Roberto Casadei won the European F18HT Championship while sailing a Javelin X2. This was the first major result achieved on this design. Team Saragoni/Casadei beat the pro team Helge and Christian Sachs who were sailing an Eagle F18HT. This victory completes a winning streak of six European title victories by teams sailing boats by the builder BIMARE.


Wouter

...and now you are telling people what and how to write, your arrogance really seems to have no limit. Get off that moral high horse and try to talk to people, not at them.

I really hate to let this one go off the main board too soon...............

This is sooooo tempting.......oh what the heck....perhaps there are two perspectives...sometimes given a particular interest in design, the boat is more important and sometimes when the interest is in the performance of people, personalities might take precidence.
However there is also the possiblity of subtext....as in when someone does not want to see positive views about let's say....a particular boat design, at which time what seems like an irrational comment might be proffered as an alternative.

Anyhooo, here comes spring and the water is warmer and the wind settling down....... : )

Although I might not have responded the way Wouter did, he sometimes is right and this time is one of them.
Its people that win races, not boats.

Catfan found it interesting that the Bimare was the winning boat and said as much, he also provided the the balance of the result so that people could draw their own conclusions. Why the .... must he be lectured by a condecending know-it-all on his prefered word order?

My aim was only to underline that more money not always buys more speed.
The BIMARE X-2, on sale at EUR 14,700, with its a simple E glass construction, aluminium beams, bome etc proved to be at least as fast as the full carbon Eagle 18HT on sale at EUR 19,500.
For pics of the 2007 18HT Europeans have a look at:
http://forum.mysnip.de/read.php?12763,906337

Wouter sounds like somebody's mother. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein

The Bimare X2 F-18HT is buildt in e-glass? Whow, that's a surprise. I tought all 18HTs was carbon wonders?

Pity about the absence of jibs tough <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Just last weekend an ancient Prindle 18-2 finished 4th place in a strong field of F18s, N20s, and an M20 (Texel winner).
And at Texel last year a Prindle 15 (probably worth not more than €2K) got 2nd place overall beating all those expensive €40K+ lightweight race monsters.
These where all low wind conditions but cool nonetheless.

I do NOT think that TOP one design or Formula racing (on elapsed time) is comparable with large open racing (on handicap).
I also suppose that yr ancient Prindle 18-2 finished 4th place on corrected time and NOT on elapsed time.
Besides I am quite sure that it got one of the top spots ONCE and not in all the open regatta it entered this year. The same for yr Prindle 15.
I remind you that we are speaking about relative performance in a TOP regatta among boats of the same class.
I add a reply to Rolf:
all F18HT but the Eagle have only masts built in carbon. In fact there is no need to use exotic and expensive materials to get to the quite high minimun weight (Kg 130) set by the F18HT class rule. In the past many US and European F18HT owners were in favour to lower it to Kg 120. In such case the use of carbon for the hulls would have been mandatory

Just to keep the records straight <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

There was only one full carbon eagle (the one that the Sachs brothers were sailing) and two glass eagles at the start. The three new ventilos (2005) that sailed, where full carbon ones.

we weighed all the boats.

The glass eagles weighed 'around' 131 kg.
The full carbon eagle weighed 127 kg.
The full carbon ventilos weighed between 133kg - 140kg.
The old Ventilo weighed 143kg.
The new Bimares Javelin X2 weighed between 143kg - 147kg.
The old Bimares Javelin weighed between 128kg - 134kg.
The very old Bimare 18HT Year 1996 (the submarine) weighed 135kg.

All the boats that were below minimum weight carried lead.

The 3 new Bimares where from the first production and quite heavy. According too E. Gaisert (Bimare Germany) the next serie will be much lighter ~130kg - 135kg. The new Bimare Jav X2 looked very good, especially with Saragoni sailing <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />. The old Bimare was still very competive.



thousend picture are here (just click on the pictures):
http://forum.mysnip.de/read.php?12763,906337

Thank you Andi,

Honesty in these matters is highly appreciated.

Wouter

Here in Switzerland most of us think, that there is no need, to further reduce the minimum weight. Most of us are quite happy how our rules are. Keeping the manufacture costs low will help to grow the class.

At our European-Championship we strictly enforced our class rules and every sails and boat without measurmentpapers was measurered by a official measurer, to ensure a fair race.

sail fast, sail light <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Now I am not keeping up. who was being dishonest?

I found an interesting discussion about a radical modification of the present F18HT class rule at:

http://forum.mysnip.de/read.php?12763,906621

The discussion is, should the 18HT-Class allow sloops or not. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Properlink to the discussion:
http://forum.mysnip.de/read.php?12763,906621

Sounds like a good idea to me.
However you may have to make a slightly heavier boat to
cope with the jib loads on the platform.

I'm conflicted on this one. I like the HT as a uni-rig, its one of the things that defines the boat/class. But I also favor a more open set of rules that allow a builder/owner to configure the boat in broad ways (more development class). The HT class originally billed itself as a development class, but the rule set was too limiting and the boats never were really developmental. So the class needs to decide if they want to be one design (then leave the rules alone) or development (start deleting rules - wholesale).


Bill Vining
18HT US #8

If I understand the thread correctly the problem is low turnout at regattas. Adding a jib to the F18ht will not solve the problem. Look at the F18, it is a healthy class with good racing and that's why they sail it, not because it has jib and weights 180 kg and can't use carbon masts.

I sail the Hobie 16 for several reasons, but the design and performance of the boat is not one of them! The boat is a challenge to sail well, not too expensive, good sailors in the class and they have excellent parties at the regattas, that's why I sail it.

/hakan

Bill,
If Uni is what you like opening up the rules will not prevent you from sailing it as a Uni. However the current set of rules do prevent you or anyone else from sailing as a sloop. With the F18 being 180kg I thought the thing that defined the HT as a class was its light weight.

Regards,
Phill

170Kg and it's not strong enough???!!! What's it made out of?
I just bought an old Tiger Shark. 18 feet, Big sail area, thirty foot mast, twin trap, 107Kg and has been being thrashed by Kiwis for 25 years.

yes, the weight and the uni defined the ht in my opinion.

And yes I agree that if the rules were opened up then the boat could still and probably would likely mostly be sailed as a uni.

If you wanted to really do something interesting, I would get rid of the max beam rule, the uni rule, the spin hoist height rule, the foiling rule.

And just keep the 18ft long, 165k min weight, 20sq up, 40 sq down and it has to be a catamaran. Make it 2 man development class. Kind of a mirror of the Acat rule set, but for two people.

That might be more interesting.

Bill

oh and allow foiling and solid wing sails.

I would go one further.

Keep the boat 5.50 mtr (18ft) long, 130kg min weight then allow 2.75mtr width and limit total sail area to 40 sq. mtr. Allow a designer to use that sail area any why he wants.

Only then will you see some true development, mostly in the rig as the designers will try to find to most optimial distribution of the sail area over all possible sails. THAT could be very interesting. Mostly because they can keep the spi luff length but transfer some spi area to other sails.


Ruling that the class will have "20sq up, 40 sq down" is fixating the rig to the current uni-rig setup, thus meaning the only development that will be done under your proposal is making the boat a little wider. That is not development in anyway. Besides, isn't 165 kg ready to sail weight a little heavy ?

Also as the boat is now, even with extra width it will never succesfully compete with the other designs in the major cat sailing scene. The 18HT design must try to find a new elan or accept being confined to the Alps as a class. I honestly believe this to be true, so I guess the basic question becomes of what the 18HT class want for the future. Afterall they can be perfectly happy in the Alps as they are now.

Wouter

Wouter, thats a good point, I agree with you, except on the beam restriction. Why not leave it unlimited?

The class really needs to decide what they want to be when they grow up.

I say either leave it alone, no jib, or start losing rules wholesale and make it a true development class.

Although the point seems to be kind of moot in the US.

Is anyone racing their HT? I dont think any of the new england boats are racing.

Bill

Is it feasible to achieve the dual configuration characteristics of the F16 in a lightweight 18ft platform?

Good point, I'm certainly open for discussion on this aspect.

The reason I limited width is actually the same reason why length and total sail area is limited. Just to have some measure of equality between boats. Choosing length, width and area is arbitrary anyway as going longer, wider or larger is not really development; it is simply going bigger.

Development is making the most of what you have. The only concern here is of course that the rules that are present are not overly restrictive and thus actively force a particular setup.

Personally I believe that the length restriction on the hull is an implitely width limit already as beyond a length/width ratio of 2 you'll start to push your bows under anyway. So indeed an unregulated width is a viable option. Maybe we'll find that the best ratio is 1.85 or something. That would be an interesting find a well.

Wouter