It's time to VOTE!!

Here we go down the yellow brick road! These are very exciting times for multihull sailing. The ballot is below. I ask you to copy the ballot on to an email with your votes and email them to me at [email]sailbobcat@aol.com.[/email] Please vote by 1000 CST on Friday. I will tally with majority rule and post the results with the yes/no counts so you can see how all the numbers fell either Friday afternoon (before I go to work at 2:30pm) or early Sat morning. Saturday at 1200 CST, I will post the finalized rules version that will get us off and running. When you send in your vote, please include your full name and snail-mail address/phone number/email address for the class roster. I want to thank everyone for their support of this idea.

Respectfully,

Bob Curry
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FORMULA 14 CLASS RULES VOTE

Instructions: Please place a “Y” for yes and a “N” for no next to each category.

1. Maximum Hull Length: 14’ 3”

2. Maximum Mast Length: 24’

3. Maximum Beam – Open

4. Maximum Sail Area – 300sqft:
In any configuration.

5. 1 or more Crew:

6. Everything else open:

Carefully review the choices above. Send results to Bob Curry at [email]sailbobcat@aol.com.[/email]

Thanks for your support!
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Bob

Bob,
Just a suggestion:
Limit the circumference of the mast to 500mm so we don't end up with solid winged sails.

Ulimately if you have to be grossly inconvenienced to own the fatsest boat. There will be a very small group of people willing to put up with it and the rest will find something else to sail.

For anyone who is voting, please let Bob know what boat you currently have. If you are planning a boat, describe what you expect to have to race in the class. That will give all of us a better idea of what the class will start with and what to expect. I own a Mystere 4.3 and will race it stock at Spring Fever this year where we plan to have a Mystere 4.3 class like last year. I would not mind sharing our starts with the Formula 14 class - in fact, it would help provide an early gauge of the relative merits of different entries.

Mike Fahle

1. Maximum Hull Length: 14’ 3” Y

2. Maximum Mast Length: 24’ N

3. Maximum Beam – Open Y

4. Maximum Sail Area – 300sqft: Y
In any configuration.

5. 1 or more Crew: Y

6. Everything else open: Y

I have designed, built and successfully campained an excellent 14ft/4.3m cat here in Australia which has a 7.5m (27ft 7ins) mast height to carry what I considered the minimum sail to make a 14ft unirig boat powerful enough to be exciting. 24ft is just not tall enough and I wonder why you would put this debilitating limit on an otherwise extremely worthwhile exercise.
Bern Leslie
Builder:
Peter Skews Shipwright Services (layup)
Designer:
Bern Leslie
Length:
14ft nom. / 4.3m [LWL]
Beam:
7ft.10in / 2.4m
Displacement:
107lbs / 75kg
Sail area:
main: 145sqft / 13.5sqm
Spinnaker: TBA
Mast Height:
24ft 7ins. / 7.5m
Construction materials:
Hull; Epoxy / ‘e’glass / carbon foam sandwich.
Mast and front beam; 50x120mm (2"x5") wing section chemically milled alum.
Sail; Cairns Mylar.
Photo's available on request.

How the heck can I get plans for that!

Theo., there are no building plans available at this time. The hulls and accessories are all moulded (vac. bagged epoxy foam sandwich). If F14 gets going I'd be happy to do a set of plans for 'home built' construction.
About two years ago, after my failed campaign, I offered the moulds to Jim Boyer but he had already done a small 14 which failed to attract interest and he was not keen to get involved in another 14ft project. Too bad.
Berny

The problem manufacturers have with making a smaller boat is that people expect to pay a lower price for a smaller boat. I asked Hobie Cat Company a while back if they would ever consider building the Hobie 14 again. The response was that it would not be feasible because they would have to charge almost as much for a 14 as for a 16, because the construction costs are almost the same -- just less material -- and that nobody is going to want to pay the same price for a 14 as for a 16.

Hey Mary, That hasn't been a problem for one manufacturer - MYSTERE - which is exactly why we sold 30 Mystere 4.3s three years ago and 12 more two years ago - great products at great prices. While we got unbelievably low prices the first year, even after two big price increases the M-4.3 last year was selling new for only $4500 with everything - main, jib, spinnaker and snuffer and all first rate rigging and equipment like Harken black magic blocks and Ronstan auto-ratchets. So it CAN be done; but some manufacturers would rather stop making boats and only CLAIM to be supporting classes than ACTUALLY be doing that by continuing to make boats and grow the long time existing classes. It is such incredible hypocrisy that Hobie claims to support the classes but stops making so many of them! ANY class organization knows that the cardinal rule of a successful class association is to have a builder! Also, using Hobie's feeble reasoning, they should be able to sell the Miracle for only a little more than the 16!